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Gore and the IPCC win the Nobel Peace Prize

By worldsfair on October 12, 2007.

temperature.jpg

IPCC figures rock!


And there's a lot of discussion taking place around the blogosphere that concerns the merit behind this particular choice (here's a good overview at the NYT), ranging from the errors in his movie, as well as the debate over whether activism in the climate change arena constitutes a major contribution to issue of "peace" itself.

What do people think around here?

In any event, the IPCC being a co-winner, I think, is a no brainer. This is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a large (like 2000 or so!) UN group of academics from a variety of disciplines (many from UBC by the way) charged with the goal of sitting down and trying to get the facts straight in an objective manner to "lay it all out" for the public and also the policy movers and shakers. If you haven't heard of this before, check out the Terry FAQs (part 1 and part 2) on the topic.

Also go to their website. Their reports (especially the one on science for policy makers) are all kinds of awesome.

Tags
Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally

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I signed the petition to draft him for President of the U.S. Why? Because the world needs serious leadership on the issue and the position of President is a very effective bully pulpit.

But here we have a man who is a former Vice President, an Oscar winner, an Emmy Winner, a best selling author, and now a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Talk about a legacy.

I think climate change activism, especially on the scale of Al Gore and the IPCC, does help to bring peace. As Jared Diamond and countless others have pointed out, one of the biggest contributors to violent conflict is a lack of resources (or even a perceived lack), and our present path of reckless consumption will only worsen the situation.

For instance, would we be in Iraq today if weren't so dependent on oil? Climate change activism has multiple positive repercussions throughout our world.