Greta Thunberg – the stern 16-year-old voice and face of the recent school climate-strike movement – has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Thunberg first made headlines when she skipped school on 20 August last year in her hometown in Sweden to protest outside parliament, holding a homemade placard reading ‘skolstrejk för klimatet’ (school strike for climate).
Since then, she has inspired schoolkids across the world to ‘strike’, missing school to protest against what they argue is a climate crisis.
Thunberg says the prospect of global warming and a changing climate frightened her – and so she decided to speak out.
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She has come to symbolize a new movement, with youngsters echoing her mantra: ‘Why should I go to school to study if there is no future?’
Politicians have celebrated her bravery, activists have saluted her conviction, and greens everywhere have kicked themselves for not doing something similar when they were in their teens.
Thunberg’s Nobel nomination has provoked some criticism. Not because of her age (after all, Malala Yousafzai won the award in 2014), but because of her lack of tangible achievements.
The founder of the Nobel prizes, Swedish businessman Alfred Nobel, left instructions in his will that the peace prize should be awarded to ‘the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses’.
It’s unclear that Thunberg meets that standard.
Then again, the Nobel has become less about the specific achievements of the winner and more about the message the award sends. U.S. President Barack Obama won it in 2009 after being in office for less than a year.
So it is with Thunberg – the committee seems to want to send a message about its support for climate issues and youth activism, rather than award her specific accomplishments.
But the admiration for this rather eccentric young woman’s protest also sends a rather worrying message about the current state of adult authority.
It is strange that teachers, politicians, and parents are cheering on children whose message is ‘I’m too scared to go to school’.
Read rest at Spiked-Online
The Nobel prize has been cheapened, like the “Person of the Year” Time magazine cover.
Who cares?
I’ve got a parrot that repeats what it’s told but it can’t say anything without hearing it first from someone else first. It doesn’t know if what it’s repeating is true but it knows it makes its master happy when he hears it.
I think my parrot should get the Nobel prize too.
Spot on!
If Greta Thunberg deserves a Nobel Prize, then so does Pinocchio. They are both puppets. Pinocchio actually did good by providing entertainment. However, Greta Thunberg is advocating very harmful policies.
Just a well indoctrinated young watermelon(Green on outside Red inside)all part of the New World Order(NWO)a servant to Big Green Brother and the Globalists
What do you mean she doesn’t deserve one?!?!? Obama got one for doing nothing, so why not her?!?!?!
… thus proving: Two Stupid Actions = one Smart Action?????