Al Gore's all too predictable receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize has made the Devil very angry. Me too.
For the Nobel committee to be lauding him as some kind of hero for 'spreading the word' just days after a British judge (and I've heard no one say the judge is wrong) looks at his film and says that crucial parts of Gore's narrative don't stand up to scrutiny completely destroys any credibility the prize might have had left. While the central idea that the climate is changing and influenced by humans wasn't challenged that really isn't the issue at stake. Al Gore's film wasn't remarkable for advancing that theory but for the host of alarmist prophecies that he wrapped around it. Those have been condemned in the strongest terms I can think of since the creationists got slammed a few years ago.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been a bit of a joke since Yasser Arafat won it but the prize has also been awarded to a lot of very decent and courageous people. They don't deserve to have their achievement devalued by the prize becoming the "Nobel doing-things-that-lefties-quite-like Prize".
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4 comments:
I think the judge said that the film was broadly accurate but there were some exagurations and over-statements. Now, I don't know what expert evidence the judge consulted on his view but, if he said it was broadly correct, then that suggests that the global-warming denialist position is more incorrect than Mr Gore's.
Another thing I was thinking about, considering the debate we have just been having about inheritance tax, is that it is rather strange that those on the Right are so keen to protect the ability of children to gain tax-free inheritances from their parents but do not seem to be bothered about the danger that the next generation could be bequeathed a damaged environment and a polluted Earth. Inheriting lots of money won't make people happier if they also have to put up with inheriting the negative effects of environmental deterioration.
Vino,
Like I said:
"While the central idea that the climate is changing and influenced by humans wasn't challenged that really isn't the issue at stake. Al Gore's film wasn't remarkable for advancing that theory but for the host of alarmist prophecies that he wrapped around it."
On IHT. You're presuming that taking action will be good for future generations. That is not accepted. We have a very poor knowledge of whether future generations will prefer more economic growth or fewer emissions be left to them.
I rather enjoyed this letter from Saturday's Times:
Sir, Mr Justice Burton is right in pointing out that Al Gore’s film possibly exaggerated the potential threat of future sea level rises. The most reliable assessment of sea level rise has been made by radar altimeters carried on a series of polar-orbiting satellites over the past 15 years. Best estimates of the global change over this period is about 5cm.
The rises of 20ft or more quoted by Mr Gore would occur only if the Greenland and Antarctic icecaps melted — and there is no indication from satellite surveys that this is about to happen. The melting observed in the Arctic has no direct effect on sea level since it is already floating on sea water.
Tom Allan
Satellite Observing Systems Godalming
I haven't actually seen Gore's movie, so I can't comment on that.
What I did enjoy, however, was the rationale behind his receipt of the prize. I was listening to the little speech that accompanied the announcement on NPR, and the gist of their reasoning behind awarding the peace prize to a climate activist seemed to be something like, "Well, we can't have peace if we don't have... a world, right?"
It's kind of a stretch. Maybe they should rename it the Person-We-Think-Is-Really-Cool prize, because it's always seems so difficult to come up with reasoning to justify the "peace" label.
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