Al Gore receives Nobel Peace Prize

What could be better than an Oscar? Today we learn: a Nobel Peace Prize. Al Gore was already a superstar with his film; now he enters the pantheon of great world leaders who have affected important social and political change, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Desmond Tutu, and Mother Teresa. The unique thing about this award is that while it rightly recognizes Gore’s environmental efforts, the award is even more of a message to world leaders (cough, Bush, cough) to get their act together and join the campaign. In other words, its focus is at least as much on future achievements as it is on past ones.

Comments

In the announcement from the Nobel Committee, they not only cited the crisis of global warming, but the way that the environmental damage was already leading to resource wars in Africa.

Gore will share the prize with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--a panel whose reports represent the scientific consensus that Bush and his sycophants on the Religious Right have sneered at for years.