Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s climate change panel won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for spreading awareness of man-made climate change and laying the foundations for counteracting it.
Gore plans on being generous with his prize money:
Gore plans to donate his half of the $1.5 million prize money to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan nonprofit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion worldwide about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.
The other half, of course, will go toward paying his lavish home's November electricity bill.
Seriously, what has Al Gore got to do with promoting peace as the purpose of the prize is supposed to be?
According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".
So, ... what is being rewarded? Gore negotiated a ceasefire between the planet and carbon dioxide?
And it would be tempting to say that this is just another kick in the leg to President Bush, as Jimmy Carter's 2002 prize clearly was.
While the Peace Prize has gone to some unsavory thugs in the past, at least you could say the reward at least recognized that they'd ceased killing on a large scale.
Gore may not have killed people, but this author writes that the liberties Gore has taken with global warming facts is just part of Gore's complicated relationship with accuracy that exceeds what the usual needs of politics and government requires.
But while these observations are true, there is more to it, the author writes:
But there is a more fundamental objection to awarding Gore the peace prize that goes beyond issues of character. Climate change is a threat to the environment, not to "peace" and international order. The prize has gone to some sleazy recipients in the past, but at least you can make a case that their actions staved off bloodshed.
Lumping together global warming and terrorism, as David Cameron did in his conference speech, is a rhetorical sleight of hand typical of opportunistic politicians who are trying to hoover up liberal and conservative votes at the same time. I don't think that description applies to the Tory leader, but it sure as hell fits Albert Gore, Jr.
I'll gloss over his British political references. The important thing is that the Left is trying to minimize the threat of jihadi terrorism by making the "fight" against global warming the more imminent and dangerous threat. It is typical of the Left's reaction to every war we are in. They claim not to be against fighting the war we are waging. Oh, no! They claim that we are wasting our efforts on the present fight when we really need to confront an even greater threat!
And naming global warming as that greater threat relieves the globalized Left of the worry that their complaints that Iraq is not a threat, but Afghanistan is (or Pakistan, or Iran, or North Korea (remember when the argument was don't invade Iraq because North Korea is the bigger threat?)) might actually require them to support military action against that "greater" threat.
So a "peace" prize that seeks to negotiate a ceasefire between carbon dioxide and Earth is the perfect bridge to outlawing war itself. And hey, that's the goal the Nobel Prize committee rewarded in both 1929 and 1931.
But now as then, stone cold fascist killers will make the hope of promoting fraternity among nations through frivolous awards a distant memory. And the United States military will lead allies to fight for the peace that cloistured fools believe they can bestow with a cheapened prize.
Right now, CENTCOM is doing more to promote peace than anybody else in the world.
