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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.'"
You mean you had any confidence after they gave one to Arafat?
Why? The work that Al Gore has done to raise awareness of our current planetary climate crisis is second to none. The Peace Prize goes out to individuals who raise global awareness of issues that affect the peace of the entire world, right? Wouldn't you say that climate change is in that category?
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As ignorant, self-serving and ossified as our Congress tends to be, if Gore hadn't argued and lobbied as hard as he did for those crazy DARPA people there probably wouldn't have been an internet. At least, not one that America "controls". I get your joke but it's sooo old. Maybe you should start getting the paper delivered to your parent's basement.
People that don't read (and digest) TFA will wonder what climate change has to do with peace.
The committee said it wanted to bring the "increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states" posed by climate change into sharper focus.
If climate change happens as some expect there will be mass migrations, and territorial and resource wars. Like now, but only more so.
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Damn shame that he lost to the current asshat Bush by a vote of 4 to 5.
Environmentally speaking, the world may be better off with Gore having lost. Not because Bush did anything wonderful, but because of what Gore has been driven to do since then. If he had won the presidency, I'm afraid he never would have made it as far as he did. Back in 2000, many people felt Gore's commitment to environmentalism was merely the usual Democratic Party lip service, and it very well may have been. Today, he's actually working for a change beyond trying to win votes.
What?
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.
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.
What?
The prize in medicine is also not restricted to those who actually cure disease -- it can also be awarded to those who find ways to prevent disease.
The logic here is that the destruction of resources caused by climate change would lead to global conflict, so preventing climate change would prevent war. And world leaders will never make the commitments necessary to resolve the problem unless the electorate is informed.
There might be reasons to disagree with this logic, but I don't think it should be dismissed out of hand.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
I read "Earth in the Balance" in October before the 2000 presidential election just to get an idea of what Gore was like. Perhaps slashdotters might be better able than the average joe to appreciate what writing a book requires: thinking about something. Questions, hypotheses, research, thinking. The philosopher Ortega wrote that the act of thinking about things instantly puts you in the minority; most people don't do it. Well, Gore does it. Maybe his personality isn't suited to the job of presidency, although it's hard to imagine that he would have been worse than Bush. But just maybe this role suits him better. He deserves the recognition he is getting now. Bush vs Gore: I know whose legacy I'd rather claim.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
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.
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I guess Bono will just have to content himself with being number two.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
there's always been change in climate and we have dealt with it, changes which have been far more then small.
No changes this fast, and not with this number of people in the world, and this percentage of planet area changed due to agriculture...
it's just alarmist nonsense your pushing there.
The science supports him, not you.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
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'.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Or Kissenger? Or ask any Korean how they feel about Theodore Roosevelt winning the prize...you aren't likely to get a very positive response.
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Now don't get us wrong, but we love the freedoms you Euros have. Right now, we have shackled ourselves to the point where we might as well declare martial to make it a formality.
Before 911 hit the bricks, the only major issue we 'netters had to deal with was the ack-acks. Now we have to deal with illegal monitoring of our 'net traffic, wiretapping at-will, surveillance on all levels, et al.
Oh, and police breaking up (and using weapons, nonlethal or otherwise in doing so) peaceful, and with all the right permits, gatherings.
Makes one want to immigrate to Switzerland or Denmark.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
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.
"2) The US has actually done much better in reducing green house gas emissions compared to most Kyoto signatories. Name me one country that will actually meet its obligations."
Theree are 2 ways of looking a this - the US is already the largest consumer of energy per person... way too high compared to most other nations.
http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/energy-resources/variable-351.html
Some clips: 2003 2000 1990
Asia (excluding Middle East) 991.2 911.3 753.7
North America 7,844.1 8,113.1 7,544.8
China CHN 1,138.3 946.4 791.7
India IND 512.4 501.4 425.7
United States USA 7,794.8 8,109.0 7,543.4
India and China are home to over 35% of the World's population; but it appears they do not have much of a scope to reduce consumption. The US consumes more than 15 times the energy per person consumed in India; and there is a huge scope for reduction. Inaction by the US govt. is dangerous for the entire planet, including India and China.
And on a more personal note:
4) President Bush's home in Texas is actually a surprising green residence while Gore's pool house consumes more power than the average person's home.
It doesn't matter if Mr. Bush lives in a thatched shed and uses biogas to light up his dwelling. He is responsible for the energy consumption of the entire USA, not just his hut.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
People joke about Al Gore creating the Internet. But it was his sponsorhip of the 1988(?) Information Superhighway Bill that changed computer networks from an academic toy into a world wide force. It encouraged several existing subnets to adopt national standards and financed a high speed backbone that universities, companies, and government could all share. Six years later the NSF Supercomputer Center freeware release of Mosaic jump-started the application software side of the Net. And the internet pretty much became self-financing and important economic engine.
