Al Gore Shares Nobel Peace Prize with UN Panel

eldavojohn writes "Former US Vice President Al Gore has been announced as a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on environmental awareness & climate change. He shares his award with the the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 'Speaking in Washington, Mr Gore praised the IPCC, "whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years". "We face a true planetary emergency," Mr Gore warned. "It is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity." He said he would donate his half of the $1.5m prize money to the Alliance for Climate Protection, reported the news agency Reuters.'"

Re:No confidence

[UbuntuDupe]

No the OP, but here are my thoughts:

-He's being awarded for raising environmental awareness. Now, if opinion polls reveal that people believe extremely exaggerated versions what the IPCC said, did that mean he really raised "awareness" by spreading falsities? Would they revoke the prize?

-If the claims in his movie turn out to be wrong, or the solutions to have caused worse problems, or other problems to get much more severe, or the need to reduce global CO2 leads to a war with China and India, would the prize be revoked?

-What event would prove the IPCC wrong? If the earth gradually got colder over the next 40 years, would that justify carbon subsidies? It's not very scientific to say, "Whether the earth gets warmer or colder, it's absolutely vital that you reduce use of high-yield energy sources ... to stop global warming ... or global climate change ... or whatever."

-Typically, prizes aren't awarded until enough time has passed to show the long-term effect of what someone did. That hasn't happened.

Flame away.

Re:Congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

From an economic perspective carbon emissions reduction is a difficult thing to push on the public. If you do something like a carbon tax, then the majority of the tax burden will fall on the consumer (since the energy demand is very inelastic while energy supply is more elastic). An average consumer will not be amused when gas prices go up to $5/gal and yet Exxon still makes almost the same profits. The only way to solve this is to make energy demand more elastic (which is unlikely) or to make energy supply more inelastic. This is where carbon credits come in. But carbon credits will only force energy supply to be inelastic if you force shortages. This would also be very unpopular with the public. Otherwise, it is just another tax where the majority of the tax burden will again fall on the consumer.

So while Al Gore may have convinced the world that global warming is real, he now has to convince us that consumers, not producers have to pay for any measures against it unless we want shortages. That message will be about 100 times harder to sell.

Re:Should've gone to Bush, actually...

[toQDuj]

Em, Germany at least signed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kyoto_Protocol_signatories).

I don't know why China and India shouldn't bear so much of the burden of the Kyoto Protocol. Oh, hang on, perhaps because they are poor, thrid world countries perhaps.

You know, I'm pretty sure all this came up during the negociations of the protocol. It isn't like the US wasn't part of it and didn't agree to it then. The protocol was adjusted enough so that the US would agree to be part of it. So, what changed your mind? Is it.... Money?

B.

Here's my problem

[artemis67]

There's no question that the earth is going through some sort of warming trend. However, it's far from conclusive that that warming is man-made. In fact, there seems to be evidence that global warming is occurring on other planets in the solar system, too, suggesting that the cause is the Sun getting warmer:

http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/05/global-warming-on-jupiter.html [blogspot.com]

So, why are they giving Gore the Nobel Prize for giving out misinformation about a natural event that we can't do anything about?

Re:Here's my problem

[Burnhard]

That wasn't a debunking. It was a rather poor attempt at providing alternate explanations other than the blindingly obvious (the evidence for which is equally lacking). Because the blindingly obvious is not supported by the evidence we have so far accrued it does not mean that the blindingly obvious is in fact wrong. It could equally well mean that we haven't studied the blindingly obvious for long enough or hard enough because we have been too busy spending research grants on the blindingly alarmist.

Re:No confidence

[Lord Ender]

I love the way that, especially in Europe, people who live in moderate climates suggest that nobody should be using air conditioning. I would love to see you move to a hot, humid climate, and watch you in pathetic misery as you drown in your own sweat.

Anti-AC crusaders have blood on their hands for all the elderly who die during Europe's infrequent heat-waves.

I'm all for green technology, but if you think I'm going to watch my grandma die of heat stroke so that you can end the "evils" of climate control, you are dead fucking wrong.

Re:No confidence

[je ne sais quoi]

Climate change, even that not created by man, has the potential to cause more strife than oil ever could. It would be hard, but people can live without oil. People can't live without water or food. Small changes in climate can cause dramatic and rapid changes in local climates.

Arguably, it already has. There's an idea out there that climate change during the medieval warm period [wikipedia.org] drove the Scandanavian population explosion during the middle ages, hence the abundance of Viking raids and colonization of Iceland, Britain, Greenland and the attempted colonization of North America. Once the climate started to cool during the little ice age [wikipedia.org] the population size was reduced and put an end to their expansion.

Sick of Skeptics. David Suzuki and Al Gore.

[sherriw]

There will never be an end to the number of people who will fight any mention that humans are causing climate change. No one is saying we are the ONLY factor. But we are a big part of it, and we can control our actions, compared to trying to control other natural factors. Shouldn't we do so... just in case?

I always notice that in my local paper, when they publish articles from global warming skeptics... these individuals are often the heads of various organizations and groups, professors, history buffs, basically anything but actual climatologists or environmental scientists. Not always, but often. I find that interesting.

The MAJORITY of climate scientists agree that humans are contributing to warming. I'm going to go with that conclusion because it's better to be safe than sorry, and because I can see the proof with my own eyes.

Climate Myths Examined: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462 [newscientist.com]

As for Mr. Gore and the IPCC winning the peace prize... good for them. Someone is standing up and shouting about this. Yes, I feel Mr. Gore is a bit of a phony in his personal life, but his message isn't. If I had the choice I would have recognized Canada's Dr. David Suzuki ( http://www.davidsuzuki.org/ [davidsuzuki.org] ) for his work educating the public about all kinds of environmental issues... and he does so in a more science based rather than hollywood-dazzle kind of way. He recently toured across Canada giving talks and raising awareness in a very locally focused down to earth way and he's been doing this for DECADES. He deserves this prize as much if not more than Gore.

