Congratulations!

Seriously, why all this hype over the Al Gore green machine?? Are we all forgetting the achievements of one Dan Quayle? That guy needs his own draft Quayle movement… or hang on, no he doesn’t

http://www.humblenarrator.com/2007/10/12/not-to-be-outdone-by-gore-quayle-wins-fixed-rate-financing-via-email

Honouring the IPCC seems fine, not so sure about Gore. As a lightning rod for the anti-science noise machine he serves a purpose, but I can’t see that he really helped popularize the topic much, that just was happening around the same time. I accept this may not be true in the US where a number of celebrities seems to have take a stand on an issue before it becomes popular (or maybe before the media takes an interest).

I’m curious. Why didn’t Doris Lessing get the Nobel Peace Prize, and Al Gore get the Nobel Prize for literature? Inarguably, a documentary has more in common with ‘literature’ than with issues of war and peace. I don’t know how Doris Lessing could be tied into the ‘Peace’ Prize, but if Gore’s anti-climate change documentary can, anything can.

Seriously. You’re free to be pro Gore, or pro climate change activism,, but a Peace Prize for this is completely absurd on the face of it.

Sk

When you comment here so often, Brett? That’s a bold claim.

I am frequently mistaken, and sometimes whimsical, but the imbecility of suggesting that the Peace prize, whose recipients aren’t even reliably men of peace, could never ever be given to somebody whose science wasn’t indisputably correct is manifest. I’m not sure you’d be on safe grounds making such a claim about one of the science prizes!

“That has got to be, without reservation, the most patently silly statement I have ever seen at this blog.”

Posted by Brett Bellmore

Pot, kettle, black, Brett.

Brett: Oh come now. It hasn’t been that long since Maria Farrell’s post-Katrina hand-wringer. Besides, John Quiggin talking about “bubbles of delusion” pretty much overwhelms any sensitivity to irony one might have had left after that 3rd graf.

Brett’s contrarianism aside, I am surprised at the jaundiced view expressed here. Science doesn’t do a good job of speaking for itself; the general public needs channels of communication (a movie, a spokesperson, live events, journalism, TV) that discuss the consequences or significance of science. That channel must be 1) fair and reasonably accurate (realizing that to explain is to simplify, which is to introduce some error, which will open one to bad-faith attack) and 2) persuasive. Gore has stepped into that role. I don’t know what it’s like elsewhere; I know in the U.S. our politics are governed by symbolic gesture and ideology. We need more voices like Gore’s.

Regarding Brett’s trollery, the thing is it’s not the exact rightness of every detail of _An Inconvient Truth_ that matters, though of course the more it’s correct the better; what matters is that he’s right in the big picture: climate change is happening.

I confess to being baffled by the Nobel. I mean, climate change is bad and war is bad, but they are different. These recipients have done nothing for peace.

For the record I like Al Gore and global warmongering is real and it is bad and blah blah blah. My objections are essentially same as tom s. in 16. Gore got the prize not because he was the best candidate but because the Nobel Peace Prize is a variation on America’s Top Model competition. It’s a popularity contest where being a B-list celebrity matters much more than the actual contributions a person has made to, um, peace. Well… they did get it more right last year.

Actually, I see Brett as saying (through use of a quadruple negative) that it’s obvious that if you’re going to give a peace prize to scientists (rather than peacemakers) that the science behind the nobel is good. Hence, Brett thinks the IPCC/Gore science is good.

As to exactly what the point of that comment is, I am at a loss.

It’s not like they’ve always given it to people who promote peace congresses and the abolition of standing armies. Take last year for example.

Climate change is going to drive the wars of this century, when it’s not doing so already. Working to reduce the impact of climate change means the chance of war is reduced also.

Besides that, peace is more than the absence of war and the Nobel Prize comittee has been known to take a broad view of peace activities before.

Any other criticism of why Al Gore was awarded the Prize can be countered with two words:

Henry Kissinger.

I’m glad to see that at least notsneaky understands my point, even if Quiggen et all don’t: It’s not one of the science prizes, it’s the Peace prize, an award indicating that the Nobel committee likes Gore’s politics. The science of Gore’s position could be as solidly grounded as thermodynamics, and it wouldn’t have any relevance to my dismissal of the notion that Gore getting the prize wasn’t dependent on his science being good.

Again, he didn’t get the prize for science, he got it for politics, and his getting the prize is about as dependent on the science being undisputed as his getting the Oscar was.

You’re reading a statement that A is not dependent on B, and thinking I’m saying not B.

Before we go on too much about the Republican War on Science, can anybody remind me about that Senate vote on Kyoto and how many Democrats voted for the US to ratify?

Partisan shots would be relevant if Republicans were better than the Democrats, or if people talking about global warming were all Democratic partisans. Since the Republican Party has united against almost all forms of environmentalism, and since whatever environmentalists there are in Congress are Democrats, the Democrats have a clear advantage on the issue. On the other hand, if the Democrats ever gained control of government, there’d be some real intraparty struggles.

the aptly-named DeLay-Doolittle committee

Wow. I had no idea. That is nothing short of magnificent.

Oh, and thanks to Brett for bringing teh funny on this lovely autumnal morning. You never fail to disappoint, Dude.

This is the second time the Nobel prizes have honored work on climate change, the first being the award of the 1995 Chemistry Prize to Crutzen, Molina and Sherwood for their discovery of the chemical reactions that led CFCs to deplete the ozone layer.

