Atlantis Online
March 28, 2024, 11:40:01 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Ice Age blast 'ravaged America'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6676461.stm
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

AL GORE WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE!!!

Pages: 1 [2] 3   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: AL GORE WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE!!!  (Read 546 times)
0 Members and 52 Guests are viewing this topic.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #15 on: October 13, 2007, 06:03:15 am »





I fully agree with you, Rocky!

This 'coup' had been plotted for a few decades.  Let them all reap what they have sown!!!






"In the race for the highest office in the land, we showed the collective maturity of 3-year-olds. . . . In other words, it wasn't done to us, we did it to ourselves. Sorry, but that's true. Until a solid 55% of American voters are willing to add at least two decades to their collective maturity, we're going to have Bush after Bush after Bush. We'll continue to claim it's "their" fault, but it's really ours. Prairie Weather blog:

Yesterday began with the gratifying news that Al Gore, derided by George H.W. Bush as the “Ozone Man,” had won the Nobel Peace Prize. . . Bob Herbert, NYT

CLAUDIA DIKINIS
www.starcats.com
« Last Edit: October 16, 2007, 10:43:01 am by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #16 on: October 13, 2007, 06:05:44 am »









             Al Gore wins Nobel peace prize. And this time, no one can take it away from him





· Award recognises work on climate change awareness
· Experts play down talk of late run for presidency



Ed Pilkington in New York
Saturday October 13, 2007

The Guardian UK


This is one prize the supreme court won't be able to take away from him. The five votes of a committee in Oslo yesterday awarded Al Gore the world's most exalted award, the Nobel peace prize, finally putting to rest the votes of the five judges who stripped him of Florida in 2000 and kept him from the White House.

It was the last laugh for a man who has, until recently, trod a lonely path to engage American opinion with the looming crisis of climate change and who was ridiculed by the benefactor of that supreme court judgment in 2000, George Bush, as "ozone man". If seven years ago Mr Gore suffered his annus horribilis, this year is undoubtedly his annus miraculous - February: Oscar for his film An Inconvenient Truth; September: Emmy for his Current TV channel; October: Nobel peace prize.

The accolade was established in 1901 with the remit that it should reward 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".
This year's choice risked controversy by widening the remit to include climate change, arguing that the crisis had the potential to increase the risk of violent conflicts and wars. The committee split the prize between Mr Gore and the UN team of scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Of Mr Gore, it said: "He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted."

Bill Clinton's former vice-president said he was deeply honoured to receive the prize and seized the moment to renew his plea for the world's attention: "The climate crisis is not a political issue - it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity." The little dig at politics spoke volumes about Mr Gore's long struggle to put the hurt of his failed presidential bid behind him. In recent months he has teased the American people, neither confirming nor stamping out rumours that he would stand for president once again.

Inevitably, the Nobel award has prompted a renewed flurry of that conjecture. Even before yesterday's announcement, the drumbeat had grown audibly louder: the nationwide coalition of his supporters, Draft Gore, this week took out a full-page advert in the New York Times that exhorted him to stand with the warning that if he did not "rise to this challenge, you and millions of us will live forever wondering what might have been".

Other influential figures added their voices to the chorus. Jimmy Carter, former president and a fellow Nobel peace laureate (his 2002 award was famously cast as a "kick in the legs" to Mr Bush over the build-up to the invasion of Iraq), said in a TV interview that he hoped this might encourage Mr Gore to "consider another political event". Mr Carter added: "I don't think anyone is better qualified to be president of the United States."

Mr Gore himself was studiously avoiding talk of a presidential bid. He maintained the ambivalent stance he has all year - neither in, nor out - in a way that has merely stoked the speculation and aroused further curiosity.

As a man with stakeholdings in both Google and Apple and a reputed $100m fortune, he could fairly easily raise the $100m needed to self-finance a primary race. But if he is to stand he has to move within the next couple of weeks to meet deadlines in several key states. And with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all proving serious contenders, observers of the 2008 race say there is no political oxygen left for Mr Gore to breathe.

"The man's not running. Even if he won the Nobel prize for curing cancer, he still wouldn't run," said Charlie Cook of the respected website the Cook Report. "I don't know a single serious person in America who thinks he will stand."

Even Mr Gore's advisers were seeking to dampen down expectations of a dramatic announcement. "He's spending all his time on the climate crisis. My sense is that this won't affect that calculation," his adviser Michael Feldman said.

In the last analysis, the long and arduous journey he has travelled, not only to pull himself back up from the fall of 2000 but also to persuade the American people about the urgency of the climate crisis, has been reward enough even without gaining the keys to the White House.

