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http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/Gore_Peace_prize/2007/10/12/40317.html
Gore, U.N. Body Win Nobel Peace Prize
Friday, October 12, 2007
OSLO, Norway -- Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize
Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and
lay the foundations for counteracting it.
"I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize," Gore said. "We face
a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it
is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."
Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary on global warming, won an
Academy Award this year and he had been widely expected to win the prize.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said global warming, "may induce large-scale
migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. Such
changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable
countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars,
within and between states."
Gore said he would donate his share of the $1.5 million that accompanies the
prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan nonprofit
organization devoted to conveying the urgency of solving the climate crisis.
"His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and
books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change," the Nobel
citation said. "He is probably the single individual who has done most to
create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be
adopted."
Gore supporters have been raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for
petition drives and advertising in an effort to lure him into the Democratic
presidential primaries. One group, Draftgore.com, ran a full-page open
letter to Gore in Wednesday's New York Times, imploring him to get into the
race.
Gore, 59, has been coy, saying repeatedly he's not running for the
Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, without ever closing that door
completely.
He was the Democratic nominee in 2000 and won the general election popular
vote. However, Gore lost the electoral vote to George W. Bush after a legal
challenge to the Florida result that was decided by the Supreme Court.
Peace Prize committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes said a possible Gore
presidential run was not his concern.
"I want this prize to have everyone ... every human being, asking what they
should do," Mjoes said. "What he (Gore) decides to do from here is his
personal decision."
However, when asked about the 2008 U.S. elections, he said: "I am very much
in support for all who support changes."
The last American to win the prize or share it was former President Carter
in 2002.
The Nobel committee cited the Panel on Climate Change for two decades of
scientific reports that have "created an ever-broader informed consensus
about the connection between human activities and global warming."
Members of the panel, a network of 2,000 scientists, were surprised that it
was chosen to share the honor with Gore, a spokeswoman said.
"We would have been happy even if he had received it alone because it is a
recognition of the importance of this issue," spokeswoman Carola Traverso
Saibante said.
The panel forecast this year that all regions of the world will be affected
by climate warming and that a third of the Earth's species will vanish if
global temperatures continue to rise until they are 3.6 degrees above the
average temperature in the 1980s and '90s.
"Decisive action in the next decade can still avoid some of the most
catastrophic scenarios the IPCC has forecast," said Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s
top climate official.
He urged consensus among the United States and other countries on attacking
the problem.
Climate change has moved high on the international agenda this year. The
U.N. climate panel has been releasing reports, talks on a replacement for
the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate are set to resume and on Europe's
northern fringe, where the awards committee works, there is growing concern
about the melting Arctic.
Jan Egeland, a Norwegian peace mediator and former U.N. undersecretary for
humanitarian affairs, also called climate change more than an environmental
issue.
"It is a question of war and peace," said Egeland, now director of the
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs in Oslo. "We're already seeing
the first climate wars, in the Sahel belt of Africa." He said nomads and
herders are in conflict with farmers because the changing climate has
brought drought and a shortage of fertile lands.
The committee often uses the coveted prize to cast the global spotlight on a
relatively little-known person or cause. Since Gore already has a high
profile some had doubted that the committee would bestow the prize on him
"because he does not need it."
Gore's climate change effort has had its share of criticism.
A British judge said in a ruling published Wednesday that some assertions in
his documentary were not supported by scientific evidence. The case involved
a challenge from a school official who did not want the film shown to
students.
The ruling detailed High Court Judge Michael Burton's decision this month to
allow screenings of the film in English secondary schools. The judge said
that written guidance to teachers, designed to ensure Gore's views are not
presented uncritically, must accompany the screenings.
In recent years, the Nobel committee has broadened the interpretation of
peacemaking and disarmament efforts outlined by Swedish industrialist Alfred
Nobel in creating the prize with his 1895 will. The prize now often also
recognizes human rights, democracy, elimination of poverty, sharing
resources and the environment.
Two of the past three prizes have been untraditional, with the 2004 award to
Kenya environmentalist Wangari Maathai and last year's award to Bangladeshi
economist Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank, which makes to micro-loans to
the country's poor.
The prize also includes a gold medal and a diploma.
