Climate’s Nobel Prize Award
Oslo, October 12, 2007, could see the Nobel Peace Prize – sometimes noted as the highest accolade on Earth – awarded to campaigners against climate change. In line for this according to Nobel experts are Al Gore and Sheila Watt-Cloutier.
The winner for the Nobel Peace Prize carries away $1.5 million, but more than that, if a climate change advocate succeeds in winning, it could further shift the momentum towards actual climate change; especially in light of the UN Climate Summit being held in Bali this December.
Stein Toennesson, director of Oslo’s International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) and a Nobel Peace Prize expert believes that the North American pair are likely candidates.
"It will certainly be tempting to the committee to have two North Americans,” said Toennesson, “one the activist that personifies the struggle against climate change, raising awareness, and the other who represents some of the victims of climate change."
Al Gore is an obvious candidate, author of the bestselling book and Oscar award winning movie “An Inconvenient Truth”. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a Canadian born Inuit activist, is in the running for her work in illuminating the effects that climate change is having on the Arctic people. The pair was nominated to share the prize by two Norwegian parliamentarians.
Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, believes that if this pair was to win the award, it would also establish a link between peace work and the importance of the environment. A link that has not been as direct. A previous winner, Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, has begun such a shift of thinking.
"I think the whole issue of climate change and the environment will come at some point and reflect in the prize," Egeland told reporters last week.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee will not disclose names of nominees in advance of the awards, but names tend to leak out. And while there is the possibility that Al Gore would be too much of a political choice for the award, the general consensus seems to be that the award will go to Gore.
Tags: Al-Gore, An-Inconvenient-Truth, climate-change, Environment, Green News, Nobel
October 8th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Isn’t Rush Limbaugh up for the prize as well?
October 12th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
The catastropic damage done by recent hurricanes, such as Katrina, is largely due to the increased air temperature (due to global warming) stemming from across Africa, the Atlantic Ocean onto warming the waters in the Gulf of Mexico. Can something be done to correct this situation, such as lowering the surface water temperature in a practical way? One solution is to place floating wind turbines to continuously move colder air in the upper atmosphere down and bring colder water up to mix with and cool the warmer surface water, resulting in reducing the violent storm activity. As you may know the average water temperature of the oceans is 39 degrees faherenheit (due mostly to the pressure). Another solution is to attach devices to commercial ships that would move cold water up to mix with the warmer surface water. The floating wind turbines, and other devices would operate continuously consuming little or no energy. Does this sound like global cooling as a solution to global warming? I suggest that a committee be formed to investigate these possibilities, including an International Design Competition with monetary prizes. Thank you for your interest and concern about peace and solutions to global warming. William R. Sachs, M-Arch. 200 North Betty Lane, Ste 1B, Clearwater, Florida 33755, USA. E-mail sachspace4628@yahoo.com