Laurie David, who produced Mr Gore's wildly successful film An Inconvenient Truth, said the lesson of the Nobel was that he had found another way to make his mark. "Al Gore has proven very eloquently that you don't have to be president to change the world."
« Last Edit: October 13, 2007, 06:28:44 am by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #17 on: October 13, 2007, 06:10:32 am »


AP - Fri Oct 12, 2:44 PM ET Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper arrive at a news conference in Palo Alto, Calif., Friday, Oct. 12, 2007. Gore, newly named co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, said Friday that global warming is the most dangerous challenge facing humanity and it's time to step up awareness of the threat. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)








                                      Gore: Award puts focus on global warming





By SETH BORENSTEIN and LISA LEFF,
Associated Press Writers

 PALO ALTO, Calif. - He spent decades trying to get the world to listen and believe as he did that global warming would destroy the planet unless people changed their behavior, and fast. But after former Vice President Al Gore and a host of climate scientists were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their warnings, Gore took only the briefest of bows on a live world stage. He avoided the issue of a U.S. presidential run to "get back to business" on "a planetary emergency."
 
"For my part, I will be doing everything I can to try to understand how to best use the honor and the recognition from this award as a way of speeding up the change in awareness and the change in urgency," Gore said at the offices of the Alliance For Climate Protection, a nonprofit he founded last year to engage citizens in solving the problem.

Gore shared the prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of scientists. The scientific panel has explained the dry details of global warming in thousands of pages of footnoted reports every six years or so since 1990.

Gore, fresh from a near miss at winning the U.S. presidency in 2000, translated the numbers and jargon-laden reports into something people could understand. He made a slide show and went Hollywood. His documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won two Academy Awards and has been credited with changing the debate in America about global warming.

"When he first started really working on the climate change issue, I remember he was ridiculed in the press and certainly by political opponents as some kind of kook out there in la-la land," said federal climate scientist Tom Peterson, an IPCC co-author. "It's delightful that he's sharing this and he deserves it well. And it's nice to have his work being vindicated."

If he felt any sense of triumph over the political and scientific critics who belittled or ignored his message, Gore did not betray it during his only public appearance Friday. He learned of his award at 2 a.m. while watching the live TV announcement — hearing his name amid the Norwegian — at his apartment in San Francisco.

Nine hours later, his tone was somber and his remarks brief. With his wife, Tipper, and four Stanford University climate scientists who were co-authors of the international climate report at his side, he referenced a recent report that concluded the ice caps at the North Pole are melting faster than previously thought and could be gone in 23 years without dramatic action.

Gore said he planned to donate his share of the $1.5 million prize to the nonprofit alliance he chairs.

"This is a chance to elevate global consciousness about the challenges that we face now," he said. "The alarm bells are going off in the scientific community."

In announcing the award earlier in the day in Oslo, Norway, Nobel committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes said the prize was not a slap at the Bush administration's current policies. Instead, he said it was about encouraging all countries "to think again and to say what can they do to conquer global warming."

Gore is the first former vice president to win the Peace Prize since 1906 when Theodore Roosevelt, who by that time had become president, was awarded. Sitting Vice President Charles Gates Dawes won the prize in 1925. Former Presidents Jimmy Carter won it in 2002 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919.

From the late 1980s with his book "Earth in the Balance," Gore championed the issue of global warming. He had monthly science seminars on it while vice president and helped negotiate the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that called for cuts in greenhouse gases.

Since his loss to George W. Bush in 2000, he has traveled to more than 50 countries. He presented his slide show on global warming that became "An Inconvenient Truth" more than 1,000 times.

More than 20 top climate scientists told The Associated Press last year that the film was generally accurate in its presentation of the science, although some were bothered by what they thought were a couple of exaggerations.

Gore's movie was deeply personal. It was about him after losing the 2000 election and about his travels, and he talked about the changing climate in a personal way.

"He has honed that message in a way that many scientists are jealous of," said University of Michigan Dean Rosina Bierbaum. She was a top White House science aide to Gore and President Clinton. "He is a master communicator."

Climate scientists said their work was cautious and rock-solid, confirmed with constant peer review, but it didn't grab people's attention.

"We need an advocate such as Al Gore to help present the work of scientists across the world," said Bob Watson, former chairman of the IPCC and a top federal climate science adviser to the Clinton-Gore Administration.

Watson and Bierbaum, who regularly briefed Gore about global warming, described him as voracious, wanting to understand every detail about the science. Bierbaum recalled one Air Force Two journey with Gore and the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The man who beat Gore in 2000, President Bush, had no plans to call Gore to congratulate him. But spokesman Tony Fratto called it "an important recognition" for both Gore and the scientific panel.

Some in the shrinking community of global warming skeptics and those downplaying the issue, were dubious, however.

"I think it cheapens the Nobel Prize," said William O'Keefe, chief executive officer of the conservative science-oriented think tank the Marshall Institute. O'Keefe, a former oil industry executive and current consultant to fossil fuel firms, called Gore's work "rife with errors."

As he was leaving the alliance's office, Gore stopped to thank a few dozen people who waited in the rain to congratulate him, which included a group of young girls who brought him a banner reading, "Thank you for saving our planet."

