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:No confidence

[Lord Ender]

I love the way that, especially in Europe, people who live in moderate climates suggest that nobody should be using air conditioning. I would love to see you move to a hot, humid climate, and watch you in pathetic misery as you drown in your own sweat.

Anti-AC crusaders have blood on their hands for all the elderly who die during Europe's infrequent heat-waves.

I'm all for green technology, but if you think I'm going to watch my grandma die of heat stroke so that you can end the "evils" of climate control, you are dead fucking wrong.

Re:No confidence

[je ne sais quoi]

Climate change, even that not created by man, has the potential to cause more strife than oil ever could. It would be hard, but people can live without oil. People can't live without water or food. Small changes in climate can cause dramatic and rapid changes in local climates.

Arguably, it already has. There's an idea out there that climate change during the medieval warm period drove the Scandanavian population explosion during the middle ages, hence the abundance of Viking raids and colonization of Iceland, Britain, Greenland and the attempted colonization of North America. Once the climate started to cool during the little ice age the population size was reduced and put an end to their expansion.

Sick of Skeptics. David Suzuki and Al Gore.

[sherriw]

There will never be an end to the number of people who will fight any mention that humans are causing climate change. No one is saying we are the ONLY factor. But we are a big part of it, and we can control our actions, compared to trying to control other natural factors. Shouldn't we do so... just in case?

I always notice that in my local paper, when they publish articles from global warming skeptics... these individuals are often the heads of various organizations and groups, professors, history buffs, basically anything but actual climatologists or environmental scientists. Not always, but often. I find that interesting.

The MAJORITY of climate scientists agree that humans are contributing to warming. I'm going to go with that conclusion because it's better to be safe than sorry, and because I can see the proof with my own eyes.

Climate Myths Examined: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

As for Mr. Gore and the IPCC winning the peace prize... good for them. Someone is standing up and shouting about this. Yes, I feel Mr. Gore is a bit of a phony in his personal life, but his message isn't. If I had the choice I would have recognized Canada's Dr. David Suzuki ( http://www.davidsuzuki.org/ ) for his work educating the public about all kinds of environmental issues... and he does so in a more science based rather than hollywood-dazzle kind of way. He recently toured across Canada giving talks and raising awareness in a very locally focused down to earth way and he's been doing this for DECADES. He deserves this prize as much if not more than Gore.

Either way, I'm glad environmental issues get a nod of recognition here.

Re:No confidence

[CorSci81]

If all the ice melts will the sea levels rise? Yes they will. Will they rise 7 meters? No way. 1-2 meters maybe.

The melting of the Laurentide ice sheet over North America at the end of the last ice age produced a 20 meter rise in sea level over roughly 500 years. Granted, it was larger than Greenland, but definitely it's on par with Antarctica. The volume of ice contained in Antarctica is 30 million cubic kilometers of ice. Spread that out over the ocean surface area of the world (362 million sq km) and you get about 80 meters before you account for the fact that ocean surface area increases as sea level goes up. Greenland's ice sheet is roughly 1/10th that of Antarctica (and is firmly on land), I'll let you do that math.

And don't forget that the ice already floating in the water will not make the sea level rise anymore since it already displaces it's own weight.

Actually, not quite true. The floating ice has a lower salinity than the ocean, meaning even in liquid form it's less dense. So it does contribute, just not as much as melting a block of ice that's firmly on land.

Re:A link to your own journal?

[Bemopolis]

The existense of a number of naturally-driven cycles is well known and well supported. But their existence does not supplant anthropogenic carbon as a forcing--rather, they interact with it. Natural cycles and carbon dioxide impacts are operating simultaneously, and understanding their interactions is one of the goals of computer modelling.

This reminds me of a simple filter I use when discussing AGW: I ask them to explain to me how (natural) global warming physically works, without appeal to references or citation. If they can, we can then discuss why they are skeptical about AGW on a rational basis; if they can't, and they try to rely on appeals to scientific expertise, I know I can win the numbers game; if they can't and don't rely on appeals from polemicists instead of scientific expertise, then I know I've already wasted enough time talking to an ideologue.

Ah, the sparse but satisfying advantages of being a scientist...