Al Gore

Three reasons Gore deserves the Nobel Peace Prize

Conservative carping aside, Al Gore is a perfect candidate for three reasons:

1. The award has always gone to people who have done more than just promote "peace," such as Albert Schweitzer, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mother Teresa.
2. The award has recently (2004) gone to an environmental leader, the great Wangari Maathai, who "founded the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots environmental nongovernmental organization, which has now planted over 30 million trees across Kenya to prevent soil erosion."
3. Global warming is a grave threat to future peace and security -- as more and more experts are acknowledging. Global warming creates the possibility of millions of refugees, spurred terrorism, sea-level rise, and food and water shortages -- water being a major source of conflict. Indeed, climate change may already have been a key factor in the Darfur crisis (see here and here).

If we avoid catastrophic global warming, Al Gore's tireless efforts to educate the nation and the world will be a major reason. He will have prevented untold humanitarian crises and countless regional conflicts. Gore would bring honor to the award.

Gore thought likely to take home the Nobel Peace Prize

Don’t know if you’ve heard, but lots of folks seem fairly convinced that Al Gore is going to win a Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. (Haven’t they heard about his house, and how he eats meat, and how one time he threw a bottle in the trash instead of the recycling?!) Naturally, the U.S. media […]

Bill Clinton kicks off annual meeting with big names and big aims

I'm not sure when Al Gore and Bill Clinton were last in the same room together, let alone on a stage together, but they reunited publicly today at the start of the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting. (And, to focus on the superficial for a moment, their handshake -- clumsy and brief, an afterthought really -- didn't look at all like the sort of handshake you might expect a former U.S. president and his erstwhile second-in-command to share.)

Clinton introduced and honored several people before the plenary officially kicked off, including Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) and the president of the Florida Power & Light Company, for their joint efforts to expand solar power as a means of bringing Florida's emissions into line with the goals of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. It wasn't the sexiest thing I've seen all week, but it may be of higher impact to recognize work like that in a room full of rich, powerful people than to have Al Gore speak about climate change for the kerjillionth time.

If Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize …

I want some of whatever this guy’s smoking.

Gore recites climate woes in speech at U.N.

Al Gore's address to the U.N. General Assembly today was a much darker affair than I assumed it would be. Given that the stated goal today is to lay the groundwork for international institution-building and unity of vision, I expected he'd take a more inspirational approach. Instead, about three-quarters of his speech was a thorough enumeration of the effects global warming is already having on the planet.

Included in his litany of woes:

• The faster-than-expected melting of Arctic ice, the million of years it will take for the caps to reform if they melt entirely, and the pressure the melting puts on the Greenland shelf.
• The potential six-meter rise in sea levels associated with such melting.
• Glaciers retreating all over the planet.
• The total disappearance of Lake Chad.
• Stronger typhoons, cyclones, and hurricanes making landfall worldwide.
• Record floods in India, Bangladesh, and elsewhere.
• 35,000 people killed in 2003 European heat wave.

Goodness.

Gore in 1992 talking about the ‘spiritual crisis’ behind environmentalism

Thanks to frequent tipster LL for sending along this very, very interesting video: So much to say about this, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts first.

Hey …

… did you hear that Al Gore won an Emmy? After the Nobel Peace Prize, what’s left for the guy to win?

Coming Gore book to spell out climate solutions

Gore to pen a sequel: The Path to Survival will be published next spring to coincide with Earth Day on April 22. According to the publisher, Rodale Books, Gore will spell out a blueprint for the changes that individuals and governments need to make to avoid catastrophic climate change. I expect the book will be […]

Al Gore on making room for outrage

This quote from Al Gore is so apt I had to pass it along: I have a lot of friends who share the following problem with me: Our sense of outrage is so saturated that when a new outrage occurs, we have to download some existing outrage into an external hard drive in order to […]