There is nothing quite like portly middle-aged men screaming abuse at young environmental campaigner, Greta Thunberg. What is it about a 16-year-old girl that makes people want to rabidly bully her from their keyboards?

Maybe it is just that there is a huge section of society who are in complete denial about the climate breakdown? Perhaps being told what they don’t want to hear by a young girl screws their heads up so much they feel a need to get angry with her?

I have seen her called a bitch and a slag today. I even witnessed someone saying she needs to be birched. I thought it was a joke until I then saw the chap defending the kind of violence and discipline that he thought was required to shut her up.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with disagreeing with her or challenging her theories. To analyse what she has said and put out an alternative theory based on solid, expert science, is just fine. No one should have a problem with that.

Personally, I am not qualified to pull apart everything she says and prove her right or wrong, but we all should know the climate is in big trouble. So why get upset about a young girl highlighting it? Our brains are full of bad news at the moment, so perhaps the bad news departments in our heads just can’t take any more?

With that considered, does it justify the horrible nature of the tweets and Facebook rants against her? I don’t think so and personally, I think the people who are being so vile and condescending towards her need to take a long hard look at themselves.

The world is an unstable enough place as it is at the moment and taking it all out on a young woman is pitiful beyond my comprehension.

You would think she was advocating climate change denial, not doing her bit to tell the world to get its act together. I just wish everyone could take a deep breath and listen to qualified experts rather than Trump, Farage and Frank down at The Red Lion.

Bizarre times these.