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According to Jan Oberg, he has arguably contributed nothing in the way of what Nobel originally envisioned, the criteria being: “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.”
But then again, neither did Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Kissinger or Yasser Arafat, so at least he is in good company.
See also: The Most Non-prolific Advocate of Peace
Well, one does not need to be a genius to understand that the climate change is not irrelevant to peace. To work actively against it is very much peace process since changes in climate inevitably lead to instability and war in human societies. Transfer of hundreds of millions of people because of droughts (and later, by rising sea levels) cannot happen peacefully.
Any work for peace should be eligible for the prize. If someone is able to prevent a major conflict well before it starts, should he not be awarded?
I’m certainly not a pro-Al Gore although he seems OK guy compared to most current U.S. politicians. His actions as the Vice President would have been a very good reason to deny him the Nobel but we should not forget that the IPCC was also awarded. And by giving the Nobel to Gore the Nobel Committee send (again) a clear signal to the current incumbent of the White House.
Al Gore enjoys the media spotlight. With gigantic rock concerts and cheap slogans, he has brought what should be a serious (scientific, not political) discussion of climate change down to the level of Earth Day platitude.
My choice for the Nobel Peace Prize: Ron Paul. Who else has worked so hard and so consistently against Warfare State?
haha. while we’re at it, let’s put ron paul on the one dollar gold coin too! some of you folks engage in the kind of cultish leader-worship for ron paul that the silly liberals and progressives do with bill clinton.
Good point, Stef. Just because there’s a cool, clean drink of water out there doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep dipping into ditch water to slake our thirsts.
You’re wrong, Stef. Ron Paul deserves this award precisely because he is an anti-leader who stands up to the neocon death cult.
Gore has done for environmentalism exactly what Rudy Giuliani has for anti-terrorism: mindless, unsubstantiated fear mongering.
His kind of leadership is more likely to bring about conflict than it is to resolve any, for the simple reason that he gets almost all the facts wrong but at the same time heaps out loads of blame. Nothing is guaranteed to cause conflict faster than to have one group unjustly blamed by another for causing a problem that doesn’t exist.
Anthropogenic global warming is a fad. A politicized, pseudo-science chicken-little scare tactic that does not stand up to serious scrutiny.
Is the globe warming: yes.
Would it be an unusual event given the natural cycles of interglacial periods: no.
Has it warmed before: yes.
Even hotter than today: yes.
Has it been hotter than today within the last 500 years: yes.
Has most of the history of the planet been hotter than today: yes.
Is there solid evidence, or even experimentally verified suspicion, that CO2 is the principle cause (rather than an effect, a minor contributor, or an unrelated quantity) of the current warming: no.
Given even the worst-case six-sigma wild guess predictions (the ones shouted by Gore and the media) would the resulting climate change result in more damage over the next hundred years than, say, wars in Iraq, Kosovo and Somalia: not likely.
Even neglecting any possible benefits of such a warming: yes.
But Al Gore wants people to shout at each other pointing fingers that one group or another is to blame for the warming and should commit economic suicide to stop it. If they won’t voluntarily do this then he wants international treaties pushed to stop it.
I’m sorry, but isn’t this a recipe for war?
Scott
Gore built a Trojan Horse called “Global Warming by Humans,” and wants to ride it into the White House. A Federal Court recently found 11 blatant examples of inaccuracies and lies in his film. There are more.
Global warming is real, but humans don’t cause it. Never have when it occurs every 1,500 years, throughout history.
Well, the big problem is that based upon his actions and statements, Gore has very little substance to illustrate how he is the poster boy for what Nobel desired.
Besides, the committee is wearing rose-tinted glasses if it is going to ignore his lack of outrage against the sanctioned bombing of the Balkans.
It is all too easy to get wrapped up in his recent activities instead of looking at his entire history (was he an outspoken critic of either Vietnam or the first Iraq war?).
