Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize First Ever Given That Has Nothing To Do With Peace
Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize for 2007. According to the Nobel Foundation, the award was given “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”. Predictably, conservatives and others who challenge the doctrines of man-made climate change are apoplectic at the award and claim it shows bias in the committee that makes such awards. They, however, miss the larger point.
Let’s assume for the moment that all of Al Gore’s claims on climate change are true. The idea that he gets the peace prize for such claims is what should merit discussion. The president of Czechoslovakia , Vaclav Klaus, also questioned the award for such a reason. To be fair, President Klaus is a climate change skeptic, but his point remains. Isn’t the Nobel Peace Prize about peace?
In 2006, the peace prize was given to Muhammed Yunus and Grameen Bank for economic and social development of poor countries. In 2005, it was to the International Atomic Energy Agency for nuclear non-proliferation work. In fact, in reviewing the entire balance of past award winners, the prize was given to those working to end conflicts, promote human rights, promote economic development in poor countries, or weapons non-proliferation. 2007 marks the first time the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for a reason wholly unconnected to stopping war. Claims that climate change will cause violent conflicts are absurd on their face. People are entitled to think that man-made climate change is important, but that doesn’t make it a peace issue.
In recent years the peace prize has strayed somewhat from its intended purpose to the point that it is mere comedy today. No serious commentator is truly surprised that Al Gore won the award, it was clear six months ago. It is no surprise that recent award winners were mere charlatans who took the award from true peacemakers. Yasser Arafat, Nelson Mandela, and Henry Kissinger wouldn’t be three people on the top of any list of people promoting world peace and there were far more worthy people who could have gotten those awards.
The IAEA and the UN have noble purposes but generally are resounding failures. Their awards were given more as a “stick-it-to-ya” directed at the United States, not because they actually accomplished the mission of peace. However, the wholesale abandonment of peacemaking as the criteria for which the Nobel Peace Prize is offered indicates how far the Nobel committee has fallen from its original purpose. Alfred Nobel was a pacifist, not a politician. He intended to award others who promoted peace, not those who promoted the fad policy of the day.
No one can dispute Martin Luther King Jr.’s contribution to peace, or the contributions of the Red Cross, Doctors without Frontiers, or the Dalai Lama. Even if you accept man-made climate change as 100% true as presented by Al Gore, you must admit that the issue isn’t about world peace. It is a true shame that the committee has so tarnished the Nobel Peace Prize that it has totally abandoned the vision of its founder.
It also hides the great work done by many groups out there who are promoting human rights, freedom, economic development, and world peace. Those people certainly don’t get into that field because they want the glory, but it's a shame that this Nobel Prize takes away one avenue that the public has to see their important work.
John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.
John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for Blogcritics and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. He is a freelance columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education. He is the current owner of BlogSoldiers, a blog-only traffic exchange. | More from John Bambenek
Stumble It!
October 18th, 2007 at 11:12 am
The left still believes that war will end as soon as they obtain absolute power to control the whole world. Taking control of energy fulfills the Marxist dream as well or better than taking control of the means of production. Energy is capital and you can’t produce much in the modern world without it. Then war will end because they want it to, and because they’ll kill anyone who disagrees.
October 19th, 2007 at 1:53 am
What does being politically conservative have to do with denying climate change? When I was in college, in the 70s, my very politically conservative geology professor said that with the increase in CO2 emissions produced by burning fossil fuels, CO2 levels in the atmosphere would increase and temperatures would rise.
It was, in his view, simple science, and nobody found it in the least bit controversial. Cause and effect, which is about as conservative as one can get. And the evidence is there, if you’re willing to look at it — glacial retreats, melting of arctic and antarctic ice, northward (in the northern hemisphere) migration of climatic zones, and so on.
And I agree with the commission, because if Gore is right, and I think he is thanks to the teachings of my conservative prof, sea levels will rise if nothing is done, and the displacement of hundreds of millions of people will lead to wars and other disasters. Helping to avoid that is certainly worth an award.
Kyle
October 19th, 2007 at 3:52 am
Kyle: Mmmmmmmmm. Kool-Aid.
October 19th, 2007 at 5:40 am
Kyle – Assuming what you’re saying is true, as the article does (BTW: your basic science doesn’t prove that the Kyoto agreement is a good idea): Why would a dishonest film about the subject of global warming entitle someone to a Nobel PEACE prize?
October 19th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
kyle…conservatives have become decadant liberals!!!
And decadant liberals have become fiscal conservatives!!
October 21st, 2007 at 6:06 am
College boy, you’re half right. The libs will never become fiscal conservatives. You can’t buy votes without someone else’s money.