Somewhere Alfred is Spinning in his Grave

So today (or yesterday) it was announced that Al Gore will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work promoting the dangers of global warming. Let me state that I am happy that Mr. Gore was awarded this - although not I suspect for the same reason as others. To reference my notes below I relied upon Wikipedia a publicly accessible and editable source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize

Now I happen to disagree with Mr. Gore's opinions on this topic. Some might say - but Bill these aren't opinions they are facts - unfortunately for them I have British Law on my side: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/10/11/scigore111.xml
As part of this it is important to note that the judge rulled that Mr. Gore's global warming debate file was in fact as "Political Film"- this is important. Also note early reports indicated there were 11 vs. 9 issues - I have linked to an independent news source that lists 9 issues.

However, let me make two things clear - Mr. Gore was not alone in recieving this shared award and he recived in large part not because of a single movie - but rather in relation to a large body of public and literary work (as noted in the award anouncement linked to below.)

So the first thing to note is that Mr. Gore wasn't given a scientific award for presenting scientific details of global warming. In fact this would have upset me more since as noted in Wikipedia: 'most science awards take 20+ years to be awarded -the result according to wikipedia is that many scientists die before their discovery is considered as worthy of an award, and since the award can't be awarded to someone deceased they are never considered.' (my use of single quotes indicates I have paraphrased and not exactly quoted this statement.)

So far so good - but why is Alfred spinning. Well for starters there's the fact he probably spins up every time he thinks of Mahatma Ghandi - the largest proponent of peaceful conflict resolution of the last century who - was never awarded a Nobel Peace prize. (Remember you have to be alive to get the award and Mr. Ghandi passed away after his 5th nomination.) Fortunately for Mr. Gore he didn't need to wait for 20 years on a science award or for 5 nominations.

So what according to Alfred Nobel are the criteria for the award for Peace. As takenfrom his will: (the full text of which is available on the NobelPrize.org site and I have quoted from an excerpt on Wikipedia.)
On timing: "... shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. " on this issue the nobel comittee has made clear that they prefer to wait for the test of time on a person's achievements. As noted for science this is often 20 years; for literature it is often awarded based on a body of work (something you couldn't do in a single year).

For peace the award tends to be awarded in near term as mentioned Kofi Annan was given the award in 2001 within 4 years of becoming the UN Secretary General.

So what are the requirements for the Peace Prize as laid out by Alfred Nobel over a century ago:
"... to 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."

Again the comittee has - probably justifiably - recognized that the term "person" might be interpreted as a collection of individuals or an organization.

So how does Mr. Gore's work on Man-made climate change meet these requirements? To be honest I'm not sure it does, but from my standpoint that's OK - my complaint with the man-made global warming debate is that it's not about science it is about politics and this award goes to reinforce that reality.

In the announcing this year's award the quote was:
"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" unfortunately this announcement doesn't list anything about peace.

However, the full press report makes clear: "By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world’s future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind." - http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/press.html

Unfortunately reducing the threat to the security of mankind is not the same as actually promoting peace and thus I feel Mr. Nobel would not approve - but that is just my opinion. In the meantime I congratulate both the UN and Mr. Gore for their political efforts and honestly hope that peace is a result of their efforts.

For more information on the Nobel Prizes please visit their site at: http://nobelprize.org/