Al Gore and the International Panel on Climate Change share Nobel Peace Prize honors for their work in raising the salience of climate change as an issue. This seems a bit like a move designed to ensure that American conservatives bury themselves even deeper into denialist holes, but congratulations to Gore anyway.
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Nobel
12 Oct 2007 08:15 am
Comments (29)
Well done, Al.
Who has buried themselves in a hole? You have.
This petition has been signed by over 19,000 scientists:
"...There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
Oh Lord, the Oregon Petition. Let's talk about the hockey stick graph, too! That one hasn't been rehashed endlessly!
You wrote:
"This seems a bit like a move designed to ensure that American conservatives bury themselves even deeper into denialist holes, but congratulations to Gore anyway."
As a Norwegian citizen writing from Oslo, I feel compelled to point out to you that the entire world does not revolve around the partisan battles of American domestic policy. This is about the Nobel Committee recognizing climate change as one of the greatest threats to peace on a global scale.
Quick, someone bring some restraining equipment for Jonah Lucianne and Michael Savage.
This petition has been signed by over 19,000 scientists:
The petition is a crock. 19000 "scientists". Uh huh. And read the statement, it sounds like it's speaking out against Global Warming, but it's ringed with so many dependent clauses and hedges that it really says, "We haven't died from CO2 and probably won't in the next couple of years." The chief weasel word is "catastrophic". Your catastrophe and mine probably aren't the same. I include the 3 year calamitous Australian drought and the disappearance of some Pacific islands. But I guess it's possible to gloss those over and insinuate that if you can still see the Statue of Liberty's torch that the sea hasn't risen catastrophically yet.
Here's a hint: counter science with science. Petitions sound like junior high school.
There are ten million science graduates in the US alone. So that petition represents, let's see, 0.2% of scientific opinion.
Well, I'm convinced!
I feel compelled to point out to you that the entire world does not revolve around the partisan battles of American domestic policy. This is about the Nobel Committee recognizing climate change as one of the greatest threats to peace on a global scale.
Agreed; the apoplexy of American wingnuts is just a fringe benefit. And it will be an entertaining one, at that.
This seems a bit like a move designed to ensure that American conservatives bury themselves even deeper into denialist holes, but congratulations to Gore anyway.
Yeah - I can see that.
It's the same prize that Arafat - and worse - Jimmy Carter, won!
Congrats to VP Gore. A great year for him.
I would have liked to see him share this with Laurie and Larry David, but that's just hometown bias.
I have great respect for Al Gore, but this is ridiculous. Just like Yunus last year, he has done much that is fine and good. The only problem is that
IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WAR AND PEACE.
Poverty and climate change are serious problems, but their impact on conflict and stability are speculative at best. Climate change may lead to war, or it may lead to more cooperation and hence peace. And poverty, judging from the last century's wars, are correlated with peace. Who fought each other in the two world wars (which took far more lives than the later colonial wars)? The richest countrues in the world.
The Nobel committee are a bunch of pretentious morons. They have taken the heritage of Alfred Nobel and, in direct conflict with his explicit wishes, made the Peace prize into a prize for whoever has done the most politically correct things recently.
Poverty and climate change are serious problems, but their impact on conflict and stability are speculative at best.
Because wars have nothing to do with conflicts over scarce/valuable resources. Or living space, or arable land. Nope, war's mostly about big ideas, core principles, & religion, because nothing motivates people to risk their lives more than abstract philosophical and/or theological battles.
Jeez...
Poverty and climate change are serious problems, but their impact on conflict and stability are speculative at best.
Maybe in your world. The connection between a rapidly changing climate, large scale human migration and conflict seem pretty clear to me.
Moreover, if you look at list of past honorees, you could make the same (IMHO, childish) arguments for dozens of awardees.
http://nobelpeaceprize.org/eng_lau_list.html
2004: Wangari Maathai
2003: Shirin Ebadi
1999: Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières)
1997:International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and Jody Williams (after all, landmines mostly kill people after conflicts end!)
