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The world has heaped another honor on Albert Gore: The Nobel Peace Prize. The Associated Press reports:
Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change jointly won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for fighting it. Gore, who won an Academy Award earlier this year for his film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” had been widely tipped to win the prize.
He said that global warming was not a political issue but a worldwide crisis. “We face a true planetary emergency. … It is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity,” he said. “It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.”
The win is also likely add further fuel to a burgeoning movement in the United States for Gore to run for president in 2008, which he has so far said he does not plan to do.
Okay, here’s what the Nobel committee website says about the peace prize.
Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 with Frédéric Passy, a leading international pacifist of the time. In addition to humanitarian efforts and peace movements, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded for work in a wide range of fields including advocacy of human rights, mediation of international conflicts, and arms control.
Notice that the fields listed involved people. Conflicts between people. The rights of people. Aren’t people a necessary ingredient in any notion of “peace?” Is the Nobel committee suggesting that Gore is brokering “peace” between earth and humanity? Allow me to rant on: I’m just not clear on how Gore’s pimping for a dubious corner of science qualifies him for this honor. This is a man who wrote (in his book, Earth in the Balance) that the first example of pollution in the Bible was when Cain slew Abel, spilling his blood on the ground (!!). Has the Nobel Peace Prize become more like getting elected global homecoming queen?
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Lynn,
Remember Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” in 2006? Remember it wasn’t even a person?
The Nobel Peace Prize isn’t about Peace, as you point out, and it isn’t even about a person, not even about Gore! It’s all about me.
So, when the committee calls you up at 5am EST and offers you the Prize, do you have your speech ready?
The Nobel Peace Prize, which had formerly lost a lot of its credibility for me, has now totally done itself in. In future years, I won’t even be curious who’s up for it.
This really is a sad day - when propaganda becomes laudable and hypocrisy is deemed irrelevant.
Gore’s award is well deserved. And if you don’t think global warming is about people — people’s lives, and property, and way of life — then you really don’t understand the issue at all.
When are you fundies going to accept that the debate over global warming science is over. It’s happening. I don’t see you contributing in any meaningful fashion to the real debate over how to address it, so why not just stand aside?
If this is true, DCL, why didn’t the Nobel committee give him a prize in Chemistry? Why Peace?
To me, this looks like a slap at Bush and the US, not a reward for the well-done accomplishments of a man who has devoted himself to peace. That’s why I thought it was a joke–at least Carter has traveled the world trying to ensure elections were not rigged.
Maybe Carter wasn’t successful with elections, but I give him credit for trying, not to mention all the Habitat houses he personally has built. I haven’t seen press indicating Mr. Gore has done anything along those lines–look at the energy-hog house he had built for his family. And since he only recently came to the subject of global warming, this award strikes me as being even more of a publicity shrill move on the part of people who don’t approve of the current administration.
I think we live in a very strange world. You’ll forgive me, but I need to go recycle my newspapers. I’ll take a call if the Nobel committee wants to reach me, but I’d prefer mine in Literature.
As someone pointed out on the other thread, the Peace Prize is given to people who have acted in the service of humanity and it includes environmental and social issues. Perhaps it is misnamed. But it fits a great deal better than a prize in chemistry, which is specifically for scientific achievement.
Carter clearly deserves his recognition. So does Gore. Thank you for recycling.
DCL, What caused the warming that ended the ice age?
“[W]ell deserved” is a relative claim–perhaps well deserved by present Nobel standards, seeing that they hand the prizes out to almost anything that smacks of liberal, anti-western, and pro-celebrity. On the other hand, if frauds, cons, hypocracy, political-spin replacing true science and fair debate, or just plain poor science now qualifies as Nobel-worthy, then Gore is deserving.
My beef with the Gore-Climate Non-Debate is that it will effect the poor and freedom (and as a result world peace) because such measures that Gore proposes will indeed keep the impoverished of the world in poverty and even more so, and the proposed government interventions, roles, and funding needed to implment, govern, impose, and police it subtracts from freedom, not adds or enhances.
DCL-
There are real scientific questions regarding the ‘hockey-tick’ model, certain presuppositions and other extrapolations that are now regarded by the gurus of global warming as beyond question; in other words ‘holy.’
