TIME Magazine Selects Exploited Child Greta Thunberg as 'Person of the Year'

Well, she didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize she was hoping for, but now her face will be on thousands of TIME magazines that will end up in landfills all over the country.

.@GretaThunberg is TIME's 2019 Person of the Year #TIMEPOY https://t.co/YZ7U6Up76v pic.twitter.com/SWALBfeGl6

— TIME (@TIME) December 11, 2019

Edward Felsenthal, TIME’s editor-in-chief, announcing the news on the Today Show on NBC, described Thunberg as the “biggest voice on the biggest issue facing the planet.”

“She became the biggest voice on the biggest issue facing the planet this year.” TIME Editor-in-Chief @efelsenthal talks about why TIME chose @GretaThunberg to be Person of the Year.

Thunberg, 16, is also the youngest person to ever receive the honor. pic.twitter.com/eTvLAiRtFW

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 11, 2019

The opening paragraph of the article on her “award” is by the far the smarmiest piece of poppycock I’ve read since the election of Barack Obama.

Greta Thunberg sits in silence in the cabin of the boat that will take her across the Atlantic Ocean. Inside, there’s a cow skull hanging on the wall, a faded globe, a child’s yellow raincoat. Outside, it’s a tempest: rain pelts the boat, ice coats the decks, and the sea batters the vessel that will take this slight girl, her father and a few companions from Virginia to Portugal. For a moment, it’s as if Thunberg were the eye of a hurricane, a pool of resolve at the center of swirling chaos. In here, she speaks quietly. Out there, the entire natural world seems to amplify her small voice, screaming along with her.

“We can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow,” she says, tugging on the sleeve of her blue sweatshirt. “That is all we are saying.”

As Joe Biden would say, “What a bunch of malarkey!”

CNN’s Chris Cillizza somehow managed to twist the announcement into an attack on Trump.

Thunberg was chosen among a group that included the Hong Kong protesters, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump.
And it’s the last name on that list who will be most aggrieved, not only because he was not chosen but also because Thunberg, well, was.
Start here: Trump has long had an obsession with Time’s person of the year — dating back long before he was president.

I think Trump won’t sweat it too much. Under Trump, the United States has become the world leader in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, more than any other country that signed the Paris Climate Accords—even after he announced his intention to pull out of the treaty. Greta is just a symbol being exploited for an agenda. She’ll be passed over before long for the next pawn.

UPDATE: While TIME Magazine selected Greta Thunberg, TIME‘s readers had a different preference.

More than 30% of visitors to the 2019 poll selected the Hong Kong protestors, who have staged mass demonstrations in the semiautonomous city since June. The protests initially began in response to a controversial extradition bill, but have since grown into a outright rebellion demanding greater autonomy from China.