Wasn’t the early work on CFCs work on the depletion of the ozone layer, rather than on “climate change”?

The Nobel Peace prize that was awarded to environmentalist and tree-planter Wangari Maathai in 2004 did honor work on climate change though.

janiem@18 and john emerson@24, and even though notsneaky@19 argues is well:

Yes I can see the connections between climate change and resource pressure etc etc. But things can be connected and still not be the same thing. There is a benefit to being precise, and in my view (and despite precedents) I think peace is important and is also a fluffy enough concept that we should try to keep it as specific as possible.

And if that’s “stupid, stupid, stupid” well, I expect a little better from zizka.

Er, that should be ‘shallow’.

Well, I’ll give one more flog to this horse.

Two reasons why precision is important, to me at least:
1. Forks should be in the fork drawer and knives should be in the knife drawer. It’s just a personal thing.
2. Peace = ending or preventing war is one thing. Peace = directly ameliorating current human suffering imposed by one set of people on another is pretty close to it – so close I have no problem with peace prize awards to people like Aung San Suu Kyi who have had to personally confront direct and immediate violence. Peace = amelioration of poverty is stretching things a bit. Is ameliorating poverty any less valuable than ending war? No – but see (1) above. Peace = disseminating greater knowledge about man-made climate change and laying the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change. Well it’s just too many steps away for me.

Tom the Shallow

I assume Tom et al. will support the establishment of a distinct prize for work to avert massive ecological catastrophe.

Meanwhile, I suggest a Vaclav Klaus Memorial Prize for “challenging … the foundation stones of the present civilisation.”

“establishment of a distinct prize for work to avert massive ecological catastrophe.”

Sure, why not.

For the record, the Nobel “statutes,” quoting Alfred Nobel’s will (1895), say the prize(s) should be given…

…to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: … and one part 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 and promotion of peace congresses.

(From http://nobelprize.org/nobelfoundation/statutes.html#par3)

No mention of war, barely any mention of peace, and no definition of either.

But clearly, as a number of people have pointed out and a number of people have bemoaned, the winners very often do not fit within a narrow interpretation of the requirements.

The implied faith in “peace congresses” would strike me as quaint, if it weren’t so heartbreaking. Pre-WWI, pre-WWII, pre- , well, you know.

Fine, fine, I concede. It’s a Nobel Prize for Good Deeds, Important Acts and Fine People.

Remember, Brett thinks that the best defenders of peace are cranky middle-aged white guys with large personal armories. Sorry you missed out again, Brett.

My opinion: Cindy Sheehan should’ve gotten it.

Mere personal preference, but I would have liked to see the peace prize go to Sheila Watt-Cloutier instead of Gore (the former being in keeping with the spirit of recent awards to Yunus and Maathai and other devoted activists who’ve made a small but promising difference on the ground). Looking over the past awards, however, they tend to go back and forth between noted (and often controversial — Kissinger!!?!??) political and diplomatic figures who focus widespread attention on vital issues, on the one hand, and far less famous individuals who have quietly devoted their lives to vital causes, on the other. So fair enough (and I agree with others that it’s a good thing that “Peace” is interpreted broadly).

Seems to me the nobels would work better these days if the scientific categories could somehow be changed (no doubt in clear violation of Nobel’s will) to reflect contemporary trends, i.e. distinguishing physics and chemistry seems a bit strained on the one side, and separating chemistry and important areas of (often medical-related) biology seems similarly strained, on the other.

Better, I’d think, to have something like ‘physical sciences’, ‘life sciences’, and maybe ‘human sciences’ which could include medical, behavioural and social sciences (which might at least partially satisfy the curmudgeonly academy critics of the economics memorial prize – which is now more of a social/behavioural sciences prize anyway).

asg:

“John Quiggin talking about ‘bubbles of delusion’ pretty much overwhelms any sensitivity to irony one might have had left after that 3rd graf.”

I think that does describe a position. But of course it’s not _your_ position, it’s the position of an indefinite “one”. According to you, that is… or maybe it’s according to some indefinite “one”, who happens to be a definite you.

Now, back to treasonous facts.

martin gets it half right in 24, notsneaky not even that good in 20. Can any of you suggest who has done more than Gore to give the weight of the findings of those scientists a political visibility? The sad fact is people don’t get issues as well as they do personalities, faces and packaged positions. I have not heard many scientists complaining of the choice. The science prizes have been awarded already, climate science is not among the categories.

Re:24
Well, actually three words in addition to “Henry Kissinger.” Le Duc Tho.

1. Gore has made a slide-show and a movie (with a lot of help with both). Big, fat, hairy deal. George Monbiot should be getting the prize, then. I mean, he actually wrote a big book on the subject all by himself.
2. None of the above denies anthropogenic global warming, and anyone who does, and who is not a climate scientist in line for a Nobel, is a twerp.
3. The reason why Gore’s getting the prize is not because he is such a splendid chap. He is a) an opposition US politician, and b) is expressing views which contradict the loopy views of the current US administration.

In short, this Nobel, like the one to El Baradei, should be seen as a rap over the knuckles for the Bush administration, and as such is well deserved.

The implied faith in “peace congresses” would strike me as quaint, if it weren’t so heartbreaking.

We still have lots of peace congresses, even post WW2, and they still produce results. We don’t call them that anymore – we call them “summit meetings” or something – but Nobel would have recognised things like, inter alia, the SALT, INF, CTB and CFE talks and the Camp David summit as peace congresses.