1991: Aung San Suu Kyi
1989: The 14th Dalai Lama
1986: Wiesel, Elie
1984: Tutu, Desmond Mpilo
1983: Walesa, Lech
and on and on!
If you look at these people as a group, their accomplishments have to do with fighting for the rights and dignity of mankind, rather than issues of war and peace. The award to Al Gore and the IPCC fit into that tradition nicely.
I'm just kickin' around here, waiting to see how Megan McA decides to thread the needle of righteous libertarian ambivalence on this one. "Of course it's satisfying to see the prize helping to generate international momentum to fight the threat of global warming. But I have to confess to some annoyance that it will also aggrandize the personal publicity accorded to Al Gore, who..." How will she end the sentence? What weird reason will she find for being disenchanted with Al Gore? The clock is ticking!
Who has buried themselves in a hole? You have.
Yes I was asked to sign that letter too. Sigh.
Careful debunking of the letter and institute here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/oregon-institute-of-science-and-malarkey/
Hah, I had the same thought this morning, brooksfoe. Which will be more the more entertaining reaction? The exploding craniums of the 28%ers? ("The Nobel Prize is awarded by Europeans, you know. What more evidence do we need of European capitulation in the face of Islamo-fasco-eco-homo-dhimmitude?") Or the sensible and serious iterations of "Yes, quite, global warming is very serious and so on and so forth, but this shouldn't obscure the essential fact, which is that Al Gore is fat and annoying. And speaking of which...."
"Or the sensible and serious iterations of "Yes, quite, global warming is very serious and so on and so forth, but this shouldn't obscure the essential fact, which is that Al Gore is fat and annoying. And speaking of which...."
Just stop on by at Andrew Sullivan's blog for that. He seems to think South Park really captured the true essence of Al Gore perfectly. He can't talk about him without quoting some part of that episode.
I'm very happy that Al Gore won this. But I have some trepidations. My concern is that, by making Al Gore the principal spokesperson about the Global Warming issue, it makes it appear that expertise is not important. In technical areas, such as global climate and climate change, people who have a lot of formal training have opinions that should, and sometimes do, carry more weight than self-educated common folk. This is an inherent problem in democracy, but there are mechanisms to deal with this.
One mechanism our government has used is to call panels of experts, typically out of the National Academy of Science, to try to generate consensus scientific opinion. This is a good, but not perfect mechanism. Using 20-20 hindsight, I would have preferred it if Al Gore had paired with a scientific spokesperson to be the face of climate change investigation, education and action. By putting this totally on Al Gore's shoulders the apparent role of scientific expertise is diminished. Thus, we have conservative radio people saying "in my opinion, global warming is a hoax; its my word against Al Gore's". and then spouting some pseudo-scientific rationale for their dreck. I think its important that people realize the difference between expert opinion and amateur opinion. That they recognize how scientific consensus works. And that political leaders describe clearly how scientific opinion and consensus is used to formulate public policy. From what I see, the global warming issue has not made this clear -- with the active collusion of the wingnutosphere.
In thinking about this problem, I think its important to make distinctions between fields where expertise is absolutely essential -- much of science -- and fields where it is not so essential -- political science. The failures of political science professionals to help with public policy, notably in the Iraq debacle, has undermined trust in "experts". There are areas where you must rely on experts and areas where, with a few months of diligent effort, a citizen can have a truly informed opinion. We should learn to distinguish the two.
Latts and Jeff S.,
From Wikipedia:
"According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded 'to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses'".
Jeff S., you make my point exactly. The problem is that Mr. Nobel *didn't* make a prize for the "rights and dignity of mankind", but for peace. The winners you list just show that this isn't a new trend, but that the committee push the concept of "peace" to ever greater absurdity. Given that these 5 clowns are appointed by the Norwegian parliament and thus indirectly by the Norwegian people, one cannot help but feel ashamed that we've squandered his legacy by making it a prize for whatever is nice.
And sure, people fight over resources, but they do so regardless of how scarce they are in absolute terms. There is less war today than ever, even though climate change presumably has more of an impact today than in the last few decades.
jk wrote:
My concern is that, by making Al Gore the principal spokesperson about the Global Warming issue, it makes it appear that expertise is not important.