The issue in the global warming debate is the extent to which it is human caused. As one of those ‘fundies’ you seem to despise, I believe there is global warming - doggone methane gas from too many cows and too many blovators. Seriously, the warming/cooling cycles are demonstrable and many scientists, not theologians, believe we are in a warming cycle. The posit other scientific questions and answers which Gore and others refuse to debate.
The near hysteria by environmental fundies who bow down to the Goracle are laughable. Who’s your ‘fundie’ now?
Assuming that global warming is occurring, it does have an affect on people. Does it have anything to do with peace? I can see in a very roundabout way how you could make the case that it does.
It seems to me that Gore’s award is part of the whole “Mother Earth” religion that contemporary ecology has embraced.
I don’t see how Gore should be enshrined with the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr. or Albert Schweitzer–just for making a movie.
Ooooh,
pimping dubious science
Well there’s a line for you. But this is really something of a rear-guard action isn’t it? The point of the award, the recognition of the IPCC is precisely that what was once tentative, has become a consensus. The conservative option is not “there is not global climate change” but only that “the proposed solution is too difficult/costs too much (to our friends)/inconveniences us.” That business and industry now speak of ameliorative strategies rather confirms the point.
So the doubt must be described fairly for what it is: faith-based.
Of course, that raises another question, what is the warrant for this faith? Is it a disbelief that humanity can alter its climate? A belief that God would not allow us to do such? Or is it something lower, a knee-jerk of the sort that the position of my enemy must always be wrong (the obverse being, of course, that I am always right)?
correction: ‘hockey-stick”
As an after thought -what about the British judge who orders a ‘warning’ for the showing of Gore’s “Inconvenient Lies?”
Gore joins such luminaries as gangster/terrorist Yassir Arafat in being honored with the Nobel Peace prize. The luster was long gone. It’s not about peace. It’s just a popularity contest for left wing heroes.
My Vote Didn’t Count…
Come to think of it, though, my vote wasn’t solicited.
Lynn Vincent begins her rant at WorldMagBlog this way:
The world has heaped another honor on Albert Gore: The Nobel Peace Prize.
The world has?!
I guess I don’t understand how …
To all the ’scientists’ out there; from Gore’s statement on the gift.
Gore explains that global warming isn’t a political issue at all: “The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.”
Strange - Where did the science go?
DCL - The Gloal Warming debate may be so unquestionable as to be dogma and any questioning to be heresy - but the science is far from settled.
The Earth has flucuating temps and there is little question that it has been in a warming trend for the last few years.
Why this is happening is entirely unsettled, as is what role - if any - human activities play in it.
Gore is a charletan who deserves no awards or honors.
Here are the eleven objections cited from the British judge. The represent an inconvenient truth to Gore.
Gore presents Mt Kilimanjaro’s melting snows as proof of global warming. In fact, the snows are vanishing thanks to local factors, including deforestation.
Gore suggests Antarctica’s ice cover is melting. Most studies says it is increasing or stable.
Gore shows scary graphics of cities drowning in seas that rise 7m,(22 or more feet) causing millions of refugees. But the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the seas will rise at worst by 59cm this century.
Gore uses images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests it was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert in this case admitted such one-of events can’t be blamed on warming.
Gore suggests ice-core evidence shows rising CO2 caused temperature rises, which ended the past seven ice ages. In fact, the CO2 rises followed temperature rises by 800 to 2000 years.
Gore claims global warming could stop the Gulf Stream, causing an ice age in Europe. Recent studies deny it.
Gore blames global warming for species losses and coral reef bleaching. The British Government couldn’t show evidence to back this claim.
Gore claims a study showed polar bears had drowned because of vanishing ice. The study actually said just four polar bears drowned, and only because of a bad storm.
Gore suggests Greenland’s ice could melt, causing a dangerous rise in sea levels. In fact, Greenland’s ice won’t melt for thousands of years.
Gore shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert agreed this was not the case.
Gore claims rising seas have forced people to flee Pacific islands to New Zealand. There is no record of any such warming-caused evacuation.
But Gore so far has refused to debate these and other ’scientific’ points. So much for free and open discussion. But after all, the Goracle has spoken and that endeth the lesson!
Yes, Gore’s position in the global warming debate is sometimes dubious. But what he has done beyond any other is bring concern for our environment to the forefront of our political discourse more than any one in history. While I think much of what’s said on global warming is poor, there is absolutely no question that concern for our environment is crucially necessary for the wellbeing of our descendants to come. And bringing such concerns to the forefront so effectively is undoubtedly something worthy of significant praise, whether one agrees with his position on global warming or not.