I think the Internet has had a more profound effect on human affairs than climatic change so far. And Al was an important contributer to the former. But there arent Nobel prizes for legislation.
If someone spends 10 minutes researching the issue, instead of eating the cornbread and drinking the kool-aid, we'd have a lot of people asking questions that need to be asked.
Hmmmm, let's see the teams:
Believe humanity's activities have increased global temperature:Thousands of highly trained climatologists who have spent their entire professional careers researching the subject.
Don't believe humanity's activities have increased global temperature: You, who have no training and have apparently spent 10 minutes researching the issue.
Who to believe, who to believe...
These myths never end! Your claim has been debunked here:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11642
"By now, anyone who claims that there is a scientific concensus on man-caused global warming is either a "kool-aid drinker" or being highly disingenuous."
or perhaps they are a member of the intergovernmental panel on climate change,. made up of scientific experts from every country on Earth who have agreed that man is the factor.
Its true, the fact that we are causing climate change is such an 'inconvenient' truth, that people will get VERY annoyed and arrogant in attempts to deny what is really going on. Some will even rant on slashdot that the worlds climate experts have a 'poor understanding of the underlying science'.
No offence, but who the fuck are you that your scientific understanding trumps every respected climate expert alive?
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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.
/. for over 6 years now. I've worked with high-end graphics stations from Silicon Grpahics and HP over 10 years back.
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
Believe me, life is not crappy here... certainly not so bad as you make it out to be.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Actually, he's already doing financially pretty well for himself as a VC.
He's got fame, fortune, influence, and more importantly the freedom to spend his time at whatever he finds interesting and fun. If a political enemy wants to stir up hatred of him, Al Gore has a better defense than Teflon: the problems of the world don't belong to him. If some but straps a bomb to himself and blows a bunch of innocent people up, nobody is demanding what Al Gore will do. Al Gore doesn't own the mortgage crisis. Al Gore doesn't have to fight the health care industry over the the way costs are bleeding US competitiveness.
So if Gore wants to speak out on climate change, he's just a distinguished private citizen exercising his right to state his opinion. You have to be an accomplished hater to work up much resentment over that.
Mr. Gore is pretty much in the catbird seat: beloved senior statesman, wealthy entrepreneur, admired environmental sage. Personally, I wouldn't dream give that up to jump into the shit pile of presidential politics, where your every utterance or sigh is twisted into a weapon of character assassination.
The only personal reason he's got to throw his hat into the ring is to get the policies he wants enacted, and that only counts if he doesn't think the next president will agree with him.
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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.
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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.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
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.
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Yes, the United States consumes more per capita. But we also produce more per capita also. Simple Economics 101.
. Science fights fair too often and gets steam rollered by the lies of the opponents to science.
Science must 'fight fair' or it isn't science. If you distort the facts then it isn't science at all, it's a belief system.
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That article in The Register is the bunk. The country-bumpkin judge who allowed a truck driver to prevent his kid's school from showing An Inconvenient Truth found NINE (9) inaccuracies in a mass-market movie that contained literally thousands of assertions of scientific fact. How many inaccuracies do you think you'd find in any given National Geographic special or any other educational film shown in a school?
The desperation of the right-wing to "debunk" the fact that a century of industrial and transportation pollution is seriously fucking up our environment is sort of sad.
It's all of a piece with the need to "debunk" evolution, and attack science generally. I guess, when you have a world-view that pretty much denies reality, you can't let things like facts take hold in the minds of your "base". So, you pretend that everything in the news is phony, all science is suspect, government is bad, etc, etc. It's like the Right is trying to home school the entire nation so we don't get our minds all corrupted by reality. It also explains why religious fundamentalists tend to lean to the Right. The more we learn about our universe, the harder it is to swallow fairy tales.
So, when the news from the War in Iraq is bad, it's easier to say "the news is all wrong" instead of admitting a fuck-up. When soldiers start coming home saying that things are going badly in Iraq, it's easier to say they are "phony soldiers" than to say maybe things really aren't going well. When polls say most Americans want some form of Socialized Medicine, it's easier to say "the polls are lying" than to try to fix a complicated problem. When scientists say that the pollution human society has been dumping into the world is messing things up, it's easier to say "the scientists are lying" than for a president to tell his corporate bosses they're going to have to stop dumping sulfur in the atmosphere and mercury in the water.
The good news is that the bullshit doesn't seem to be holding up as well as it did a few years ago. Even the regular folks in flyover America who work for a living are starting to realize that the stuff we're being sold is starting to smell really really bad. And more and more, the pinheads who peddle nonsense are hollering into an echo chamber. Notice how even the most dependable right-wing trolls are starting to run out of gas, and their little sniffing comments just don't have the zing they used to? Hell, you go over to little green footballs or free republic and you'd think there was ambien in their cheetohs.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Ah, the sparse but satisfying advantages of being a scientist...
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain