Gore Likely to Get Nobel Prize

[illinoisprogressive]

OSLO (Reuters) - Former Vice President Al Gore and other campaigners against climate change lead experts' choices for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, an award once reserved for statesmen, peacemakers and human rights activists.
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If a campaigner against global warming carries off the high world accolade later this month, it will accentuate a shift to reward work outside traditional peacekeeping and reinforce the link between peace and the environment.

The winner, who will take $1.5 million in prize money, will be announced in the Norwegian capital on October 12 from a field of 181 nominees.

Gore, who has raised awareness with his book and Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," and Canadian Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier, who has shed light on how global warming affects Arctic peoples, were nominated to share the prize by two Norwegian parliamentarians.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071005/wl_canada_nm/canada_nobel_peace_col;_ylt=ArM5TwYqB1XjihGqKMo.jRxvaA8F

[kurth]

1. Well deserved too

Asshole Kissinger got one.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Wouldn't that be a great old-fashioned kick-in-the-head???

I would celebrate....a lot....and laugh and laugh and laugh.
After not being allowed to take the office of president to which he was rightfully elected, Gore has garnered more respect and honor around the world than prez shit-for-brains will EVER EVER see on this planet.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

3. :-)

:-)

MKJ

[Nite Owl]

4. I so hope he gets this

he has worked so hard and truly deserves it.

[Zoigal]

5. WOW

that would be so great. Can't think of anyone
who deserves it more. p

[rusty quoin]

6. I watched the McLaughlin Group earlier, and McLaughlin predicted his win.

[illinoisprogressive]

7. I cannot wait until it's announced and the name is Al Gore

[emsimon33]

8. Gore certainly deserves the Nobel Peace Prize

and the presidency!

[opihimoimoi]

9. Them GOOPers will be SOOOO Envious/Jealous if Gore wins....

[Lugnut]

11. Oh, good.

That's just a bonus.

[hvn_nbr_2]

21. I think you're too optimistic

The Goopers will just take it as evidence that Norway is full of Commie socialists.

[babylonsister]

10. Unless he doesn't. Hey, it could happen. I hope not, and I think he

deserves it. Absolutely. And I just heard McLaughlin Group on PBS- he thinks Al's the winner, too.

[saltpoint]

12. It could be a good week at Al & Tipper's house. I can't help but notice

that Tom Tancredo wasn't nominated.

[Gravel2008]

13. I think it's a big stretch to award an environmentalist the peace price

and not along the lines of what Alfred Nobel intended. But it's not like those Norwegians haven't fucked up before; Kissinger is but one example in a long line.

[Rose Siding]

15. Perhaps you're unaware of the impact global warming will have on peace and security?

The first component of the prize mentioned in Nobel's will is that it go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations". Al Gore is a highly recognized and decorated leader between nations for this issue, which even our own Pentagon has determined to be a larger threat to global stability than terrorism.

About that Pentagon report:

snip>
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5019

[Gravel2008]

17. And perhaps you're unaware of the continuation of that quote?

Why else did you stop mid-sentence in it? The continuation is "for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses". Conflating environmental work with real peace work IS a stretch, and it devaluates the prize when just about anybody can get it for anything - like that African woman who got it for planting some trees (!). Al Gore hasn't done anything to warrant a peace prize; there are several environmental awards he'd be more suited for.

That Pentagon report is bullshit by the way, like so much else out of that organization. The only thing they have right is that dwindling resources will lead to instability, which it doesn't take a genius to figure out. But that has more to do with overpopulation and insufficient redistribution than conceived environmental threats induced by man.

[Labors of Hercules]

22. A typically hotheaded one dimensional response...

To an issue that is far more complex. And need we remind you that instructions dictated by Nobel many years ago may in a modern context actually detract from the "legitimacy" of the prize if interpreted too concretely?

[antigop]

18. HA! Oct, 2004 Kenyan Environmentalist Wins Nobel Peace Prize

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/08/international/08CND-NOBE.html

>>
Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman who started an environmental movement that has planted 30 million trees in Africa and who has campaigned for women's rights and greater democracy in her home country, today won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

She is the first African woman to win the peace prize since it was first awarded in 1901. Last year, the prize was awarded to another woman, Shirin Ebadi, in recognition of her work promoting the rights of women and children as a lawyer in Iran.

Announcing the award here, the Nobel committee chairman, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, said Ms. Maathai "represents an example and a source of inspiration for everyone in Africa fighting for sustainable development, democracy and peace."

With the award, the Nobel committee expanded the traditional boundaries of the peace prize that were laid out in 1896 in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite. He decreed that it should go "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."

Asked if the committee had stretched the limits of the prize that already recognizes human rights advocacy and peacekeeping, Professor Mjoes, a physician and former president of the University of Tromsoe, replied, speaking in Norweigan: "It is clear that with this award, we have expanded the term peace to encompass environmental questions related to our beloved earth." And in his prepared statement, he added, "Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment."
>>

[karynnj]

19. Maathai is incredible - here's a link to a speech

she gave to students of Holy Cross a year or so ago.

http://www.holycross.edu/publicaffairs/features/2006-2007/maathai_audio

edited to add that I hope that Gore does win. He deserves it by having found a way to reach Americans.

[antigop]

20. Thank you! I heard her on NPR the other day. Yes, she is incredible! n/t

[trusty elf]

14. Wouldn't it be great if Gore won the Nobel Prize

and smircus maximus got indicted for war crimes.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. How many awards has Gore gotten?

He's becoming the big one that got away. We ended up with the lemon.

[AmBlue]

23. Gore, Carter.....

These two noble and brilliant men, so right-minded, so devoted to this country and this planet, so obviously willing to "walk the walk" even when it's unconnected to anything political, yet the toxic combo of American politics and media chews them up and spits them out like yesterday's trash while we watch. What the hell is wrong with this country??

[OnionPatch]

24. I just hold to the hope

that history will sort it out and give credit where credit is due.

[AtomicKitten]

25. Al Gore is the best of men.

He deserves all the kudos coming his way.

And my fingers are still crossed that he will run.

[ooglymoogly]

26. If Gore wins and he better it will be a kick in the heart strings.

R-U-N

[Lisa]

27. I'd be thinking -- wow! I made eye contact with a future Nobel Prize winner!

I managed to get a ticket to a speech he gave in my town last weekend. Very moving -- and I was impressed when he insisted on visiting the overflow room, just to say hello to all of us who were in there watching him on the live video feed.