The prize was jointly awarded to Al Gore (promoting awareness of climate change) and the IPCC (scientific expertise). I think that's an excellent way of handling it.
However, I expect most media coverage in the US to treat this as Al Gore's prize. Which is unfortunate insofar as other people will react as you did.
Just stop on by at Andrew Sullivan's blog for that.
Um, thanks, but I'd prefer to just take your word for it.
one cannot help but feel ashamed that we've squandered his legacy
The guy perfected dynamite. We're not talking about St. Francis of Assisi.
Norway wrote:
[...] the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations [...]
Sounds kind of like the IPCC, actually.
Call me crazy, but I find it a little hard to believe that what's bothering "Norway" is that Alfred Nobel's testamentary intent is not being sufficiently adhered to.
If it wasn't enough that, as usual, white males won all 3 science Nobels, they have to give the PC Prize to another one?
Glenn,
What are you referring to? What is it you believe really bothers me then? The Nobel is a really big thing over here (we feel its our one day in the sun) and as I've been saying, "peace" seems to mean anything and everything to the Nobel committee, as you can see from Jeff's list above.
My strong suspicion, Norway, is that your objection is really to the causes that the Nobel committee is choosing to honor -- i.e., you don't think action to stop global warming is worthy of such recognition. Ditto for the various human rights crusaders whose receipt of the prize you also seem to be against. (Your derision of these awards as "politically correct" gives you away, in my view.)
You have couched your objections, however, in the neutral-sounding language of claiming that the committee has strayed from Nobel's original intent. But, really, who could possibly care, other than Nobel's family (maybe)? Let's say, for sake of argument, that the Nobel committee has changed the Peace Prize into something more akin to a prize that recognizes benefit to humanity generally. If you think such recognition is a good thing, and you think that the persons to whom they have given the prize have actually done good things for humanity, then are you telling me you'd still be opposed to it, on the niggling grounds that it isn't precisely what Nobel intended? I find it extremely difficult to believe that one could seriously rest on such a technical objection. I think it much more likely that you are opposed to these awards on the merits -- i.e., you simply don't think these award winners, and their causes, are in fact worthy of being supported and/or celebrated.
Glenn, I'm surprised you would make assumptions about my intentions, but let's leave that for a moment.
1) The committee's job is to follow its mandate, not expand it as they see fit. They are stewards of the will, no more and no less.
2) A peace prize in the narrow sense is still needed. Last year for instance, the obvious candidate was the former Finnish president who brokered the peace in Ache. He was passed over for Yunus, who deals in microloans, not peace.
That said, it seems the prize has indeed evolved into a nice-prize, and I'm just shouting in the wilderness.
Finally, I do think both global warming and poverty are pressing global issues; I just don't think that fighting them should earn you a peace prize. But by all means, believe what you want.
Norway-
If you denounced Mother Teresa's prize in 1979 and Andrei Sakharov's prize in 1975 the same way, and feel like the International Red Cross's winning in 1917 and again in 1963, was as disrespectful to the wishes of Afred Nobel, in addition to the half dozen or so I listed above, well, you'd at least get some points from me for consistency.
However, you might want to measure your certainty that climate change "HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WAR AND PEACE" against the opinion of the former US Army Chief of Staff Gordon Sullivan:
"Climate change is and will be a significant threat to our national security and in a larger sense to life on Earth as we know it to be," retired Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, former U.S. Army chief of staff, told a congressional panel last month.
or, say, the 2003 Pentagon study that found that climate change "could potentially destabilize the geopolitical environment, leading to skirmishes, battles, and even war due to resource constraints."
Comments closed October 26, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
One should expect to see a right wing smear campaign against Gore starting tonight by fascist cocksuckers Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. I am willing to wager that they will line up every anti-global climate change whackjob out there as a part of the campaign. Expect to hear tons of rhetoric about the judges' decision in a British courtroom with much cherry-picking from it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/11/AR2007101102134.html?sub=AR
Posted by SLC | October 12, 2007 8:48 AM