Either way, I'm glad environmental issues get a nod of recognition here.

Re:Peace Prize != Good Science

[apparently]

most of the science Al Gore uses is junk science or poorly interpreted science

Here's something you might try: provide some examples of your accurate science, and proof of why your interpretation is correct.
And maybe offer up some credentials.
And opinions of respected peers.

Can you do that? Or are trolls allergic to due diligence?
(those last two are rhetorical, don't worry.)

I don't know if I'd call it deserving

[Sycraft-fu]

Look at the prize winners in other fields. There is no question as to their contribution to that specific discipline. Here, however, there is a very tenuous connection. They say that global warming will cause wars, and thus by preventing it will prevent wars. That relies off of a whole bunch of assumptions:

1) That global warming is human caused. I'm not interested in debating this, but realise that it is an assumption.
2) That Gore/the IPCC's proposals will cause it to be stopped. Just because they are proposing things limiting CO2 doesn't mean it'll be enough to affect global warming. There are a good number of alarmist types out there who say we are way past the critical point and we'd have to shut down like 90% of human industry to stop it, something that Gore fell well short of advocating.
3) That anything can be done. May be that no matter what we do we just aren't capable of preventing it.
4) That global warming will lead to bad things. Again this is an assumption, there are plenty of arguments to how a warmer globe will lead to more abundance, nor more scarcity.
5) That wars wouldn't break out anyhow in the same regions for different reasons. Sadly enough, the "issues" behind a war often aren't, they are simply an excuse for the behaviour, not the actual reason behind it.

So only if that's all true, if humans are causing global warming, if we can stop it with change, if what Gore is proposing is the required change, if that change will prevent scarcity and preventing scarcity will prevent wars, is his work actually peace related. Even if that's all true, it's still pretty tenuous. I mean someone might make an amazing discovery in physics that gives us nearly limitless energy, that allows for the improving lives everywhere. Still, that's be a prize for Physics, not Peace, even if we thought the ultimate result would be less war because of more abundance.

As such I'd say it is real tenuous to say he's helping peace. Sounds like your man is a much better candidate. It is entirely possible that Gore/IPCC's work is more important in the scheme of humanity, but that doesn't matter. This is an award for the work in peace, and Martti Ahtisaari seems to have done that, whereas Gore's work lies along another path.

Climate change will cause war

[IdahoEv]

As the climate changes, somewhere upwards of a billion coastal dwellers will be displaced. If melting arctic ice shuts down the gulf stream, the temperature decrease could reduce the productivity of farmland in Europe and North America by 75% or more.

Changes in the balance of resources can trigger the biggest wars of them all. How many wars has the world already fought over oil, food, water, or salt? (yes, salt, look it up).

Add to that the fact that the world will know in advance who is primarily responsible for the CO2 emissions that f*cked up their countries (1st world nations, most notably the US), and will be looking for someone to blame. If you think the world hates the US now, just wait until many great cities are underwater and half a billion have died, and they can point to a single nation for having emitted 40% of world's historical output of greenhouse gasses and having refused every treaty to try to reduce them. Al Qaeda will have a lot of friends.

Climate change may not be causing wars *now*, but many people believe it will likely lead to the worst worldwide wars in history. The biggest difference one can make to any war is to prevent it in the first place, and Gore is working as hard on that front as anyone is. He absolutely deserves the peace prize.

Re:No confidence

[tbannist]

It's even worse than that, he actually find 9 inaccuracies, he found 9 instances where there wasn't explicit proof that the comment was true. If you look at the issues it's a case of "there's not enough evidence to prove this yet", "while the sea level will rise to that level, it will probably take longer than indicated", and other such comments. I think that puts an Inconvenient Truth as a substancially higher credibility rate than an Encyclopedia, which we should all remember from the Wikipedi vs Britanica articles.

Re:No confidence

[CorSci81]

If all the ice melts will the sea levels rise? Yes they will. Will they rise 7 meters? No way. 1-2 meters maybe.

The melting of the Laurentide ice sheet over North America at the end of the last ice age produced a 20 meter rise in sea level over roughly 500 years. Granted, it was larger than Greenland, but definitely it's on par with Antarctica. The volume of ice contained in Antarctica is 30 million cubic kilometers of ice. Spread that out over the ocean surface area of the world (362 million sq km) and you get about 80 meters before you account for the fact that ocean surface area increases as sea level goes up. Greenland's ice sheet is roughly 1/10th that of Antarctica (and is firmly on land), I'll let you do that math.

And don't forget that the ice already floating in the water will not make the sea level rise anymore since it already displaces it's own weight.

Actually, not quite true. The floating ice has a lower salinity than the ocean, meaning even in liquid form it's less dense. So it does contribute, just not as much as melting a block of ice that's firmly on land.

Re:A link to your own journal?

[Bemopolis]

The existense of a number of naturally-driven cycles is well known and well supported. But their existence does not supplant anthropogenic carbon as a forcing--rather, they interact with it. Natural cycles and carbon dioxide impacts are operating simultaneously, and understanding their interactions is one of the goals of computer modelling.

This reminds me of a simple filter I use when discussing AGW: I ask them to explain to me how (natural) global warming physically works, without appeal to references or citation. If they can, we can then discuss why they are skeptical about AGW on a rational basis; if they can't, and they try to rely on appeals to scientific expertise, I know I can win the numbers game; if they can't and don't rely on appeals from polemicists instead of scientific expertise, then I know I've already wasted enough time talking to an ideologue.

Ah, the sparse but satisfying advantages of being a scientist...