Congratulations, Al Gore! 2007 Nobel Peace Prize
October 12th, 2007Al Gore was announced today as the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work spreading the word and creating awareness of global climate change in his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”. He is sharing this award with the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We need to be gravely concerned with climate change, for as Mr. Gore says,”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.”
Whether you believe what is being said regarding global climate change or not, the fact is that the Earth’s climate is changing. Just in this decade, we have born witness to hurricane/typhoon that have increased in intensity and impact, observed climate cooling in places that have been revered as hot zones for centuries and the reverse in places that have been cool (Arctic Ice Pack is disappearing; Northwest Passage opening up). As the polar ice caps melt, sea levels will rise, coastal marshlands and littoral areas that are densely populated will disappear under the sea, islands that exist today in a fragile balance with the rise and fall of the ocean tides will merely disappear (fodder for a new Atlantis theory thousands of years from now). You’ve heard it all and I’m not gonna try to regurgitate all of it for the sake of doing so. According to the IPCC, we can do things today that can spare us from the worst of the predictions that are being made regarding the world 10 years from now. Just ask yourself what you can do and read more up on it and arm yourself. Human rights causes are one thing, but when mother nature does her thing, all of this means nothing.
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Al Gore, congratulations on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Now it is time to announce your wish to become America’s president, take your seat in the White House, and be the leader we have all been waiting for to move beyond the corrupt system of Empire and towards Earth community. Kudos to the Nobel Committee for realizing that sustainability is peace.
Mr. Gore could very well do a lot of good not only for plotting a course change for America, but with the world community, as well, since he’s for any agenda that leads to positive change. We can only hope. He’d definitely have my vote.
Except that Gore’s movie has done nothing tangible to benefit the lives of others, nor has it (yet) proved itself to inspire actual lifestyle change. IMHO, if there is one prize that should be based upon proved results and not merely theory, it’s the peace prize because peace is not merely an idea. As a friend from the Niger Delta once told me, peace feels like a shady tree when you are caught in a firey hell not of your own making.
Although I absolutely agree with, and support, Gore’s message, I find this year’s prize depressing. There are people who put their lives on the line every day for the specific reason of stopping aggression and fostering equality. They are the ones who need true empowerment and whose stature should be elevated to be a poster child for peace. I cannot honor what the Nobel committee did this year. I feel this year’s peace prize is ultimately counterproductive because it establishes false role models and sows confusion. Al Gore is a glitzy broker for the environment, a spokesperson who values his personal image. He doesn’t practice what he preaches like Ed Begley, nor has he made personal sacrifices the way so many leaders who are desperate and truly motivated to achieve peace for their people, and for others, do.
Al Gore is the wrong dude for this prize if you really think about the ultimate message his prize sends. Peace is dirty, not glitzy. To dedicate yourself in service to others is the highest achievment according to Cesar Chavez — a man who starved himself so that others could live better. But would Al Gore do that? That’s why Wangari Maathai deserved the prize a few years ago for her environmental activism; it’s dedication, service, the work, and lives that are important to her. Her public persona takes a distant back seat, if one at all.
This prize is a slap in the face to all the truly honorable people we have working in the image of leaders like Cesar Chavez, Mahatma Gandhi, MLK Jr., and Shirin Ebadi today — people whose personal lives take a backseat to those for whom they advocate — and whose personal image is inconsequential compared to their strive to benefit the world. With today’s prize, it’s no wonder why few people seem to understand what true peace means anymore.
Basically, you are saying that a person must emulate someone else to the very thread of the other person’s existence and lifestyle, whether natural or by choice, to be worthy of doing good work? That is what you are saying. Do you think that Al Gore’s supposed wealth could reverse the change to a point that climate change can be halted? I don’t think any one person’s personal wealth and actions can do that solely. Mr. Gore chose on his own a cause to do something about. A cause that you and I may have paid little mind to. It’s always after the fact that people become so critical of others and their works. I and many others in this world feel he is more than worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. With climate change comes chaos. Chaos brings misunderstanding and conflict. Basically, you are saying that he is doing nothing to stem potential conflict. The “Tree Woman” did win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work in environmental activism in Kneya to stem soil erosion and hr work does garner attention even today with her work with the UN. As a member of Kenya’s Parliament, her advice and counsel has been sought out by leaders and others because of her subjct matter expertise. Yes, Ms. Mathaai’s reputation may not be as shining as Mr. Gore’s but nontheless, she is known and respected.