Asked whether the Nobel would quiet climate naysayers, he said the award would help the cause of fighting global warming overall.

"I hope we have a chance to really kick into high gear."

___

Borenstein reported from Washington. Leff reported from Palo Alto. Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2007, 06:14:22 am by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #18 on: October 13, 2007, 06:17:19 am »


AP - Fri Oct 12, 7:24 AM ET An iceberg melts in Kulusuk Bay, eastern Greenland in this Aug. 16, 2005 file photo. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change. (AP Photo/John McConnico, File)







                                      Experts: Climate change threatens peace





By CHARLES J. HANLEY,
AP Special Correspondent
Fri Oct 12, 4:53 PM ET
 
What does global warming have to do with global peace? The globe may find out sooner than we think, experts say.
 
"Climate change is and will be a significant threat to our national security and in a larger sense to life on Earth as we know it to be," retired Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, former U.S. Army chief of staff, told a congressional panel last month.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee agrees. In awarding the prize Friday to climate campaigner Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N.-sponsored network of scientists, the Norwegian committee said the stresses of a changing global environment may heighten the "danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states."

Those like Sullivan who study the issues point particularly to the impact of drought and altered climate patterns on food and water supplies, leading to shortages that could spur huge, destabilizing migrations of people internationally.

In a report in May, scientists advising the German government noted specific scenarios that could upend the lives of millions, driving them across borders to overwhelm other lands.

"The dieback of the Amazon rain forest or the loss of the Asian monsoon could have incalculable consequences for the societies concerned," said the German Advisory Council on Global Change.

In some cases, potential backlashes from warming weren't foreseen even a few years ago. One example: The stunningly swift shrinking of Arctic Ocean ice in recent summers has drawn attention to looming international disputes over rights to the newly open seas.

The unpredictability of when, where and how some of the changes will occur has frustrated Pentagon planners and others trying to prepare.

A 2003 report commissioned by the Pentagon warned that abrupt climate change "could potentially destabilize the geopolitical environment, leading to skirmishes, battles, and even war due to resource constraints."

But that study's scenario for abrupt change hinged in part on fears that the Atlantic's Gulf Stream current might slow, chilling northern Europe and eastern North America and curtailing food harvests. Now, however, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it's "very unlikely" the current will slow abruptly.

Unpredictability was dispelled elsewhere in the panel's reports this year. It found, for example, that warmer and drier conditions are already shortening the growing season in Africa's Sahel, a conflict-ridden region long burdened by food and water shortages.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the German scientists cited other potential "hotspots," including:

• Egypt's vital, low-lying Nile Delta, where the livelihoods of millions may be at risk from rising sea levels and salinization of agricultural areas.

• The Asian subcontinent, where the retreat of Himalayan glaciers will dry up downstream water supplies, and rising seas and stronger cyclones will threaten tens of millions on the Bay of Bengal coast.

• The poor nations of Central America, where more intense hurricanes could severely damage economies, destabilize political systems and send streams of uprooted people toward the U.S. border.

At the same time, the German scientists said, the climate challenge is an opportunity to unite the international community. In that spirit, Britain last April organized the first U.N. Security Council meeting to consider climate change as a threat to international peace.

Global efforts have faltered, however, in trying to cut back emissions of carbon dioxide and other global-warming gases — in part because the Bush administration opposes such internationally mandated reductions. That in itself may help sharpen world tensions, the German report said.

If, amid recriminations and finger-pointing, governments fail to unite on global warming, "climate change will draw ever-deeper lines of division and conflict in international relations," it said.

Leaders are growing nervous. At the U.S. Army War College last March, military and scientific specialists quietly convened in a colloquium on "Global Climate Change: National Security Implications." Among the topics discussed: the possible need for a new National Security Act to "oblige intergovernmental cooperation" on climate by future U.S. administrations.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2007, 06:20:00 am by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #19 on: October 13, 2007, 06:24:57 am »




                                         Indian's surprise at Nobel award 






Dr Pachauri says credit goes to the scientific community



Indian scientist Rajendra Pachauri has spoken of his surprise at the UN panel he heads being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its work on global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and campaigner Al Gore were named as joint winners on Friday.

"I can't believe it. I'm overwhelmed," Dr Pachauri, 67, told well-wishers in the Indian capital, Delhi.

"The committee is trying to tell the world we need to do something about climate change urgently."

Praise for Gore

Dr Pachauri said he was "just a symbol" and credit was due to his organisation and its efforts.

"It is really the scientific community that contributes to the work of the IPCC and the governments who support the work of the IPCC who are really the winners of this award."

  The message should go out to everyone - developed and developing countries - we are all in this together




IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri



He said he felt privileged to share the prize with "someone as distinguished" as the former US vice president.

"Al Gore certainly deserves it. The amount of effort he has put into creating awareness about climate change has had a major impact."

The two men spoke on the phone after the announcement.