Stephen- Sometimes???
For the true believer there is no ‘discourse.’ Those of us who express skepticism regarding their ‘truth claims’ are infidels and our claims not worthy of consideration.
Stephen: it’s a little early to proclaim that Gore has done more to bring the environment into political discourse than anyone before him in history, don’t you think? It will be interesting to see, 5, 10, or 50 years down the road how history treats any tempest in the current teapot. (I’m reminded of Rick Warren’s ridiculous statement that Mel Gibson’s movie would present the greatest outreach opportunity in 2,000 years, but equally silly things have probably been said by folks of many religious and political persuasions)
That’s a small point, though. If Gore’s position is indeed dubious, and all or most of the embarrassing bullet points in Ivan’s post 17 bear up under scrutiny, then it really begs the question whether he doing more harm than hurt. I have “concern for our environment” too, but so far at least it points me to radically different conclusions than Mr. Gore. His raising of “concern” may well drive nations to engage in horrendously costly and ultimately futile projects — futile because the mechanism driving global warming and cooling hasn’t truly been identified, nor do we have a proof of concept, so to speak, for how carbon offsets and CO2 reduction projects actually impact our planet.
For me it’s worth Gore winning just because Lynn is so annoyed!
It is just another nail in the coffin of meaningfulness of the Nobel Peace Prize. Look at recent winners: El Baradei, Arafat, et al.
How does global warming really affect peace in the world, other by stirring up notions of “Hey, they’re worse polluters than we are! Evil!”
And someone above had it right. This is not the world honoring Gore. It’s a small group of Europeans. More specifically, it’s five Norwegians.
The Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of five, appointed by the Storting (the Norwegain parliament). According to rules laid down by the Storting, election to the committee is for a six-year term, and members can be re-elected. The committee’s composition reflect the relative strengths of the political parties in the Storting. Although this is not a requirement, all committee members have been Norwegian nationals. The committee elects its own chairman and deputy chairman. The Director of the Nobel Institute serves as secretary to the committee.
In 1936, in connection with the award of the Peace Prize to Carl von Ossietzky, there was a change of practice: since then, no members of the government have served on the committee. In 1977 a rule was adopted barring members of the Storting from election to the Nobel Committee, the name of which was changed from the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The Nobel Committee is completely independent. In its assessment of nominations for awards, it receives no instructions or directives. According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, there must be no mention in the minutes of any Nobel Committee meetings of the contents of discussions relating to choices of candidates for the various awards, nor must any differences of opinion in committees be divulged in other ways. For that reason, committee members take no part in the public debates which follow the announcement of decisions.
All meetings of the Nobel Committee are held in a special conference room in the Nobel Institute, under an array of pictures of all individual Peace Prize Laureates.
I lost trust in the Peace Prize the year they gave it to Bill Clinton after he bombed the (supply noun here) out of Kosovo. Granted, his action brought an end to ethnic cleansing, but was it a peaceful solution?
Ivan, I agree entirely that the global warming debate is dominated by militant ideologues uninterested in the reasonable consideration of evidence. I agree that Gore is a figurehead for this movement. But he can nonetheless be occasionally be correct.
RR, that was very well put. Let me be clear that I think the vast majority of Gore’s proposed solutions are foolish and irresponsible and were it up to me I would not have awarded him the prize. I do, however, strongly object to Lynn’s position that the prize was awarded poorly for *categorical* reasons. Significant work to preserve our environment is extraordinarily beneficial to people and will almost certainly help prevent future conflicts arising from scarcity (eg. over the last remaining unpolluted water, fertile land, etc.). I agree that Gore has not done enough in this category to merit the award he has been given, but I strongly believe that environmental work is legitimately considered among the award’s criteria.
Amen #13! I would have thought that ALL credibility had already been lost when gangster/terrorist Yassir Arafat won.
Of course, adding a lying, science-impaired idiot like Al Gore just adds the final nail into the coffin. (And, notice, based on all the evidence, Gore *knew* he was going to get the award, so someone tipped him off against the rules.)
At some point, the environmentalists to the extreme Left (who control all the “holy environmental discourse” now) will realize that lining up behind people like Al Gore just destroys any credibility they’d like their movement to have with the rest of us.