Al Gore brought the issue of global warming to the world’s attention. It is an international issue that endangers the entire planet. Perhaps if the whole world sees that we are in danger from the damage we are doing to the environment, people will spend less time fighting and more time working together to prevent a catastrophe. I think Gore rightfully deserves that prize.
Maybe one day we’ll all realize that Nobel prizes are not “neutral” or objective awards. The peace prize and the literature prize in particular are notoriously politically driven. So there is no point in arguing whether Gore deserved a prize that is nothing but a act of propaganda. The fact that there is a “Academy” behind it is just smoke thrown in our faces.
This award, with its idiotic equation between environmental issues and world peace, is part of the huge propaganda machine that it is being build up around man-made global warming, the biggest most popular unproved scientific theory ever.
Man made Global Warming is a lie that it is being used for entirely different reasons than the sake of the planet: mainly to force global authorities upon us, milk more of everyone’s richness, and enforce a stronger control on the developing world.
And Gore -no surprise- yes he’s part of the scheme. There is no left and right in this plan, don’t you know it?
“Man made Global Warming is a lie that it is being used for entirely different reasons than the sake of the planet: mainly to force global authorities upon us, milk more of everyone’s richness, and enforce a stronger control on the developing world.”
Where to begin with such nonsense? The scientific community long ago reached a peer-reviewed consensus on the matter, and truth be told, their early numbers were far short of what they are actually seeing each year going ahead - otherwise they had been giving the mild numbers, while in reality the more extreme is what we see on the ground.
Changing from highly polluting methods to those that pollute less has zero to do with world control. It is to the benefit of the third world to adapt early - have you looked at the price of oil lately? Why wouldn’t they want to get themselves off their own dependence of it? Face energy poverty or energy independence - hmmm hard choice.
We are right on the cusp of seeing even today’s rudimentary alternative energy resources and methods becoming cheaper than the fossil fuel driven energy they are replacing. How in the heck is that milking people’s richness? Those that adapt now will save money, and will control the technology that everyone else is going to need; further enriching those that spurn fossil fuels.
That the flat earth crowd still denounces global warming in the face of overwhelming evidence still never ceases to amaze. That they play the economics card without actually thinking about the wealth that is created by changing an economy just shows their narrow-minded thinking.
As for Gore winning the prize - I don’t agree with that. While helping press for change and hopefully save untold millions from environmental destruction and the social and economic problems it will bring, Gore the man didn’t do much else to forward the notion of peace. He is worthy of a medal, just not this one.
>The scientific community long ago reached a peer-reviewed consensus on the matter, …
Saying the scientific community reached a consensus on this matter is quite wrong. The “scientists” that are polled to get these “consensus” numbers are not dominated by climatologists, but by non-experts who know nothing about the field except what they’re read in Popular Science magazine.
The closer you get to actual climatologists, the less the scenario resembles doomsday and the weight is put on humans as the cause of climate change. Like all science that is not completely worked out (and from what I know, climatology is FAR from worked out) the more competing theories there are. When the media runs with the worst of all of the competing theories and runs is as “scientists say” then you have junk science. Put that together with the natural incentive to get funded and you have this problem: Climatologists who say everything is cool don’t get funded. Scientists to want to study a “potential problem” do, especially when the problem “could” be civilization threatening.
I can tell you how this worked in my industry. Right after 911, most researchers and many tech companies suddenly decided to refocus on the problem of terrorism. Suddenly, if your project was related to “terrorism” then your funding was guaranteed. DARPA, NSF, ONR, you name it were paying for all sorts of ridiculous projects that were only tangentially related to “terrorism”. If you it doesn’t relate to “terrorism”, though, then you don’t get the time of day.
> We are right on the cusp of seeing even today’s rudimentary alternative energy resources and methods becoming cheaper than the fossil fuel driven energy they are replacing.
Great. I want cheaper energy too. So why do we need all the subsidies? Show me the company that can make this great cheap energy so that I can invest in them.
> That the flat earth crowd still denounces global warming in the face of overwhelming evidence still never ceases to amaze.