"This is Pachy... I am certainly looking forward to working with you. I'll be your follower and you'll be my leader," Dr Pachauri said.

 
Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth was an unlikely box office hit

"Convey my congratulations to the IPCC," replied Mr Gore.

The two campaigners did not get off to the best of starts when Dr Pachauri was elected to head the IPCC in 2002.

US President George W Bush backed the Indian for the post, but Mr Gore, who had lost the presidential election to Mr Bush, criticised his appointment.

In an article in the New York Times, he called Dr Pachauri the "let's drag our feet candidate". The Indian hit back a few days later with a letter condemning Mr Gore for his "derogatory comments".

Former engineer

The spat seemed a long way in the past as the two men exchanged warm words on Friday.




 INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE (IPCC)


Established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations

Environment Programme (Unep)

Made up of more than 2,000 leading climate experts

Tasked with assessing scientific data on the risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for mitigation

Does not carry out any research of its own

First Assessment Report published in 1990; its Fourth Assessment Report called Climate Change 2007 to be published mid-November 



The IPCC is the top authority on global warming, comprising more than 2,000 leading climate change scientists and experts.

As its chairman, Dr Pachauri is well-placed to combat environmental damage posed by rapid industrialisation.

He began his working life as a mechanical engineer building diesel railway engines, before moving on to study energy and economics.

He is also founder director of the Energy and Resources Institute, India's leading environmental think-tank.

Dr Pachauri says he is very concerned about India and other developing economies which will be hit hardest by climate change.

At the same time, he believes that the lead should come from the West.

"I think the developed countries will really have to create the conditions by which the developing countries will follow in due course," he told the BBC earlier this year.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7041747.stm
« Last Edit: October 13, 2007, 06:40:11 am by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #20 on: October 13, 2007, 06:36:12 am »












                                  Gore, scientists share Nobel Peace Prize





By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS,
Associated Press Writer
Fri Oct 12, 5:00 PM ET
 
GENEVA - Plenty of people share the glory of the Nobel Peace Prize — thousands of scientists have been studying and documenting climate change under a U.N. body set up in 1988 as concerns grew about global warming. And they hope the award will help — or prod — governments to do more to curb global warming or avert disasters on the scale of a Hurricane Katrina or the deadly effects of the 2003 heat wave that killed up to 35,000 people in Europe.
 
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, named co-winner with former Vice President Al Gore in Oslo on Friday, has been cranking out reports that have built up knowledge "about the connection between human activities and global warming," said the Nobel prize committee.

"Mother Nature keeps helping us along because the evidence just keeps piling up," said Kevin Trenberth, a lead author on the 1995, 2001 and 2007 reports.

Trenberth, the New Zealand-born head of the climate analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said he hopes the prize increases the impact of the explanations he and other scientists give to audiences ranging from town hall meetings to Congress.

"All the scientists that have contributed to the work of the IPCC are the Nobel laureates who have been recognized and acknowledged by the Nobel Prize Committee," said Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian engineer who chairs the panel.

"They should feel deeply encouraged and inspired. It is their contribution which has been recognized," said Pachauri. "I only happen to be a functionary that essentially oversees the process."

Leo Meyer, a climate and energy specialist with the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, said the award underscores the panel's role in encouraging policy makers to address the problem of climate change.

"There is still an important task of better explaining the findings of IPCC to a larger audience and this Nobel Prize of course helps to underline the credibility of the IPCC reports," Meyer told the AP.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2007, 12:47:06 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #21 on: October 13, 2007, 06:45:29 am »









                                          Candidates say Gore deserves Nobel win






By The Associated Press
Fri Oct 12, 10:59 PM ET
 


Reaction to former Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sharing the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in bringing world attention to the problem of climate change:
 
___

"Of course he's happy for Vice President Gore. ... He's happy for the International Panel on Climate Change scientists who also shared the peace prize. Obviously it's an important recognition. And we're sure the vice president's thrilled." — White House spokesman Tony Fratto, referring to President Bush.

___

"Al Gore has been warning and educating us about the dangers of climate change for decades. He saw this coming before others in public life and never stopped pushing for action to save our planet, even in the face of public indifference and attacks from those determined to defend the indefensible." — Former President Clinton.

___

"This says there is an unprecedented momentum in the world to take necessary action. ... I pay my tribute to Mr. Al Gore as a good example of how civil societies and individuals can make differences in raising the awareness of this global challenge. I also pay tribute to IPCC." — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

___

"Any time an American wins it's a good thing for our country and a good thing for him. I also congratulate him on focusing on the issue of global warming," — Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, adding, however, that he believes Gore presents global warming as "much more of an immediate emergency than is the right way to do it."

___

"It's well-deserved. ... I hope that the new Nobel Peace Prize winner will engage in serious activities with me and others" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through use of nuclear power and carbon credits for industry. — GOP presidential candidate John McCain.