Would Al Gore starve himself for a cause? I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him? For every one person who is quick to praise someone, there are 10 who are so critical of a person that they would spend their energy in trying to refute accolades given to the person in the spotlight.
Personally, I’d rather see the prize go to someone who is more concerned with fostering peace than with his/her public persona — someone like Wangari Maathai who walks their talk instead of merely acting as a public spokesperson for a cause. But hey, maybe I’m kooky that way.
And btw, if you read my comments, I don’t criticize Gore’s movie, I actually support it and am glad it is in the public sphere. However, I do reject the notion that it deserves the world’s foremost prize for peacemaking in a world where people make enormous sacrifices on behalf of others, and which Al Gore has yet to do.
I understand you, and I can see your point. The fact is, Mr. Gore had no part in the decision process on the panel who decides who gets what. As far as sacrifices go, I don’t think anybody can make a true assessment on how a person made sacrifices and how their actions impacted the world until, ahem… after they are no longer with us. Who are we to say that Mr. Gore may feel compelled to put more action to the notion? I can imagine that as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, that is a heavy card to carry and it goes without saying the world does look towards those individuals and says,”Ok… Now what?!” Either push one and make greater inroads or do as some have done, rested on their laurels. I am sure you know the type, just as I do. You know, the ones who have all of their achievements placed on their “I love me” wall. The ones who are quick to tell you of their past achievements when you ask them what are they doing today. I pray Mr. Gore pushes on and makes us all more aware and lead us into action on fixing some of the things we keep passing on to the next generation. In response to the negativity that has come out of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize, he states that he is ready to push further along, and who knows… maybe he and Ms. Maathai will work together with other prominent leaders in helping arrest and lessen the impact of global warming and climate change, resulting in future conflicts held in abeyance.
Many past winners have been genuine heros (and heroines) of human progress, others not quite so much: some winners have been nearly the opposite! Over the last two decades there’ve been too many of the “others” and it’s somewhat cheapened the prize, in my opinion.
Does the award to Gore/IPCC improve or lessen the status of the award in your eyes?
I don’t think it does either (improve or lessen). The fact of an enviromental crisis that affects all of us, which can potentially lead to other crisis (fighting for scarce resources; migration of people to areas of elevated land and clashes with the original peoples, to name a few) or further enflame current crisis would be the aftershock felt. One can see this in history, for example the migration of nomadic steppes people from western China escaping from other nomadic peoples towards the west in search of newer grasslands.
There is something really sad and disgusting that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize and has nothing to say about the genocide his country is committing in Iraq.
If he doesn’t care about the about the innocent Iraqis killed by the U.S. invasion, at least he should talk about how the United States has damaged the environment with its bombings, and use of chemical weapons and depleted uranium.
They don’t use chemical weapons and depleted uranium is inert. A person, even Mr. Gore, cannot solve everything. Choose the battles you have a fighting chnace at making inroads with and then move on to the next. For him to apologize for the Iraqi War would be like me and other Americans walking around doing the same thing. It just so happens he is a former VP.
Here is an article about the U.S. using chemical weapons in Iraq.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1642831,00.html
Here is an article that talks about depleted uranium. http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0515/p01s02a-woiq.htm
There are debates about how dangerous it is. I’ll just quote part of it here
Here is an article about the environment in Iraq.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4425562.stm
Al Gore does have something to say about Iraq. In his latest book, “The Assault on Reason”, Gore describes the current political environment in the United States and argues that the marketplace of reasoned debate the US was founded on is being endangered by a variety of allied forces: the use of fear and the misuse of faith, the distractions of the entertainment culture, and the concentrations of power in the national media and the executive branch.
A quote from Chapter 1: “History will surely judge America’s decision to invade and occupy a fragile and unstable nation that did not attack us and posed no threat to us as a decision that was not only tragic but absurd.”
http://www.amazon.com/Assault-Reason-Al-Gore/dp/1594201226