I would recommend following the teaching of Socrates and asking yourself: “why do I believe this?” If the answer is “everyone else says so” then I urge you to investigate further. The history of science tells us not to put very much weight on the angry mob. Find people who disagree with your belief and see if their argument makes sense. Apply the scientific method and try to prove your own beliefs to be untrue. The actual climatologists are doing this. I believe that the more you interrogate your belief with real data, removing yourself from political bias and irrational fear of improbable scenarios, the less dogmatic and certain you will become on this issue.
In the end it will be moot anyway. You are right in a sense: Bio-fuels (or some other solar-capturing source) will dominate the energy industry within our lifetimes. Not because it is “carbon-neutral” or any other crap like that, but because it will be cheaper. I’m placing my bets on algae or bacteria bred or engineered to produce ethanol, but it could be just about anything. Then you can go on thinking that CO2 is the biggest threat to humanity and it won’t matter.
Scott
Sorry but there is no consensus on the causes of global warming. None at all.
What is certain is that this change in temperatures has happened before, many times, and well before the industrial revolution:
uh, wait, how is that possible? Aren’t we humans the reason for anything bad and despicable happening to this world?
Apparently the global warming as well as the global cooling is something that the earth, and probably the entire solar system with it, does cyclically, and many scientists believe that the influence of man made pollution is negligible in the picture.
Studies are trying to explain the changes in the weather with the behavior of the sun, for example: and such theories are already much more solid than the man-made warming theory.
As of today there are no valid models capable of understanding weather on a global scale, make predictions or go back in time to reproduce conditions. Man-made global warming is yet another anthropocentric theory, not a scientific fact.
If anything, given the uncertainty we are in, we should NOT declare an emergency until we actually know what it is going on and why. This would be a rational behavior.
But you don’t see the media and the politicians care much about this don’t you? What they like to do is blabbing about the fact that we are destroying the planet and we need global control to prevent a catastrophe. A catastrophe that has yet to be described or proved and that if anything happened on this planet many times already without destroying what couldn’t be naturally rebuilt by mother nature (whose balance is always shifting).
Also, it is hypocritical and cruel to expect the developing world to grow inside the boundaries of a very expensive and not so productive alternative energy: Try to fuel a new industrialization of a african or asian country with solar power or wind power and see how far you get. On the other hand more often than not those countries can access low cost energy because they’re rich with natural resources such as fossil fuels and gases.
Or maybe is it that we want those resources for us?
“…and such theories are already much more solid than the man-made warming theory.”
Interesting. I’ve made a significant effort to follow these things, and have seen no such “solid” theory, only conjectures by a few people who have reason to desire a delay in any change in the current energy markets. Could you provide links to multiple peer-reviewed articles espousing these supposed theories ? Or even one ?
As to there being a consensus, who are you asking for a consensus from ? Working climatologists and allied fields are near-unanimous - mind you there will always be a few holdouts. There are people with biology degrees who don’t think evolution occurs, and people with geology degrees who think the earth was created in 6 days. Luddites are everywhere.
Perhaps you should examine the question more closely. A recent article in Scientific American was focused on why climatologists are so certain about man-made global warming. It is well done and written for the intelligent non-scientist, perhaps it could be helpful.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=B1182F51-E7F2-99DF-30CB2EAAC975FE93
And by the way, I agree that the Nobel Peace Prize has become a political statement. It’s a shame really.
Some perspective:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
If you’ll notice, the temperature difference between 1100 and 1600 (big fall). Or between 500 and 1100 (big rise). Notice the hockey stick at the end, we’ll discuss that later. This plot shows temperature changing all the time. If you take the most rapid temperature changes shown, the slopes are not inconsistent even with the controversial hockey-stick data. You can find lots of 20 year periods with “big” temperature change.
