The Nobel “Peace” Prize
…for a strained definition of “peace”.
Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their work to raise awareness about global warming.
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During its announcement, the Nobel committee cited the winners “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.”
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“Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming,” Ole Danbolt Mjoes, chairman of the Nobel committee, said in making the announcement.“Thousands of scientists and officials from over 100 countries have collaborated to achieve greater certainty as to the scale of the warming.”
The Nobel committee praised Gore as being “one of the world’s leading environmentalist politicians.”
He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted,” said Mjoes
What this has to do with peace is not even hinted at by the CNN report. For that we have to go to the official Nobel Prize site press release. In the 5 paragraph statement, there is but one line about how this has anything to do with advancing peace.
Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth’s resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world’s most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.
The bold part is the one line of strained connection to peace, while the italicized “may”s chart the path the Nobel folks take to get there. “A just might happen, and then perhaps B could take place, and that means that people might fight about it.”
To top it all off, Gore hasn’t actually done much to stop global warming (certainly not in his own home); he got the award, in the Nobel committee’s words, for his 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.” In other words, he’s been zipping around in private jets telling the rest of the world to slow down.
Well, if simply calling attention to something that might, given a certain set of circumstances, lead to fighting, may I start the nomination process for 2008?
The Voice of the Martyrs is a non-profit, interdenominational organization with a vision for aiding Christians around the world who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ, fulfilling the Great Commission, and educating the world about the ongoing persecution of Christians.
VOM is doing something about violence that is going on now, not simply raising awareness of something that might happen. For all their talk of hating torture, I’m sure the Left in this country could rally around this as much as for Gore. The Nobel folks already have the precedent of sending a political message with their choices, as they did with Jimmy Carter’s prize, and this would send an anti-torture message. How about it?
Yeah, well, hold not thy breath. The Nobel “Peace” Prize has become just another Leftist accolade. They’d give it to the late Yassar Arafat before VOM.
Oh yeah. They did.
Technorati Tags: Nobel Peace Prize, Al Gore, United Nations, IPCC, The Voice of the Martyrs, torture, global warming, environment, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, Christianity, persecution
Filed under: Christianity • Government • Liberal • Politics • Religion • Science • United Nations
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The liberals are being allowed to redefine reality.
Think about the significant increase in their control of media and academia and how nonsense like this allow them to give their alternative reality some credibility, mostly to children and college students.
Scary, huh?
Yes, especially when my own children will be hitting upper academia in a couple years.
We must begin to wonder about “Peace Prizes” given by a tiny committee of only five people, each of whom is selected by a government which is only partially democratic, and who bear heavy on the socialistic (rather than, for example, the scientific) side.
But perhaps we should bow to the committee’s decisions. After all, think of what might happen were another nation or coalition of nations to propose an alternative to Norwegian socialism as the Guiding Principle of Peace.
“The United Nations Peace Prize was given to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his efforts in spreading peace through peaceful nuclear power for peaceful purposes only.”
Yeah, point taken.
It is really difficult for me to tell the difference between “news reports” and the decisions of peace, science and other e-steamed committees, as distinct from (if they are)stand-up comics.
When the “prize” is awarded by the five Norwegian politicians, little is said about other nominees. They “lost” in more ways than one.
The Wall Street Journal reminded me of the Burmese monks who stood up against and were beaten by the military dictatorship, Zimbabwe opposition leaders arrested and beaten while protesting peacefully against their dictator, and Father Nguyen Van Ly, arrested for helping a pro-democracy group. Now there’s a country that knows how to put teeth into the separation of faith and state! Maybe Norway approves of such a tooth and claw approach.
Even Tony Blair was mentioned, along with Ireland’s Bertie Ahern who “set aside decades of hatred to establish joint Catholic-Protestant rule in Northern Ireland.” Didn’t Norway notice?
The Journal mentioned the thousands of Chinese bloggers who risk their freedom and their very lives for reporting on events in China. But China is at the opposite end of Norway’s continent.
Several individuals seeking to bring freedom to North Korea and to aid refugees from that horrorscope. What about President Alvaro Uribe? Does Norway figure that standing up to the left-wing terrorists and militant drug-lords in Colombia is no contribution to regional and world peace?
Walid Eido, Pierre Gemayel, Rafik Harari, and other Lebanese freedom-and-peace activists have been assassinated for their efforts. Their supporters in America and Norway have had their characters assassinated. Peace is dearly bought. What risk is there in standing up for a cooler earth? On the contrary, Algore has gained much political capital even after his ungentlemanly poor sportsmanship drove his country into a civil war of words, chad counts, and resentments.
Alas, if only these men and women who have risked their lives for freedom, for peace, for stability in their own lands, for the end of terrorism, dictatorships, and discrimination had the name recognition and partisan affiliation of ex-Vice-Presidents, they might have been considered. (Please see Wall Street Journal, Oct 13-14, p. A10, for details)
Wow, don’t think I could anything to that at all. Well said, Dale. So many worthy recipients promoting peace today rather than maybe dealing with possible conflicts somewhere down the road.