I consider myself a *Biblical* environmentalist (i.e. we should be stewards of this world), but I can’t refer to myself using that second term (”environmentalist”) at all, because it carries a whole “secular religious” connotation that just makes my skin crawl.
Ivan writes: “the Goracle” — love it
Luke writes: For me it’s worth Gore winning just because Lynn is so annoyed!
Also love it…Glad I could bring you a smile today, Luke
Stephen: OK, I think I understand your point as that activism toward better environmental stewardship should indeed be considered alongside the getting of peace treaties and such, as qualification for the Peace Prize. I’m not sure I agree, but hope that I at least understand.
Even by that yardstick, however, (and I think Stephen is with me on this) I fail to see how the Goracle (great term, somebody!) qualifies. He made a movie that (as above) has been criticized by other people besides evangelical Luddites for factual errors and highly questionable conclusions. He wrote a little book. He gave some speeches. Got an Oscar. He purchased enough carbon credits to supposedly equalize the ecological damage done by his living in a house the size of Rhode Island. Best of all, he purchased the credits from a little company he’s an investor in, which you have to admit is a bit of genius: an “offset” from his left pocket to his right. How all this is Peace Prize-worthy remains beyond me.
What was that? Arafat already got one? Oh, alright then.
RR, I agree wholeheartedly.
All I can say is that I hope the citizens of the world have done enough research, to realize that this is nothing but political strong-arming.
I hope that people understand that global leftists are so “concerned” about normal fluctuations in our climate, (ridiculously called global warming) because it is the best way to convince the world to accept global authority. This is just a continued attempt to get their foot in the door.
As long as they can keep this lie alive, and they think they can win more willing dupes to “carry the message forward”, the easier they think it will be to convince us to make our govt. participate in this global authority. Then they can cut us down to size, which has been their intention all along.
Where are you science guys on this?
Why don’t you guys point out that the global mean temperature has been proven, by the testing of ice-core samples, to have been much, much higher in the distant (and not so distant) past?
Where are all of the historians who can prove that icy climates today, were much warmer, as recent as the 13th century.
Gore doesn’t anger me. He is doing what he thinks he needs to do.
Lie to all of humanity for our own good.
I’m more disappointed that so many of us seem to blindly accept these lies
Mr Meaner (or any of you other “global warming is a leftist hoax” people):
Help us citizens of the world out, then. What research can you point us to that demonstrates this is nothing political strong-arming? Since you’ve apparently done this research that us ignoramuses haven’t, can you point to some of your sources?
Again, what has led you to believe that the rising temperature is only normal fluctuations in our climate. Can you point me to some credible authority? As I understand it, your viewpoint is far in minority among scientists.
Bored with Gore already…and now I hear I would rather be a kingmaker than king, or is that queen maker, now—hey how about Gore jumping in and winning the nom and asking Hill to be his running mate…now this is getting exciting…I am not bored anymore
jjf - Before you dismantle the global economy and sentence future generations to early deaths, perhaps the burden should be on teh GW cult to provide some proof (instead of models that don’t work and projections that don’t even come true in the short term).
Glad I could bring you a smile today, Luke
Yes, I have this idea for a headline: Gore wins Noble Peace Prize, Lynn Vincent’s grimace undoes $600 worth of Botox
Not too hard to figure.
A 1 degree C increase of the global mean temperature over the past 100 years.
Compared to tests that indicate a climate as much as 8 degrees warmer in the distant past.
Now, I’m no math wiz, but do you really have to be?
I’d say that over the long term, there is more circumstantial evidence that man is contributing to global cooling.
At least the numbers support that statement of nonsense.
Since some have brought High Court Judge Micahel Burton’s statements into this let’s see what he actually said, instead of what was reported:
Burton: I am satisfied that, with the Guidance Note, as amended, the Defendant is setting the film into a context in which it can be shown by teachers, and not so that the Defendant itself or the schools are promoting partisan views contained in the film, and is putting it into a context in which a balanced presentation of opposing views can and will be offered.
Burton: Mr Downes produced a long schedule of such alleged errors or exaggerations and waxed lyrical in that regard. It was obviously helpful for me to look at the film with his critique in hand.
