I&I Editorial

The Nobel committee has cheapened its Peace Prize by handing it to some questionable, even asinine, recipients in the last few decades. It will reach a new low if, as some are predicting, and even hoping, it chooses Greta Thunberg this week.

The British Daily Mail reported last week that, according to oddsmakers, she “is the one to beat” for the prize, which carries a $930,000 payout. It is not, however, a sure thing. Greta’s “youth, outspokenness and confrontational approach,” says Reuters, “present challenging questions for the Norwegian Nobel Committee.”

Given the committee’s record, though, it would be naive to think it won’t do the most foolish thing it possibly could. Let’s reacquaint ourselves with a few of the recent undeserving winners of the Nobel Peace Prize:

Yasser Arafat (1994), a known terrorist who shared the award with Israelis Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin , and continued to order terrorist attacks after receiving the prize.

and continued to order terrorist attacks after receiving the prize. Barack Obama (2009), “honored” just months after he took office, whose top accomplishments then, and remain to this day, nothing more than getting himself elected to public offices.

Al Gore (2007), a charlatan and hypocrite who has ridden climate hysterics to the peaks of wealth and acclaim.

And Rigoberta Menchu Tum (1992), the Guatemalan who claimed to be an advocate for the poor but whose “’achievements’ cited by the Nobel committee” were “later revealed to have” been largely made up, says the British Telegraph.

Her prospects were apparently boosted by her recent United Nations “speech.” Evidently being granted a bully pulpit in front of that body’s general assembly, then using it to hector, nag, scowl, and in general behave with the entitlement mindset of a “spoiled brat” screeching “how dare you” multiple times is an impressive feat.

While basking in the shining approval of puerile adults, Greta accused those in attendance, and all who were unfortunate enough to hear her, of having “stolen my dreams and my childhood” with “empty words.” This is a teen who has grown up in a time and place of privilege, prosperity, and peace that no generation has never seen. Yet, with “grown up” heads nodding as if she’s an oracle of the age, she has the gall to accuse someone — who? — of stealing the hope and expectations of her youth.

If her dreams and childhood have been stolen, they weren’t taken by the companies that have for decades provided cheap energy that is the backbone of economic growth, and the consumers whose lives are immeasurably improved by their products. She has been robbed by her adult handlers, who have both indulged her idiosyncrasies and immaturity, and used her as a mascot for their pet cause.

Making the sorry spectacle of Greta-mania even more irksome is the fact that the narrative she’s pushing is dubious at best. At worst, it’s an outright fraud, kept alive by scientists with political agendas, militant activists, and willing dupes.

Though it might seem so, the committee that hands out the Nobel Peace Prize isn’t a collection of virtue-signaling, popularity-craving, shallow teenagers. It’s made of virtue-signaling, popularity-craving, shallow adults who have in the past acted like teenagers, and in the near future might be shredding their final and already fraying thread of credibility by awarding a rude and insolent child a participation trophy.

— Written by I&I Editorial Board

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