In a fight where political gain is seen as the prime motivator, and any actual fact seems to be spun out to support such a theory, Al Gore has been the voice for real climate change. It is a tough fight, and he’s been at it for a while, too. Attacked from the right for political bias, attacked from the critics for supporting a supposedly unproved theory, Al Gore now has reason to smile.

It’s been all across the news, and we won’t attempt to re-inform you on Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize win this past week. But we at Green Options do want to take this moment to congratulate the man who has done so much for the global warming cause (yes, I mean the cause against it …).

In addition, we want to offer our congratulations and heartfelt thanks to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for almost two decades of hard unthankful work and their co-win with Gore.

Our congratulations aside, though, what is the future looking like now?

Our Environmental Future

"We have to quickly find a way to change the world’s consciousness about exactly what we’re facing," Gore told reporters at a press conference. It was nine hours after the award announcement, and he appeared with his wife Tipper. He took no questions, especially none on running for President in the United States’ 2008 election.

And that is the most immediate question that is playing across everyone’s mind. Will Al Gore run for US President? Again?

If you were to shake the eight ball right now, it would say that "all signs point to no."

Michael Feldman, an advisor to Al Gore, backed up my magic eight ball. "He’s not planning a campaign for president,” he said. “What you saw today is a guy fully focused on the issue he’s been working on for 30 years. He’s trying to figure out a way to solve the climate crisis."

And in all reality, why would he run for president?

I’m a nerd at heart, and I’ve watched the Justice League cartoons many times. Lex Luthor — who is running for president in the series — said something that I believe really matches with Gore at the moment; “Do you know how much power I would have to give up to become president?”

And that is exactly the case. If Gore were to become president, he wouldn’t be able to take out the compost without it appearing to be a political maneuver. He would face restrictions as to where he could go, where he could speak and what he could do.

"He’s making no moves and no sounds to indicate to me that he’s going to run," said another Gore adviser, Carter Eskew.

And no bloody wonder! Who’d want to be the US president, when you’re actually liked?

Climate Change and Peace

A spokesman for Czech President Vaclav Klaus has said that the president was "somewhat surprised that Al Gore got the Peace Prize, because the relation between his activities and world peace is unclear and indistinct."

This is one of those moments you just need a moment of silence to shake your head. Has no one heard of the fights for water across the Middle East and parts of Africa? Can these critics not see the future of embattled nations fighting over the regions last underwater lake or other precious natural resource? Are they not willing to see the potential in bringing the world together in at least one endeavor?

"The Nobel Peace Prize Committee has today made it clear that combating climate change is a central peace and security policy for the 21st century," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program.

And that is indeed the case. To believe otherwise is a naïve approach to a world that is — regardless of who caused it — sinking further in to a climate spiral every year.

An Inconvenient Truth indeed…

I mentioned earlier the point that "political gain is seen as the prime motivator." My bafflement aside, Al Gore’s win has sparked a renewed attack, especially on his Academy Award-winning movie An Inconvenient Truth.

According to British judge High Court Judge Michael Burton, the movie contains nine scientific errors or omissions. He added in his statement regarding a ruling made last month that Gore’s film "is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact. Albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political program."

Can someone please let me know what political program there is being pushed in this movie? I’ve watched it, and I loved it! And I’m dead set sure that unless Mother Nature is soon to be running for US President — and she’d know better than that — An Inconvenient Truth has no political agenda whatsoever. It is about what we have done to the earth, and what is happening to the earth.

The judge described some of the scientific theories in the movie as "alarmist." In addition, Burton said that there was insufficient data to support the claims that Hurricane Katrina, the evaporation of most of Lake Chad, and the melting of the snow on Mount Kilimanjaro were caused by global warming.

There’s insufficient data to conclude that we built the pyramids too, but that’s pretty much the general consensus nowadays (unless you are a fervent supporter of the alien theories, in which case, meet me later). In fact, in all of the sciences, "evidence" is a truly subjective word.

Even now, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity and his Theory of Relativity are coming under threat. These are theories that have stood up against the tests of almost a century. Nothing is ever ultimately certain in science anymore.

The simple fact is that, even if you do not want to believe you had anything to do with it, global warming is happening.

Gore named his movie correctly. The politics that people see in the movie is actually scientific fact that they are unwilling to believe; it is, at its heart, an inconvenient truth.

They call it political, because the biggest advocates are "Democrats" or "liberal." In reality, it is what the Americans love to call a "bipartisan" problem, and held up on both sides of the aisle. How can the scientific theories held by both liberals and conservatives be political?

As for the errors and omissions that Burton spoke of? Let us let Kalee Kreider, spokeswoman for the former U.S. vice president answer that one.

"The ruling upheld fundamental pieces of the film and the scientific consensus that global warming is real and caused by human activities," she said. "Of the thousands of facts in the film, the judge only took issue with just a handful. And of that handful, we have the studies to back those pieces up."

Back to Work!

Gore finished his press conference by saying that he was "…going back to work right now. This is just the beginning." And it is just that: the beginning! Everything up until this point has been research before the debate, the calm before the storm, and the prelude to the book. Climate change and global warming are now issues linked to peace by the preeminent group that is the Nobel awards committee. From here on in, and starting with the Bali summit this December, everyone has to step up to the plate.

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