___

"I am thrilled about Vice President Al Gore getting the Nobel Peace Prize. It is so well-deserved. It was really an honor that not only recognized his decades of work on this important issue that affects our entire planet, but it was also important to do it now just when we're going to have an opportunity with a new president in January 2009 to begin leading the world toward solutions again." — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

___

"Vice President Gore has been an extraordinary leader for this country. Through his many years of public service, his early and vocal opposition to the war in Iraq, and — above all — his singular leadership in drawing attention to the global climate crisis, Al Gore has advanced the cause of peace at home and around the world. This award is richly deserved." — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

___

"The Nobel Peace Prize rewards three decades of Vice President Gore's prescient and compelling — and often lonely — advocacy for the future of the earth. His leadership stands in stunning contrast to the failure of the current administration to pursue policies that would reduce the harm of global warming." — Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.

___

"As today's announcement confirms, reversing the effects of global warming is an issue of global justice and security. Al's tireless efforts to increase awareness of the threats of global warming have provided a powerful voice telling the world that we need to act now." — Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd.

___

"This prize is important, not only in recognition of Vice President Gore's extraordinary achievements, but also in acknowledgment of the importance of fighting global climate change." — Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson.

___

"No other person has worked harder or done more to draw much needed attention to the crisis of global climate change, one of the most critical issues facing our planet. Future generations will thank him for his work to save our way of life." — Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean
« Last Edit: October 13, 2007, 07:06:33 am by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #22 on: October 13, 2007, 06:53:34 am »









                    Gore's Nobel Prize Shines a Harsh Light on Those Doing Nothing on Global Warming






by Laurie David
The Huffington Post
October 12, 2007 


         Congratulations to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).


After this, will it still be possible for the United States government to continue to do nothing to address the urgent crisis of global warming?

The awarding of the Nobel Peace prize, one of the world's most prestigious honors, to Gore and the IPCC is going to make that ongoing denial of reality even more difficult, I think.

The Nobel committee's recognition of these heroes is validation to every person who has been working on this issue, and it shines a harsh light on anyone who is continuing to do nothing. The prize is recognition of decades of hard work, diligent research, ceaseless patience, dedication and passion by Gore and the leading international scientists who make up the IPCC.

Now more than ever before, the leadership of the United States needs to catch up to its former vice president and commit our nation to action. The serious task of averting the worst impacts of global warming cannot be accomplished through voluntary measures and empty promises.

As Al Gore says, we face a planetary emergency that presents a "moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity," so we need to work together across all political divides and boundaries.

The question remains, when will President Bush recognize that?


« Last Edit: October 13, 2007, 01:15:05 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #23 on: October 13, 2007, 06:59:43 am »










                                     Gore and Bush: A Tale of Two Americans





by Bill Tchakirides
Daily Kos
Sat Oct 13, 2007


With Al Gore's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize we are seeing inevitable comparisons of the achievements of two men who, only a few short years ago, competed for the presidency: Gore and George W. Bush.

One was given the office they both ran for by a somewhat stacked Supreme Court, although it is now clear that a fully enabled Florida Recount would have shown that the other had actually won.

One started working on things which he saw as important - the environment, climate change, corporate management, media development  - the other put in long vacation hours at his Texas ranch and left most of the important work to others - but he was The Decider.

One faced a huge National Emergency and had the immediate support of the entire world and his presidential competitor and both political parties - until he blew that support by turning the disaster into a bigger more meaningless monster: a war in Iraq. The other outlined a huge International Emergency and, in the course of a few years, got organizations and governments all over the world to recognize the problem... and he was rewarded for doing it without intentionally seeking those rewards.

One started with nothing and built a fortune in business, the other started with a huge funds surplus and built the largest National Debt in our history.

One added the successes of the past six years to a resume of military service, Congressional offices, and Federal Administrative experience, the other built on a resume of business failures, military obfuscation, good old boy partying and living off of Daddy's friends' support.

One is now considered a respected world leader whether he holds an office or not... the other has lost the world's respect and, judging by the sad shrinkage of the "Coalition of the Willing", most of the world's support.

Gore and Bush. Bush and Gore.

Will we still be comparing them six years from now, or will we have, hopefully, forgotten the dismal mess one of them has dragged us into?
« Last Edit: October 13, 2007, 12:52:03 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #24 on: October 13, 2007, 07:01:53 am »









                                               Open Science Thread





by DarkSyde
DailyKos
Sat Oct 13, 2007


By now you’ve heard the great news that former Vice-President Al Gore will shares ownership of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace with the IPCC for his efforts on climate change and the anthropogenic Greenhouse Effect. Mr. Gore will join past Laureates in Peace such as Theodore Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela, just to name a few.

The Nobel Prizes were created posthumously in 1895 by Swedish chemist, inventor, and businessman Alfred Nobel. The criteria for the Peace Prize were determined broadly to be "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." The first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1901.

