Albert “Al” Gore, Jr. can add something else next to his Academy Award for the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”: the Nobel Peace Prize.
On Friday, Oct. 12, the former vice-president of the Clinton Administration and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shared the award for their work in raising awareness about global warming.
In their announcement, the Nobel Committee cited their reasoning for choosing Gore and the IPCC for the prize. “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize 2007 is to be shared . . . between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. for their efforts to disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”
“I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize,” Gore said in a written statement after receiving the award, adding that the climate crisis was not a political issue but a moral and spiritual one.
Gore has promised to donate his half of the $1.5 million prize to his Alliance for Climate Protection, a United States organization that aims to change public perception about climate change in the U.S. and around the world.
Gore also said that he has no intention of running for the presidency in 2008. “I’m involved in a different kind of campaign, a global campaign to think about the climate crisis,” he said in a televised interview with Norwegian station NRK on Oct. 17.
That hasn’t stopped encouragement from various grassroots organizations. A group called Draftgore.org urged Gore to run for president by taking out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times on Oct. 10.
Reactions have differed among political pundits. The Wall Street Journal dedicated an Oct. 14 article to listing other people that should have won the award. The National Review Online’s Iain Murray poked fun at Gore’s win by implying that Gore should’ve shared the award with “well-known peace campaigner” Osama Bin Laden. Paul Krugman of the New York Times wrote in an Oct. 15 column entitled “Gore Derangement Syndrome,” “What is it about Mr. Gore that drives right-wingers insane?”
On the Whitman campus, reactions to Gore and the IPCC’s win have varied.
Senior Ben Stevens, also a member of the Young Democrats, felt that Gore’s win was deserved. “It’s a little soon, but he’s doing important work. Climate change has to be in the limelight as much as possible.”
Junior Jill Laney saw the award as a successful example of how global warming is becoming more culturally accepted. “I think it’s a good thing. The work they’ve done has been beneficial to educating people and motivating people to make changes toward global warming.”
“Al Gore is a joke, so is him winning the Nobel Peace Prize,” said junior Veronica Prout. “What does global warming have to do with peace anyway? . . . He’s a man with delusions of grandeur, so how can we trust his ‘Inconvenient Truth?’ He’s done nothing but lie about who he is and what he has done. It’s like finding out that Bozo the Clown won the Nobel Peace Prize. I can’t help but laugh.”
She later added in an e-mail, “The prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize just plummeted.”
First-year Samuel Nortz also felt that the “peace” aspect of the award was missing in the win. “The Nobel Peace Prize should be more in tune with humanity.”
“[Gore] hasn’t produced anything beneficial,” Nortz added. Nortz thought that Gore’s achievements were not as prestigious as portrayed in the media. “Most of what he knows or lectures about has been stolen from someone else.”
The Nobel Peace Prize will be formally awarded on Dec. 10 in Oslo, Norway of this year.
