An Appreciation Of Al Gore

[EV_Ares]

Hon. Wangari Maathai 10.22.07, 6:00 AM ET
Wangari Maathai

NAIROBI - When I learned this month that the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for their groundbreaking work to raise awareness about the threats posed by global warming, I was delighted.

In 1990, then Sen. Gore visited the Green Belt Movement in Kenya and later wrote about our work planting trees with poor, rural women in his book Earth in the Balance. A few years later, Vice President Gore invited me to join him on a trip to Haiti to view first-hand the effects of extreme deforestation on the country. Nearly every tree had been cut down, and people, desperate to feed themselves, had planted crops wherever they could, including on barren hillsides. When the rains came, the soil just washed away.

Unfortunately, little has changed. In times of extreme floods and hurricanes, which affect Haiti all too often, thousands of people lose their homes and their lives.

Back then, neither of us could imagine being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize or, indeed, that the Norwegian Nobel Committee would expand its conception of peace and security to encompass protecting the environment, ensuring the equitable and sustainable use of natural resources, and raising awareness of the linkages between ecological stress and conflict. By choosing Al Gore and the IPCC as this year's peace laureates, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has rightly reminded us that climate change is the single biggest threat to world peace.

entire article by wangari maathai @ link below:

http://www.forbes.com/home/opinions/2007/10/19/nobel-prize-gore-oped-cx_hwm_1022maathai.html

[Kurovski]

1. Excellent.

K&R.