Like any award built on a foundation of science, Mr. Gore stands on the shoulders of thousands of past scientists who laid the ground work on climate change, stretching all the way back to Joseph Fourier who first described the Greenhouse Effect in 1824. More notable and much later pioneers include Tom Wigley of NCAR, Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore Labs, Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit of Univ. of East Anglia, Wally Broecker who discovered just how rapid and devastating climate change can be, Michael Mann who was instrumental in creating the famous Hockey Stick Graph used in many derivative forms in An Inconvenient Truth, James Hansen of NASA/GISS who blew the whistle loud and clear on the Bush Administration's meddling in tax supported science agencies studying global warming , and that's barely scratching the surface. Indeed, as the AP notes:

AP -- Plenty of people share the glory of the Nobel Peace Prize — thousands of scientists have been studying and documenting climate change under a U.N. body set up in 1988 as concerns grew about global warming.

This is a proud moment for all progressives, for legitimate scientists, and a perhaps critical tipping point for the world in more ways than one. For climate change and environmental destruction do not play political favorites. They instead target the young and the old alike, as surely as they draw a deadly bead on conservatives and progressives with utter indifference.

As another great American once stated, "Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." From all of us mortals at Daily Kos, congratulations Mr. Gore! We note that climate change may still be denied by a few, but it is a joint threat to all, and we hope that through your work and the work of others, it will one day, before it's too late, provide common cause for enough.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2007, 01:21:25 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #25 on: October 13, 2007, 07:18:36 am »


                              P E A C E






                                           Feats Divide Pair Linked by Election






                      W A R                                                       




By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 13, 2007; 

MIAMI, Oct. 12 -- Somehow, it seemed only fitting that at the moment of Al Gore's triumph, George W. Bush would spend the day in Florida, scene of the fateful clash that propelled one to the presidency and the other to the Nobel Prize.

What a difference seven years makes. The winner of that struggle went on to capture the White House and to become a wartime leader now heading toward the final year of a struggling presidency. The loser went on to reinvent himself from cautious politician to hero of the activist left now honored as a man of peace.

For the Gore camp, it was a day of resurrection, a day to salve the wounds of history and to write another narrative that they hope will be as enduring as Florida. "We finally have their respective legacies," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and a veteran of the Clinton-Gore White House. "Bush earned the Iraq war, and Al Gore earned the Nobel Prize. Who knew Al Gore would one day thank the Supreme Court for their judgment?"

The White House stuck to polite, if restrained, congratulations. "Obviously, it's an important recognition, and we're sure the vice president is thrilled," spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters aboard Air Force One heading here Friday. Another senior official, commenting on the condition of anonymity to speak less diplomatically, said the Nobel Prize is nice, but the presidency is still better. "We're happy for him," the aide said, "but suspect he'd trade places before we would."

The paths traveled by these two men in the years since the recount battle of 2000 have taken them in surprising directions. They have both become crusaders in ways that might have been unimaginable during the 35 days they fought over hanging chads and butterfly ballots. Two candidates who presented themselves as safe stewards of a prosperous country have instead become evangelists for changing the world, albeit with drastically different visions.

They have spent those seven years shadowboxing, never reconciling. Gore has been one of Bush's most vociferous critics, while the White House has always looked on the former vice president with derision. Their dispute was implicitly on display, even on Friday. Just half an hour after Gore appeared before cameras to acknowledge the Nobel and to promote the cause of fighting climate change, Bush took the stage here for a speech on free trade -- the yin and yang of the global warming argument, protecting the environment or protecting the economy.

In fact, both men have argued that the world can do both, but they represent opposite sides on which priority to value more highly. In his speech here, Bush made no mention of the environment, instead pressing Congress to pass free trade agreements with Peru, Panama, Colombia and South Korea. "It's important for our country to understand trade yields prosperity, and prosperity means people will more likely be able to find work," he told business leaders.

Still, after investing little capital on global warming, Bush lately has tried to assert a new leadership role. Last month, he convened a conference in a bid to begin laying out a framework for an international pact to follow the 2012 expiration of the Kyoto Protocol, which Gore helped negotiate and which Bush renounced. But Bush offered no concrete proposal of his own.

"For a long time, he was trying to keep a low profile on climate change in hopes that the issue would move on," said Samuel Thernstrom, a former Bush environmental aide. "These days, he's showing more interest. . . . It's puzzling to me, though, that he made the effort to put it on the table but didn't put a proposal on the table that would change the discussion."

White House aides said Gore's Nobel would no more influence Bush on global warming than Jimmy Carter's 2002 prize did on the Iraq war. "I'm sure the president, and many Republicans, roll their eyes about how political the Nobel Peace Prize is becoming," said former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer. "For Al Gore, it's a high honor. But for what's probably a growing group of Americans, the Nobel Peace Prize comes coated with some strong political veneer."

Still, presidents through history have secretly yearned for the validation of the Nobel Peace Prize. The only one to win it in office was Theodore Roosevelt, and his medal remains on display at the White House. Interviewed by al-Arabiya television last week, Bush seemed to rue the idea that he is not seen as a man of peace, bristling when asked if, in fact, he is a "man of war."

