Irish Examiner View: Greta the great nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

The 17-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is reported to have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Her nominators have described her work as “an act of making peace”.

That is stretching the definition; nonetheless, the Nobel academy could do worse when it comes to considering nominations. It already has. Among past nominees were Adolf Hitler (1939) and Joseph Stalin (1945 and 1948).

Cynics will blanch at giving the prize to someone whose contributions to world peace include skipping school and scolding world leaders.

They will point to past recipients like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Betty Williams, and Mairead Corrigan, who not only stood up for the causes of peace and justice but suffered for them as well.

But so has Greta. By eschewing the carefree life of a modern teenager, she is suffering for her cause.

She also has endured the wrath of climate-change deniers, among them Donald Trump. She has shown courage and resolve in her quest to make us listen.

Above all, she has galvanised a new generation to become the moral guardians of our planet.