More perspective for you, showing the temperatures from previous interglacials, several degrees higher than our current one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ice_Age_Temperature.png
Even this wikipedia article, which subscribes to the “hockey stick”, shows that the last interglacial was hotter than it is now by a good margin. Based on on this glacial/interglacial cycle, we can expect that a new glaciation will begin to occur within no more than the next 5000 years. Then we can expect most of the earth covered with ice for a LONG time.
If you go back a bit further:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png
You find that the average temperature fluctuates greatly over millions of years. You’ll notice that the plot indicates that we are currently in a “glacial period” which means that the planet alternates between states of almost total ice cover and polar ice cover with a period or around 100k years. During the non-glacial periods, it is thought that the planet had almost no ice on it. E.g. from the wikipedia article: “Significant growth of ice sheets did not begin in Greenland and North America until approximately 3 million years ago…”.
The hockey stick is what the entire anthropogenic debate stands on. This data is well-matched to satellite records, rural ground measurement records, balloon records, etc. Particularly over the span from 1980 to 1995, the hockey stick data shows rapid temperature rise and the other measurements show effectively no temperature change.
The “hockey stick” data comes from ground measurements and “correction factors” due to the local temperature rise from urbanization. The researchers who initiated this theory have refused to share their data and processing algorithms (to the best of my knowledge this is still the case). Numerous ground stations in rural areas, the least effected by this corruption, do not show the same drastic “hockey-stick” behavior.
Here’s one from Idaho, for instance:
http://www.john-daly.com/stations/ashton.gif
But even if you believe the hockey stick is true, it shows the bulk of global warming occuring before 1950, then cooling until the late 70’s, followed by an uptick again. Please can somebody explain how this implies primary causality to the continuous increase in CO2? Somehow, in the 1970s when we had substantially more atmospheric CO2 than there had been for at least the last 500,000 years, the global temperature was cooling rapidly enough science magazines were speculating whether the next ice age was beginning?
To rectify this with the CO2 theory of global warming requires there to be at least on other temperature change mechanism which can cool the earth (or reduce heating) with the same magnitude as CO2 warming. I’ve heard theories that this was caused by soot in the atmosphere and all sorts of other things, but it seems that nobody considers that it may have more to do with the sun’s output?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sunspot_Numbers.png
Every proxy for the sun’s solar output predicts, the medieval warm period, the little ice age, and the modern warm period to be warm, cool, and warm respectively. The energy that makes the earth warm comes from the sun. Why do we need to invent some other Rube Goldberg theory of carbon dioxide warming water to make water vapor (withot making clouds) to warm the air in order to explain where we are now when we have every reason to believe that the sun is simply hitting us with slightly more energy than it was 100 years ago.
Scott
I tried to read the referenced article to see if it contradicted anything I understood regarding anthropogenic global warming, but you have to pay, and I long ago stopped paying to read Scientific America.
The facts as I understand them: Carbon dioxide is responsible for a tiny fraction of the so-called greenhouse effect. (Water vapor, which varies wildly, is responsible for the vast majority of greenhouse warming.) And humans are responsible for a tiny fraction of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. (Geologic activity and the rest of life on earth is responsible for the vast majority of carbon dioxide produced.) The only way scientists can blame global warming on humans is to set up very contrived-sounding feedback mechanisms. Oh, and yes, carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere do track global temperatures, but Al Gore has cause-and-effect backwards. Any high-school science student knows that the colder water is, the more carbon dioxide it will hold, and the warmer the water is, the less it will hold. And the earth happens to be covered with a lot of water.
Thirty years ago the consensus was that the earth was getting cooler, and there were plenty of “experts” ready to blame that on humans. They were wrong then, they’re wrong now.
Humans have a very strong evolutionary instinct for establishing tribal concensus. Politicians are parasites that feed off society by the manipulation of this evolutionary instinct. The issue of anthropogenic global warming is an attempt to manipulate tribal concensus on a global scale. It doesn’t and never did have anything to do with real peace in the real world.
Sorry about the Scientific American article, I forgot you would have to pay to read it. Basically it was a summary article, explaining how different models were able to track the data much more accurately when human action was included as a variable.
