My first thought as well
IF THE Nobel Peace Prize were awarded for making the world a more peaceful place, then this year’s winners—Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—would be a bizarre choice. But two out of the previous three peace prizes went to people and organisations who had nothing to do with peace. The 2004 winner was Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman who plants trees, and the 2006 winners were Mohammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, a Bangladeshi microcredit institution. (In 2005, in a radical departure from recent practice, the prize did actually go to a person and an organisation whose work has been designed to reduce the likelihood of global conflict—Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency.)
Evidently the committee has decided to redefine the award as the Nobel Prize for Making the World a Better Place in Some Unspecified Way. - The Economist, October 12, 2007
posted at 10:06 AM
4 Comments:
The spectre of global conflicts that accompany unchecked climate change are very scary. Perhaps this editorial might help:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/10/12/2925/1106
Sophia Katt
According to Nobel's will, "[t]he prize for peace was to be awarded to the person who 'shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding of peace congresses.'"
Gore's work has been international and consensus building in scope, a number of conflicts at present are created by underlying climate change/ecological problems, and the climate change conferences and int'l symposiums that meet on global warming generally include peace initiatives and cooperative ventures. A lot of his work has sought to smooth out contentious political issues.
From the Nobel Committee:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/12/europe/impact.php?WT.mc_id=newsalert
Sophia Katt
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