With everyone weighing in on this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, it’s been revealing to see what the media makes of it, and how oddly misdirected their questions have been: Will Al run for president? (Argh.) What has climate change got to do with peace? (Huh?) Is this merely a political jab to the current U.S. administration? (So what?)
But the editors of the NYT pretty much nailed it:
What the citation didn’t mention but needs to be said is that it shouldn’t have to be left to a private citizen — even one so well known as Mr. Gore — or a panel of scientists to raise that alarm or prove what is now clearly an undeniable link or champion solutions to a problem that endangers the entire planet.
That should be, and must be the job of governments. And governments — above all the Bush administration — have failed miserably.
There will be skeptics who ask what the Peace Prize has to do with global warming. The committee answered that unhesitatingly with its warning that climate change, if unchecked, could unleash massive migrations, violent competitions for resources and, ultimately, threaten the “security of mankind.”
There will also be those who complain that this prize — like the committee’s earlier awards to Jimmy Carter and the chief United Nations nuclear inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei — is an intentional slap at President Bush. It should be. We only wish that it would finally wake up the president.
What has your favorite Nobel coverage (good or bad) been?