What you are all saying is all very interesting, if a bit old news, but unfortunately I still didn’t see anything like a coherent theory that can actually explain the numbers we are seeing in recent years.
Yes of course there have been tremendous changes in the planet’s climate and average temperatures that were not caused by human action, but that does not mean human action can not cause it now, only that it is possible. However to my knowledge there is no “solid” theory which can explain the recent data without including human intervention, and apparently no one here was able to point us to one. Said data, btw, has been sourced from many points, not just ground stations, for quite some time now. No one who withholds data will have their conclusions treated seriously for long.
No one I know of (certainly no respected climatologist) claims that all of the current average temperature increases are due to human action, but rather that human action is enhancing and/or accelerating a trend that does not bode well for us. If the earth continues to warm at even close to the rate projected by most researchers, we will be in considerable trouble regardless of the source of the change. If theories that are able to match the data all include human action, then perhaps we should look at changing that action appropriately.
As to the “experts” who claimed we were potentially entering a new ice age 30 years ago, I remember all too well. What occurred imho was one of those unfortunate situations where the media grabs onto a couple of studies done by a few people and blows it quite out of proportion, citing as “proof” some others saying in effect “Well, they could be right, might explain a few things, I’ll have to look into it.” You are correct, some previously well respected folks got fooled by a limited data set, and at that time no one had the computing power available to easily expand said data pool, so it took a while for the scientific community to locate the problems - in the mean time headlines were in papers everywhere telling folks they were about to freeze to death. Really unfortunate, actually really stupid.
However that situation is not analogous to the current global warming research. Both the ability to handle much larger data sets and atmospheric modeling have improved drastically in the meantime, and far more researchers and institutions are directly tackling the problems. And in every case they are coming to the same conclusions, that human action has had, and is having, a significant effect on climate change to our detriment.
Regarding the use of non-fossil fuel for developing countries, actually there are many examples of the use of solar, wind and water power in the developing world, especially the poorest areas. It is far cheaper to set up a solar panel to run a well pump for 3 or more years than to carry in fossil fuel over that time for the same purpose. Fossil fuels often appear cheaper initially, but if you look at lifetime costs things change. It can be the most economically efficient for developing economies that are rich in fossil fuel resources to sell it to others whose economies have become dependent on it, and use the proceeds to purchase other more physically efficient energy sources. I don’t care for subsidies either, but if anyone believes that oil is not effectively subsidized perhaps they need to talk to some of our libertarian economist friends here.
Despite all of the above, I still think it’s a shame Mr. Nobel’s gift has to be squandered on the likes of Al Gore.
sure, a well pump: that’s what africa needs to finally get out of misery. that’s exactly the idea: they shouldn’t even get in the mindset of being able to build their own industry and energy plants.
that’s “bad”.
Who would believe for one minute that Al Gore would be enjoying posession of the Nobel Prize if it were not for his prominence, his having been Vice President of the United States, and a one-time candidate for President. And how likely that the award might go to some schlub running a natural foods store somewhere in the Mid-West and a member of the Green Party who might truly deserve it? It would seem that obscurity is hardly the virtue being honored here, Gore’s ambition his trademark ever since his father took his first payment from a lobbyist when a US Senator. The simple fact of having held political office ought to disqualify paramecia like Gore, Clinton, Bush, Guiliani and others from receiving the prize. To do otherwise is much like the Congregation For the Causes Of Saints taking into consideration the life of a then regnant Pope. Peace has little to do with politicians.
John Lowell
Scientific method is not about “consensus,” and we should be at least wary of anything supposedly backed by “consensus.”
Whatever the science of climate change, this is definitely an issue that the corporate state wishes to use to rob people of their liberty. Enron backed the Kyoto Protocol. Ford, Shell and top Republicans have now jumped on the bandwagon. Why? Because even if global warming is real — just as terrorism is real — a war waged upon it just means more power and wealth for the establishment.
As I keep trying to explain, we have more to thank Katherine Harris for than we usually imagine. But for her, this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize would be George W. Bush!