In the event I was persuaded that only some of them were sufficiently persuasive to be relevant for the purposes of his argument, and it was those matters - 9 in all - upon which I invited Mr Chamberlain to concentrate. It was essential to appreciate that the hearing before me did not relate to an analysis of the scientific questions, but to an assessment of whether the ‘errors’ in question, set out in the context of a political film, informed the argument on ss406 and 407. All these 9 ‘errors’ that I now address are not put in the context of the evidence of Professor Carter and the Claimant’s case, but by reference to the IPCC report and the evidence of Dr Stott.
Note the use of quotations around the word ‘error’ in Burton’s statement. He is not suggesting they are errors, but rather that Downes alleged them to be errors.
krm & Meaner:
Wow. Nice straw man you’ve got there. Dismantling the global economy and causing early deaths? How would recognizing that global warming is in fact occurring do that?
The near-consensus among the scientific community about global warming counts as “providing some proof.” If 4 out of 5 dentists agree, the 5th guy bears the burden of explaining why all the others are wrong.
You mean you’ve done no research after all, but it’s “not that hard to figure.”
You just assume that all these scientists are out to lunch, and you with your sharp-as-tacks common sense have perceived the very obvious truth that all those eggheads missed. Or are lying about. Because clearly they’re either stupid or lying liberals who hate America, right? It couldn’t be that they are dedicated professionals who have spent years of their lives studying the problem full-time and have come to certain conclusions that you find uncomfortable?
Nah, couldn’t be. Dumb liberals.
sometimes the evangelical right becomes a pure parody of itself and reality.
On an other note, an international event is being discerned through the lens of a domestic situation.
Research, you say?
From Washington State University:
Environmental Sciences Prof. Ed Brook brings two graphs over to the table, each one representing the most recent 400,000 years of the earth’s climate. Ironically the climate on earth 400,000 years ago was much like it is today, but between the two ends of the graph are huge spikes and drops in temperature, ice ages and a period of dynamic climate variability the likes of which written human civilization has never seen, Brook explains.
Brook’s first graph plots temperature over time. The temperature data is supported by other samples from oceans sediments around the world. He points to a half-inch smudge of tight data points representing the last 11,000 years. This represents all of human history, he explains–a time in which the earth’s climate has been pretty stable.
Right after the this period, the temperature line takes a steep six inch dive–ice age, glaciers. But instead of stabilizing there, the line climbs and dives steeply for thousands of years–quickly growing warmer, rapidly cooling off, all of this happening before humans had much opportunity to have any affect on greenhouse gasses. Brook explains that these periods represent rapid fluctuations in the temperature and climate–the kind of rapid heating and cooling we’ve never seen before, but the kind of dramatic shifts we now know are possible–a part of earth’s history.
“Compared to this the ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) is tame,” Brook said. “In some cases we see a 5 to 10 degree jump in average air temperature in a decade… that’s 5 to 10 degrees Celsius.”
For comparison, most of the dire predictions surrounding current global warming problems focus on a global increase in temperature of only one to five degrees in fifty years. Without our help, the earth is capable of a lot more.
http://www.tidepool.org/archives/brook.html
http://www.iceagenow.com/
And here is a guy who was way ahead of the curve in realizing that global warming was bunk.
He is probably a little kooky in that he predicts an impending ice age, but he has a plethora of evidence against global warming on many different fronts. One of the more impressive facts he sites, is the increase of temperatures on other planets in our solar system.
The debate really is over on this.
The facts are in and by preponderance of the evidence, man has no effect on the Earth’s temperature.
Mr Meaner [39] — sometimes the article doesn’t say what you think it says (or else there was a real bad reporter). Here are Prof. Brook’s own words, published by NASA, 2005:
That really doesn’t sound like global warming skeptic, does it now?
Whatever conclusions he may draw, the fact is there have been huge spikes in temperature throughout Earth’s history. There have been small spikes and dips throughout recorded human history. I’m sure you’ve heard all about how Greenland had a fairly mild climate capable of grain production as recent as the 13th and 14th centuries. It actually gets its name from the lush grasslands that were native when Norsemen arrived. That isn’t possible today.
Brooks’s own research belies the point he apparently is trying to make. I wonder what he thinks caused this same anomaly that long ago?
Wow..Like I needed less faith in science.
That just happened to be the one at the top of the Google page. I guess I should have checked out the source itself instead of a reporting of it. I don’t understand the logic that blames a recurring anomaly on specific current conditions.
The other page is one I’d been to before and hadn’t revisited it since losing my bookmarks awhile back