"Oh, no, no," he said. "I believe the actions we have taken will make it more likely peace happens. I dream it will be -- the last thing I want to be is a president during war." Referring to his vision for spreading democracy, he said that "peace will succeed as more and more people become free."

Yet, if Bush ever dwells on what might have been, so, too, does the Gore team. "It's hard to look at the disaster of the past seven years and not believe that America would be better off if he had been president," said Ron Klain, Gore's former chief of staff. "Perhaps he has done more for climate change as a private citizen than he could have done as president, but I firmly believe that if Al Gore were president, America would not be at war, our standing in the world would be higher, our economy stronger and our civil liberties more secure."

No one will ever know.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2007, 01:02:50 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #26 on: October 13, 2007, 07:22:30 am »








« Last Edit: October 13, 2007, 12:41:09 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #27 on: October 13, 2007, 12:34:20 pm »









                                Gore's Nobel win should boost alternative energy





By Timothy Gardner
Fri Oct 12
 
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The winning of the Nobel Peace Prize by Al Gore and the U.N. climate panel on Friday should give a push to alternative energy technologies that are already enjoying their best year ever, experts said.
 
The prize could spur change in the energy industry that coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power dominate.

"It's a quiet revolution," said Sarah Emerson, the managing director of Boston-Based Energy Security Analysis Inc, which has advised clients about fossil fuels for decades. "Gore's winning makes it a little louder."

Gore's Oscar-winning movie "An Inconvenient Truth" and book of the same name, and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report this year outlined global warming's threat and blamed it on gases emerging from the smokestacks and tailpipes of the world's hydrocarbon economy.

They also highlighted that the comparatively tiny industries of biofuels, wind and solar power, and energy-sipping compact florescent lightbulbs, could over the coming decades help limit output of heat-trapping gases belched out by fossil fuels.

The technologies have a long road ahead of them before they would help slow and then reverse output of greenhouse gases. The two largest emitters of heat-trapping gases, the United States and China, have plans to build hundreds of power plants that run on coal, the heaviest emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.

"Gore has helped a whole lot of people see how critically important it is we address the climate crisis," Ted Nordhaus, an adviser to environmental groups, said in an interview.

"Where we and he need to go next is to define an agenda that is focused on building the new energy economy, not just tearing down the old energy economy," said Nordhaus, the co-author of "Break Through," a book about how the world should fight global warming.

In the United States, the world's top energy consumer, renewables only generated 3 percent of electricity in July, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

But wind and solar power are growing at about 30 percent or more every year. And U.S. capacity to make ethanol has grown 28 percent this year.

Global investment in renewable energies jumped to a record $100 billion in 2006, and will likely rise to about $120 billion in 2007, the U.N. Environment Program said this summer.

Still, many of the technologies may suffer bumps on the road to development. Solar power may be hurt by low supplies of refined silicon and the U.S. ethanol industry has transportation bottlenecks that could lead to a glut in the heart of the country and thin supply on the coasts.

Fortunately for Gore and the IPCC, the peace prize comes during a time of record prices for oil, cheap supplies of which are harder and harder for major oil companies to find. Oil hit a record high above $84 per barrel on Friday amid supply concerns ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter and tensions between northern Iraq and Turkey.

Adam Bergman, a clean technology investment banker at Jeffries in New York, said the peace prize and record oil prices should push the U.S. public to vote for politicians that would regulate greenhouse gases and provide strong incentives for renewables. He said incentives have helped put renewables on a level playing field with fossil fuels in European countries such as Germany and Spain.

"U.S. investors have put a lot of money in clean technologies ... but we don't have the incentive structures in place to make them competitive with traditional fossil fuels right now," he said.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2007, 12:56:40 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #28 on: October 14, 2007, 07:28:30 am »








                                               Who Will Succeed Al Gore?
             

 



By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
The New York Times
Published: October 14, 2007

Seeing Al Gore so deservedly share the Nobel Peace Prize, it is impossible not to note the contrast in his leadership and that of George W. Bush.

Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush each faced a crucible moment. For Mr. Gore, it was winning the popular vote and having the election taken away from him by a Republican-dominated Supreme Court. For Mr. Bush, it was the shocking terrorist attack on 9/11.

Mr. Gore lost the presidency, but in the dignity and grace with which he gave up his legal fight, he united America. Then, faced with what to do with the rest of his life, he took up a personal crusade to combat climate change, even though the odds were stacked against him, his soapbox was small, his audiences were measured in hundreds, and his critics were legion. Nevertheless, Mr. Gore stuck with it and over time has played a central role in building a global consensus for action on this issue.

