Former US Vice President Al Gore was this year’s recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for raising awareness of the threat of global warming. Gore shared the award with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In giving the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee body said Gore, 59, “is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.”
Gore won an Academy Award earlier this year for his film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth.” (see video below)
What the New York Times Has to Say
Jim Rutenberg, in the article Prize Caps Year of Highs for Gore, says the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Gore “was certain to further intensify calls for him to enter the Democratic nominating contest for president.”
Rutenberg writes:
Mr. Gore’s newly charged supporters hope that the Nobel Prize will now cause him to make another attempt to win the prize they believe is rightly his — the White House.
Will he really run?
Mike Allen shares this view in Politico (Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize: Will he run?):
Sources say Gore, 59, will resist entreaties to enter the presidential race, which are rising like the ocean levels in “An Inconvenient Truth.” But he will continue to tease by not ruling it out, the sources said. Already, though, Democrats are buzzing about the possibility that he would get a high-level post in a third Clinton administration, perhaps as a roving ambassador charged with seeking global cooperation on climate change.
But a top Gore adviser, Michael Feldman, said the Nobel Peace Prize has not changed Gore’s political plans: “He has said all along he has no plans to run for president. He’s been spending all his discretionary time on the climate crisis. This great honor will further enhance that.”
Related articles:
“Can He Save the Planet and Win the Presidency?” (Washington Post)
Analysis: Odds Against Gore Run (Associated Press)
Global warming and the Nobel Peace Prize: Is there really a connection?
The conservative news blog, PardoMyEnglish, in the post, Winston Smith, Phone Home: “Global Warming” is Now “Peace”, questions why the Nobel Peace Prize was even awarded at all to Gore, saying:
But, really–global warming is peace?
So they’re going to give a millionaire another million and a half dollars (think of all the carbon credits he can buy!) and a fancy medal. And I’m sure he needed the attendant publicity, given that no one has heard of this movie (except the people who watched the Academy Awards, and the millions of kids in public schools who have been forced to watch it under the umbrella of “science.”)
The Nobel Prize Committee is currently in competition with the US Congress for the title of “most useless group of people.”
Damian Thompson, writing in the UK Telegraph (What has Al Gore done for world peace?), says “there is a more fundamental objection to awarding Gore the peace prize that goes beyond issues of character.”
Climate change is a threat to the environment, not to “peace” and international order. The prize has gone to some sleazy recipients in the past, but at least you can make a case that their actions staved off bloodshed.
Blog Reactions
Kottke: Al Gore won a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for what is essentially a PowerPoint presentation.
Sweetness & Light: Would it be wrong to demand a recount? After all, what does giving a slide show with phony facts have to do with “peace”?
Darkstar Spouts Off: Gore gets a Nobel for a movie that misrepresents scientific data about the Earth’s “global” temperatures?
Faisca’s Corner: A guy makes a movie and goes around spreading lies and untruths, and he deserves to be honored in this way? Yeah, from this moment on I don’t take the Nobel Peace Prize seriously anymore.
“Scientific errors” in Al Gore’s Documentary attacked
From an article on Fox News (Al Gore’s Convenient Untruths):
LONDON — A High Court judge in London has turned film critic, highlighting “nine scientific errors” in Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. The judge said some of the errors had arisen in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration” to support the former US vice-president’s thesis on global warming.
The Government’s decision to show the film in secondary schools had come under attack from father-of-two Stewart Dimmock, a Kent school governor and a member of political group The New Party, who accused the Government of “brainwashing” children with propaganda.
Justice Burton ruled at London’s High Court that the film, much acclaimed by environmentalists, could be shown in schools as part of a climate change resource pack, but only if it was accompanied by new guidance notes to balance Gore’s “one-sided” views.
Video: Al Gore and Global Warming - Is He a Hypocrite?
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