I’m very happy that Al Gore is getting the recognition that he rightly deserves. But another person is getting an award in the coming weeks, a man by the name of Lt. Michael Murphy. I wish more people knew who he was and the sacrifice he made.
Big Al gets the Nobel Peace Prize? Well, why not. After all, he was only complicit in wars and bombings in Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Sudan, etc. while Vice President. It coulda been worse.
Did they mention any of this when they announced the Peace Prize award? The Russians must have gotten a good howl out of this one.
http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/A3160_0_2_0_C/
it is the year 2016 and George Bush gets the Nobel Peace Price for campaigning vigorously to allow illegal Mexicans to stay and work in the USA. He claims that
a. It is their forefather’s land to begin with
b. They all speak a pigin version of a European Language
c. They work really hard for less money
d. They like their jobs
e. If we keep them here we avert war with Mexico
I voted for Bill and Al twice so I have nothing against Al but I think that awarding him a peace price this year seems a little too politically motivated for my taste. Why do some Scientist and Economist have to wait 15 years or more on some occasions to get a nobel for really brilliant proven work?
As for the Presidential elections, I have not found a single contender that I feel confident is capable of running this very big and complicated country - there is no one out there with the Charisma, steadfastness or brains. Very sad.
I am proud to state that I have never voted for Bill and Al, and won’t for Hillary. The presidential leadership I hope to be able to vote for next year is Paul-Kucinich or Kucinich-Paul, in fact my fervent wish.
Thank you, Tim Swanson, for coming out against this year’s choice for the Nobel Peace prize (I mean war criminal Kissinger got it in the past–shudder}. I also am so appreciative of all the scientific information shared by all the commentators.
hey, you forgot menachem begin and elie wiesel.
a terrorist and an apologist.
The science is in and man-made global warming is a joke. The claim was made long before there was any supporting evidence (right on the heels of the predicted global cooling disaster failed to materialize), but the issue is so appealing to left wing idealists and conniving cretins with large financial windfalls, facts find it hard to get in the way of the nonsensical juggernaut. Even Gore, who directly profits from carbon credits, gets a pass despite the laughingstock his film has become.
The prize is a joke, a sour loser makes a MOVIE and he wins not only an oscar and other MOVIE prizes, but he basically steals the fruit of hard working REAL scientist. He is a loser in every form!!
The Nobel meant to poopoo Bush which the Europeans consider the Iraqi butcher. But, Gore’s presidency would have been as much about Lieberman as Bush presidency is about Cheney!
Gore picked the first openly Zionist warmonger as his VICE and Lieberman’s policies now talk clearly about how Gore’s presidency would have been: MOST POSSIBLY Lieberman would have gone right to Iran after Iraq and then to other wars in which he would sacrifice American blood for Israel’s sake.
The Peace Prize became a joke long ago. I mean, come on Kissinger? Shimon Peres? These are war criiminals of the worst order.
Even the Grameen Bank guy last year. Sheesh. Introduce debt slavery, usury and repo men to the landless of the 3rd world and get a million dollar prize.
Ya know, Scott Horton can be a real as***le if you point out one of his errant presumptions, (stopped me from contributing to Anti War) but at least he is competent. This Swanson guy is the idiot ideologue I needed to stop me from resuming my contributions. Perhaps if you just stuck to Anti War and made allies where you could…?
It seems to me Swanson and a lot of other people are implying that since Al Gore was so far ahead of the curve on the environment as a whole that everything that didn’t or doesn’t get done is his fault.
At one time I thought Libertarianism seemed worth looking in to. Now, after reading a lot of Libertarians, to an outsider like me Libertarians look like ruthless capitalist ideologues of the Republican with a few (but not enough) redeeming qualities.
It has also become apparent to me practicality is not one of their strong points and “Politics as the art of the possible” doesn’t even make the list.
My sources? Libertarian’s own words.
Ever So Sincerely,
Michael D. Adams