The image above is a photo of the cover of the Weekly Reader my son brought home to me, today.  Here are photos of the cover story: 

The article begins with Al Gore introducing himself:

“Hello.  I’m Al Gore, and I used to be the next president of the United States”

The article then goes on to tell our children…

He narrowly lost the presidential election in 2000, the year it took a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to decide George W. Bush was the winner.

If Gore wasn’t going to be president, he needed a new goal.  So he set out to save the world.

Can you believe this?  But wait…it gets worse…

Gore began teaching anyone who would listen about the  dangers of climate change and how pollution helps cause it. 

He wrote a book, made a movie, and organized the worldwide Live Earth rock concerts to draw attention to the problem.

He made people around the world really think about the planet and what they must do to keep it healthy.

That success has earned Gore one of the world’s most prestigious awards.  On December 10, he will be honored with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Nobel Peace Prize winner.   So were three U.S. presidents who helped negotiate peace and prevent wars.

What kid is going to argue with the Nobel Peace Prize when they know that Martin Luther King Jr. was a recipient? 

Gore will share the 2007 award with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations committee that works with scientists around the globe to try to measure and understand earth’s changing climates.  Gore plans to give his half of the $1.5 million peace prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a group that fights global warming.

CLIMATE CHANGE

“We face a true planetary emergency,” Gore wrote on his Internet blog shortly after the Peace Prize winners were announced.  “The climate crisis in not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.”

So now the children will know: Global Warming is not political in the least, it is a moral issue.  Why?  Well, because Al Gore said so, and the Weekly Reader found it necessary to attempt to indoctrinate our children through their taxpayer-paid agitprop. 

PROFESSOR GORE

[...] When he talks about climate change, he pulls out huge charts showing how temperatures have risen since people started burning fossil fuels to run machines more than 200 years ago.  Other charts show how rainfall has changed and how polar ice has melted.

What?  No talk of polar bears?  What? Oh, that’s right, he lied about the polar bears. 

The WR also fails to tell our kids that the temperature actually rose before each spike of CO2 production, but facts are useless things when it comes to education, I suppose.

WHY THE PEACE PRIZE?

Gore has a lot of fans.  His movie, An Inconvenient  Truth, won an Oscar for best documentary at the Academy Awards earlier this year.

Wow.  Not the first thing I would have written after such a well-posed question, but hey, I’m no Weekly Reader propagandist. 

Gore also has his critics.  Some of them, including some scientists, say temperature changes are natural – the planet has gone through several ice ages and periods of warming since it formed.

Ahh.  At last, some honesty.  Not exactly answering the question of “Why the Peace Prize?”, but at least they mention the other side of the argument.

Other critics accuse Gore of stretching the truth. A man in Great Britain asked a judge to ban Gore’s movie from schools for being too political. The judge found the movie to be “broadly accurate”, but he said it did contain exaggerations.  One exaggeration, the judge said, was that global warming was responsible for the power of Hurricane Katrina, which destroyed parts of Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005.

The judge ruled that British teachers should show the movie, but he said they should warn students that some information might be exaggerated.

But will they mention the other eight exaggerations?  Of course  not.  For some reason, I feel like I should be thankful that they mentioned the judge in Britain at all. Thank you, Weekly Reader, for throwing the logicians a bone.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee looked beyond the complaints when it picked Gore for the prize.

Gore’s lessons promote world peace, said committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjos.

How?  As a country’s climate grows hotter and drier, its people will have a harder time finding water and growing food.  They can move to better land, but by immigrating, they will create even more competition for the remaining resources.  That competition increases the danger of violence and war, Mjos explained.

If you live in Minnesota or Wisconsin, you know that you should never trust the intellect or judgement of a man named “Ole” …or “Sven”, for that matter.  But I digress…

I find it incredible that a school paper would attempt to force the line of reasoning that wars happen because we aren’t doing enough to save the planet.  They can’t teach our kids morals, and that certain things are evil, but they can certainly make excuses for the evil that exists, and that we, of course, are to blame.  So much for schools and self-esteem.

If Gore can persuade the world to take climate change seriously, those wars might never being, Mjos said.

Gore may already be succeeding.  The same day he receives the Nobel Peace Prize, a U.N. conference on climate change will be under way in Indonesia.  It’s goal: a global treaty to slow climate change.

Gore believes society can slow global warming if  everyone works together. 

“We can still solve it,” Gore told CNN last month.  “But we don’t have much time.”

The article ends by asking the children to “Predict the News”:

“Who do you think deserves to win the next Nobel Peace Prize?  Why?  Let us know us at edce@weeklyreader.com

Is that a trick question?

Yes, that typo is theirs.  I think they already know themselves very well.  Besides, news is so darn difficult to predict when you’re told what to think…

At the bottom of the article, there are photos and stories about people who have won the Nobel Peace Prize in the past, and I have included them throughout this post. 

It would appear that the Weekly Reader is doing a fine job of 1) convincing our children that the Nobel Peace Prize isn’t a joke (which it is),  2) Al Gore is the most decent human being on earth, even if he exaggerates some key facts, and 3) we are evil humans and can be blamed for wars in Africa.

And people wonder why I don’t want my property taxes raised to pay for this crap.