Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize

By Anastacia Mott Austin

Al Gore has won the Nobel Prize for Peace, along the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), effectively sealing the legitimacy of the global warming issue.

The IPCC and Al Gore were honored "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change," says the website for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Added the site’s press release about Gore, "He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted."

The IPCC was formed in 1988, and is made up of the contributions of thousands of scientists from over 100 countries who review existing research data on climate change.

The Nobel committee’s chairman Ole Danbolt Mjos said,"Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming."

Gore plans to donate his half of the $1.5 million prize to the Alliance for Climate Change, a non-profit organization he helped found.

And while some might not equate global warming with peace, experts in both climate change and global conflicts see a clear relationship, which has been underscored by the award. Countries whose agricultural livelihoods are dependent upon climate stability will definitely see increased conflicts as those resources dwindle, say those experts.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, told reporters, "I believe there are many places that are in, or on the edge of, conflict because of climate change already, and this prize is a warning that on our current trajectory of climate change the risk will get a lot worse — these will be the conflicts of the 21st century."

The award has also stirred up renewed interest in whether or not Al Gore could still consider a run for the Presidency in 2008. An organization that calls itself DraftGore took out a full page ad in The New York Times this week, imploring Gore to run. The ad said, in part, that "America and the Earth need a hero right now — someone who will transcend politics as usual and bring real hope to our country and to the world."

But Gore insists that it’s not going to happen. At an initial press conference after the award was announced, reporters shouted questions about a Presidential run as Gore was leaving the podium, but he didn’t answer them.

Sources close to Gore say that he is more content to be where he is now, focusing on world climate change instead of having to worry about politics.

As Gore said himself, "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."