The prize for economics will be announced Monday.
Gore, U.N. Body Win Nobel Peace Prize
Friday, October 12, 2007
OSLO, Norway -- Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize
Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and
lay the foundations for counteracting it.
"I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize," Gore said. "We face
a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it
is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."
Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary on global warming, won an
Academy Award this year and he had been widely expected to win the prize.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said global warming, "may induce large-scale
migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. Such
changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable
countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars,
within and between states."
Gore said he would donate his share of the $1.5 million that accompanies the
prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan nonprofit
organization devoted to conveying the urgency of solving the climate crisis.
"His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and
books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change," the Nobel
citation said. "He is probably the single individual who has done most to
create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be
adopted."
Gore supporters have been raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for
petition drives and advertising in an effort to lure him into the Democratic
presidential primaries. One group, Draftgore.com, ran a full-page open
letter to Gore in Wednesday's New York Times, imploring him to get into the
race.
Gore, 59, has been coy, saying repeatedly he's not running for the
Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, without ever closing that door
completely.
He was the Democratic nominee in 2000 and won the general election popular
vote. However, Gore lost the electoral vote to George W. Bush after a legal
challenge to the Florida result that was decided by the Supreme Court.
Peace Prize committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes said a possible Gore
presidential run was not his concern.
"I want this prize to have everyone ... every human being, asking what they
should do," Mjoes said. "What he (Gore) decides to do from here is his
personal decision."
However, when asked about the 2008 U.S. elections, he said: "I am very much
in support for all who support changes."
The last American to win the prize or share it was former President Carter
in 2002.
The Nobel committee cited the Panel on Climate Change for two decades of
scientific reports that have "created an ever-broader informed consensus
about the connection between human activities and global warming."
Members of the panel, a network of 2,000 scientists, were surprised that it
was chosen to share the honor with Gore, a spokeswoman said.
"We would have been happy even if he had received it alone because it is a
recognition of the importance of this issue," spokeswoman Carola Traverso
Saibante said.
The panel forecast this year that all regions of the world will be affected
by climate warming and that a third of the Earth's species will vanish if
global temperatures continue to rise until they are 3.6 degrees above the
average temperature in the 1980s and '90s.
"Decisive action in the next decade can still avoid some of the most
catastrophic scenarios the IPCC has forecast," said Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s
top climate official.
He urged consensus among the United States and other countries on attacking
the problem.
Climate change has moved high on the international agenda this year. The
U.N. climate panel has been releasing reports, talks on a replacement for
the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate are set to resume and on Europe's
northern fringe, where the awards committee works, there is growing concern
about the melting Arctic.
Jan Egeland, a Norwegian peace mediator and former U.N. undersecretary for
humanitarian affairs, also called climate change more than an environmental
issue.
"It is a question of war and peace," said Egeland, now director of the
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs in Oslo. "We're already seeing
the first climate wars, in the Sahel belt of Africa." He said nomads and
herders are in conflict with farmers because the changing climate has
brought drought and a shortage of fertile lands.
The committee often uses the coveted prize to cast the global spotlight on a
relatively little-known person or cause. Since Gore already has a high
profile some had doubted that the committee would bestow the prize on him
"because he does not need it."
Gore's climate change effort has had its share of criticism.
A British judge said in a ruling published Wednesday that some assertions in
his documentary were not supported by scientific evidence. The case involved
a challenge from a school official who did not want the film shown to
students.
The ruling detailed High Court Judge Michael Burton's decision this month to
allow screenings of the film in English secondary schools. The judge said
that written guidance to teachers, designed to ensure Gore's views are not
presented uncritically, must accompany the screenings.
In recent years, the Nobel committee has broadened the interpretation of
peacemaking and disarmament efforts outlined by Swedish industrialist Alfred
Nobel in creating the prize with his 1895 will. The prize now often also
recognizes human rights, democracy, elimination of poverty, sharing
resources and the environment.
Two of the past three prizes have been untraditional, with the 2004 award to
Kenya environmentalist Wangari Maathai and last year's award to Bangladeshi
economist Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank, which makes to micro-loans to
the country's poor.
The prize also includes a gold medal and a diploma.
The prize for economics will be announced Monday.
