Gore and U.N. Panel Win Peace Prize for Climate Work - New York Times

October 12th, 2007 Politics, climate change, global warmingTags: Al Gore, global warming, IPCC, Nobel Peace Prize, Politics

Gore and U.N. Panel Win Peace Prize for Climate Work - New York Times

Gore, IPCC, and the Nobel Peace Prize

The Award of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – for raising awareness of global climate change – is well deserved. It is no small feat to spearhead an international media and public relations campaign to shape public opinion, and influence the scientific community for a consensus to the extent that what was once a debate is now a scientific fact.

Similarly, relying on the expertise of the world’s most highly experienced and revered intelligence community, the UN Weapons Inspectors, and the President of the United States, his advisors, and a majority of congressional representatives - Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction necessitated the U.S. Military in “taking action”, an action supported by more than 70% of Americans. As in the Iraq war, it does not matter if the reasons for taking action are founded in fact or fallacy, for precipitous action will prove as much a folly in “dealing” with global warming as military action has in Iraq. More than “An Inconvenient Truth”, this is an inescapable reality.

In an official statement by Al Gore, he says: “The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.”

If moral and spiritual challenges to all of humanity are not purely political issues, they are nothing at all. If “the climate crisis” is not a political issue, then climate change is quite simply change.

Now that the debate is over - let the cooling begin.