Al Gore Shares Nobel Peace Prize with UN Panel

eldavojohn writes "Former US Vice President Al Gore has been announced as a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on environmental awareness & climate change. He shares his award with the the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 'Speaking in Washington, Mr Gore praised the IPCC, "whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years". "We face a true planetary emergency," Mr Gore warned. "It is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity." He said he would donate his half of the $1.5m prize money to the Alliance for Climate Protection, reported the news agency Reuters.'"

Comments

Re:Gore: "Climate change requires YOU to adapt"

[Peyna]

It's too bad the snopes article wasn't update when Al Gore spent a ton of money making his house greener and more energy efficient, including the addition of solar panels. For what it's worth, at the time the article came out, he was already participating in his power company's "green energy" plan, where you pay a little more for your electricity and the company then is able to get its energy from more planet-friendly sources.

Re:No confidence

[cliffski]

so you think that everyone who believes that there is man made climate change also believes we all need to live in mud huts?
methinks you have been watching too much fox news. Its perfectly possible to live a modern lifestyle and not destroy the environment. It means you might not have air conditioning, but actually open a window, might not wear a t shirt in winter with the heat blasting full on, and means you might need to get used to the sight of the odd wind turbine and solar panel, but your assumption that green == mud huts is just farcical, and certainly not 'insightful'.

I love the way that, especially in the US, if people suggest even marginal regulatory improvements to the minimum fuel standards of vehicles (as happens every year in the US, and is hugely lobbied against), they get called "eco nazis who want to live in mud huts". Here in Europe, we have much more fuel efficient cars, yet amazingly do not live in mud huts.

Re:Gosh, that's stange

[Marcika]

The US has actually done much better in reducing green house gas emissions compared to most Kyoto signatories. Untrue, especially compared to European signatories like Germany, France, UK etc. (developed economies to which the US can be compared.)

Name me one country that will actually meet its obligations. According to one of the most well-sourced articles in Wikipedia, Germany and the UK are on the way to fulfil the criteria, having reduced their emissions by 14-17% although they were only half as high per capita as the US to start with. Meanwhile the US has increased its emissions by 16% from 1990 to 2004.

Re:Surprising with recent controversy

[meringuoid]

British schools ordered to provide balance when showing the movie.

Did you actually read what the judge said? Or did you only read what Fox News said?

The Times covered this in rather good detail. The parts of the film that were considered unfounded:

* That sea levels could rise seven metres 'in the immediate future'
* That atolls in the Pacific had already been evacuated
* That CO2 levels and temperatures are 'an exact fit' - this, said the judge, overstated the case
* That the drying of Lake Chad, the disappearance of snows on Kilimanjaro, and Hurricane Katrina can be directly attributed to global warming
* That polar bears are known to be drowning as a result of melting ice
* That coral bleaching is due to climate change

Note what the judge did not dispute: he agreed 'that climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide ('greenhouse gases').' He further agreed that 'global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts'.

Deserving but political

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Gore has done good, tireless work on an important issue for a long time. However, I don't think his merits were sufficient for the Nobel prize.

Again, I think the Nobel prize committee wanted to send George Bush a message: "You are wreaking destruction and death; see how much better some other people are spending their energies." So this was as much an anti-war Nobel as it was a peace Nobel.

We Finns have been wondering why our Martti Ahtisaari has not been considered worthy by the Scandinavians in the Nobel prize committee. Ahtisaari has been instrumental in the independence of Namibia, negotiating an end to the NATO-Serbia war and bringing peace to Aceh. He has also participated in other efforts like bringing Kuwait on its feet after the first Gulf war and trying to find a settlement between Serbia and Kosovo.

Re:Here's my problem

[Jonny_eh]

These myths never end! Your claim has been debunked here:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11642

Re:So you want us to live in huts too?

[jkrise]

Guess what, those people in India and China are FUCKING POOR AND HAVE NOTHING. What you are advocating is that the people of the USA go back to living in the same kind of crappy lives that people live in the third world.

Are you aware that you are replying to someone from India? WE don't HAVE NOTHING. I'm in the IT industry for over 18 years now (Unix SVR3 days, DOS 2.0 days), and posting on /. for over 6 years now. I've worked with high-end graphics stations from Silicon Grpahics and HP over 10 years back.

Believe me, life is not crappy here... certainly not so bad as you make it out to be.

Are you a climate scientist?

[Izaak]

there's always been change in climate and we have dealt with it, changes which have been far more then small.
it's just alarmist nonsense your pushing there.

You got your degree in climate science where? You've been studying this topic for how long?

I actually have friends doing research on the topic, both in the lab here in the US on the global climate model an in the field in the Antarctic. They are more alarmed about current trends than is filtering through to the media. The rate at which permafrost and glaciers have begun melting recently is sending shock waves through the scientific community. We are now only beginning to discover environmental feedback mechanisms that likely mean the scientists have UNDERESTIMATED the rate and impact of global warming, not overestimated it.

We used to talk about the climate problems our children and grandchildren will be dealing with. Guess what, the bill came early. Now YOU will likely be suffering the consequences. We are seeing the leading edge of it now with shifting weather patterns and encroachment of invasive species... just as the models predicted, only sooner. Because of climate deniers like you, it is probably now too late to stop it, but we still must do everything we can to slow the change and give our society and economy time to adapt.

Alarmist? Hardly. If anything the message from the scientist has been overly softened and toned down.

BTW, the friends I mentioned work at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and on the global climate model at Argonne National Laboratories, in case anyone is curious.

He didn't use the word inventing.

[Jafafa Hots]

He used the word creating, as in to bring about the internet as we know it now, by pushing for funding. He did NOT use the word inventing.