THE great British commentariat set their sights on Greta Thunberg last week and the bombardment was unrelenting. Peter Hitchens and Brendan O’Neill, two men who deliver their frothing disquisitions as if their words were undisputed fact, devoted several wheezing paragraphs to berating the young climate activist. Nothing quite belies a chip on the shoulder like a grown man delighting in bullying an autistic teenage girl for money and hollow plaudits.

I’m not going to write a fawning missive to Greta – though Lord knows she’s more deserving of it than most. Neither am I going to unpack why middle-aged men feel threatened by a young woman speaking her mind, as plenty of others already have. What I’m interested in is why the catalyst for her activism is so easily ignored, not just by detractors, but by almost all of us.

As far as I’m aware, facts and science still have a reasonable foothold in public discourse, though for how much longer remains to be seen. We have not yet debased ourselves by becoming a society of resigned fatalists and apathetic refuseniks. It begs the question: why aren’t more of us doing more? Have we become inured to the havoc humans are wreaking? Have we stopped caring about the environment, or did we never care in the first place?

Perhaps it’s because I share Greta’s place on the spectrum that her action makes perfect sense to me, a fellow Aspie – someone living with Asperger’s – though I don’t believe you have to be autistic to give a shit about the planet. That should not be a prerequisite to making the gravest threat to our existence worthy of our time and attention.

August 1, 2019, is Earth Overshoot Day. Amid the benign and pious awareness days that pepper our calendars, this date should be sobering to all. This is the point each year at which we plummet into our ecological overdraft. This is when humans use up the Earth’s resources faster than those resources can be regenerated. For too long, we have spent more than we have borrowed, bringing the date forward year-on-year.

We are outstripping the biocapacity of our world. And we are doing it selfishly, to the detriment of all inhabitants of this pale blue dot. The coral reefs are dying, our insect populations are in critical decline, we’re likely to lose the ice at the poles. And yet most of us are not revolting in the streets demanding that our elected representatives pull the finger out and stop the world from being cancelled.

We’ve individualised mitigation, deluding ourselves into thinking that sorting the plastic from the paper or going vegan will make a difference. Switching to energy efficient lightbulbs is not enough. Of course, these are noble endeavours, but they are woefully inadequate interventions when set against the empirical reality of an expiring planet.

I don’t consider this a melodramatic or apocalyptic response, and neither should you. Climate change is not some far-off, nebulous concern for future generations to grapple with. It is happening now. It’s happening unevenly, which is why many don’t yet feel the pressure to act, but it is the lived reality for many around the world. It cares not for your ideology, your political leanings or your bank balance. Everyone will be impacted.

I am no fan of Blairite “third-way” politics that profess to span the political spectrum, but we need to find some sort of consensus for all our sakes.

Man-made climate change is not ideological – it is a fact, with reams of sound, transparent science to back up the claims. There will be no winners if it is not addressed. Our petty factionalism will pale into insignificance in the face of extreme weather, droughts, displaced peoples, and global food shortages.

What we do need is more Greta Thunbergs – that is more people willing to talk frankly and with brutal honesty about the threat we are facing.

Our continued rabid consumption of resources, fuelled by capitalism and short-term policies is untenable. The point of no return is fast approaching when our ecological re-engineering of the world will seal the eventual fate of civilisation.

The time for quibbling about how we can continue to live and produce and consume so cavalierly has passed.

The Earth’s vital signs are sounding the alarm. We are the only ones capable of providing the medicine needed to remedy our harm.

You can scoff at a young woman with a virtuous passion and feel superior. But the joke will ultimately be on you. Hubris comes in many forms, and this sneering dismissal only serves to highlight who will leave the most significant legacy for future generations. It is those who are speaking up rather than punching down that carry the flicker of hope we desperately need.