“No matter what happens, sooner or later character in leadership is revealed,” said David Rothkopf, author of the upcoming “Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making.” “Gore lost the election and had to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. He took the initiative to get the country and the world to focus on a common threat — climate change. Bush won the election and for the first year really didn’t know what to do with it. When, on 9/11, we and the world were suddenly faced with a common threat — terrorism and Al Qaeda — the whole world was ready to line up behind him, but time and again he just divided us at home and abroad.”

Indeed, Mr. Bush, rather than taking all that unity and using it to rebuild America for the 21st century, took all that unity and used it to push the narrow agenda of his “base.” He used all that unity to take a far-right agenda on taxes and social issues that was going nowhere on 9/10 and drive it into a 9/12 world.

Never has so much national unity — which could have been used to develop a real energy policy, reverse our coming Social Security deficit, assemble a lasting coalition to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq, maybe even get a national health care program — been used to build so little. That is what historians will note most about Mr. Bush’s tenure — the sheer wasted opportunity of it all.

Yes, Iraq was always going to be hugely difficult, but the potential payoff of erecting a decent, democratizing government in the heart of the Arab world was also enormous. Yet Mr. Bush, in his signature issue, never mobilized the country, never punished incompetence, never made the bad guys “fight all of us,” as Bill Maher put it, by at least pushing through a real energy policy to reduce the resources of the very people we were fighting. He thought he could change the world with 50.1 percent of the country, and he couldn’t.

“Gore, even without the presidency, used all the modern tools of communication, the Internet, video and globalization to reach out and galvanize a global movement,” Mr. Rothkopf said. “Bush took the greatest platform in the world and dug himself a policy grave.”

Now Mr. Bush is a spent force and Mr. Gore is, apparently, not running. So we still need a president who can unify the country around meaningful action on energy and climate. Most of the Democratic candidates mouth the right words, but I don’t sense much real passion. Most of the Republican candidates seem to be brain-dead on the energy/climate challenge. And it is amazing to me how flat-out wrong some conservatives, like Rush Limbaugh, can be on this issue.

They can’t see what is staring us in the face — that in pushing American companies to become greener, we are pushing them to become more productive, more innovative, more efficient and more competitive.

You can’t make a product greener without making it smarter and more in demand — whether it is a refrigerator or a microchip. Just ask G.E. or Wal-Mart or Sun Microsystems. You can’t make an army greener without making it more secure. Just ask the U.S. Army officers who are desperate for distributed solar power, so they won’t have to depend on diesel fuel to power their bases in Iraq — fuel that has to be trucked all across that country, only to get blown up by insurgents. In pushing our companies to go green we are spurring them to take the lead in the next great global industry — clean power.

In sum, Al Gore has been justly honored for highlighting — like no one else — the climate challenge. But we still need a vision, a strategy, an army and a commander in the White House who can inspire young and old — not only to meet that challenge but to see in it the opportunity to make America a better, stronger and more productive nation. This is our crucible moment.
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #29 on: October 15, 2007, 07:03:13 am »


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7042423.stm






                                           Gore says prize must spur action


 
 

Al Gore said global warming was a "planetary emergency"

Al Gore says his Nobel Peace Prize is an "honour" and a chance to "elevate global consciousness" about the threat posed by climate change.

The former US vice-president was awarded the prestigious prize jointly with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The White House congratulated Mr Gore but said it would not change its policies on global warming.

Mr Gore's film on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, won an Oscar.

He said he accepted the Nobel award on behalf of scientists - like those in the IPCC - who had worked tirelessly for years to get the message about global warming out.

  It truly is a planetary emergency and we have to respond quickly

   

"This is the most dangerous challenge we've ever faced," he said, speaking in Palo Alto, California.

"I will be doing everything I can to try to understand how to best use the honour and recognition of this award as a way of speeding up the change in awareness, and the change in urgency.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it wanted to bring into sharper focus the "increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states" posed by climate change.

Mr Gore, 59, was praised as "probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted", through his lectures, films and books.

He said he would donate his half of the $1.5m prize money to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Front-runner for the Democrat presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, sent a message of congratulations, as did her husband, Mr Gore's former boss, ex-president Bill Clinton.

"His dedication and tireless work have been instrumental in raising international awareness about global warming," Ms Clinton said of Mr Gore in a message on her website.

President George W Bush, who defeated Mr Gore in a bitter fight for the presidency in 2000, was "happy" at the "important recognition" for his rival and the IPCC, a White House spokesman said.

But the president was not about to adopt a more "Gore-style" approach to the global warming issue, said the spokesman.

Mr Gore's win has prompted supporters to renew calls for him to stand in next year's US presidential race. Until now, Mr Gore has said he will not run.

Mr Gore's 2006 documentary film was an unlikely box-office hit and won two Oscars.

But this week it was criticised by a British judge for containing nine errors, and for being alarmist.

The IPCC, established in 1988, is tasked with providing policymakers with neutral summaries of the latest expertise on climate change.
« Last Edit: October 15, 2007, 07:04:47 am by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Pages: 1 [2] 3   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy