In quotes: Nobel peace prize reaction

The Guardian ^ | 12th October 2007 | Guardian newspaper

[Monique in Manchester]

Reaction from around the world to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to former US vice-president and climate change campaigner Al Gore, and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

PROFESSOR WANGARI MAATHAI, FOUNDER OF GREEN BELT MOVEMENT AND NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE 2004

When it was first announced that I would be receiving the peace prize in 2004, many people asked what does the environment have to do with peace?

By choosing Al Gore and the IPCC for the award in 2007, the Nobel Committee have rightly brought to our attention that climate change is the single biggest threat to world peace we have ever faced.

TONY FRATTO, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN

Of course [US President George W Bush] is happy for Vice-President Gore and 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 is thrilled.

UK PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN

Al Gore has been inspirational in focusing attention across the globe on this key issue. The IPCC's work on the science of climate change has been vital and they are now leading a process by which all countries will work together to tackle the effects of climate change.

ACHIM STEINER, HEAD OF UN ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME (UNEP)

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.

SPOKESMAN FOR CZECH PRESIDENT VACLAV KLAUS, CLIMATE CHANGE SCEPTIC

He is somewhat surprised that Al Gore got the Peace Prize, because the relation between his activities and world peace is unclear and indistinct.

It rather seems that Gore's questioning of the basic foundation stones of the current civilisation does not contribute to peace much.

DR JEREMY LEGGETT, OXFORD UNIVERSITY ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE INSTITUTE

I can't think of a better combination for this award - the previously unsung and much-falsely maligned legion of scientific whistleblowers, and their tireless chief advocate.

Perhaps now the shrivelling band of fossil-fuel-funded contrarians and car-enthusiast media stars will finally have the good grace to shut up with the ignorance they pedal about the threat we face.

TONY JUNIPER, EXECUTIVE DIRECT OF FRIENDS OF THE EARTH

This is a very welcome signal that the world is beginning to wake up to how environmental challenges are going to shape many aspects of human welfare long into the future. We hope that politicians everywhere will see this signal and take heed.

JOSEPH BAST, HEARTLAND INSTITUTE

Al Gore doesn't understand the science behind climate change or he deliberately misrepresents it. Either way, that should disqualify him from a prize like this.

PIERS FORSTER, SCHOOL OF EARTH AND ENVIRONMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

It's every scientist's dream to win a Nobel Prize, so this is great for myself and the hundreds that worked on their reports over the years.

It is perhaps a little deflating though - that one man and his PowerPoint show has as much influence as the decades of dedicated work by so many scientists.

UN SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON (SPOKESMAN)

The secretary-general notes that largely thanks to the IPCC's lucid and well-documented findings, it is now established beyond doubt that climate change is happening, and that much of it is caused by human activity. As a result, there is now unprecedented momentum for action on climate change around the world, and recognition of the UN as the forum for reaching agreement on it.

SHEILA WATT-CLOUTIER, CANADIAN INUIT ACTIVIST AND PREVIOUSLY TIPPED FOR THE PRIZE

The Planet Earth is a winner today and that is what counts for me.

BJORN LOMBORG, AUTHOR OF THE SKEPTICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST

Awarding it to Al Gore cannot be seen as anything other than a political statement. Awarding it to the IPCC is well-founded. [Gore's film The Inconvenient Truth has] some very obvious mistakes, like the argument that we're going to see 6m of sea-level rise.

They [the Nobel committee] have a unique platform in getting people's attention on this issue, and I regret they have used it to make a political statement.

JOSE MANUEL BARROSO, EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT

[The recipients'] contributions to the prevention of climate change have raised awareness all over the world. Their work has been an inspiration for politicians and citizens alike. The European Union remains committed to its ambitious goals in the field. I call on all our partners to take this Nobel Peace Prize as an encouragement to approach this challenge even more swiftly, and decisively.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/7041573.stm

Published: 2007/10/12 15:16:50 GMT

© BBC MMVII

[Monique in Manchester]

Intelligent comments invited. I am interested in the reactions of American citizens, speaking as a concerned British citizen. Surely anything that highlights this issue is a good thing?

[LdSentinal]

There is no such thing as "global warming."

[Question Liberal Authority]

By choosing Al Gore and the IPCC for the award in 2007, the Nobel Committee have rightly brought to our attention that climate change is the single biggest threat to world peace we have ever faced.

Actually, it highlights the fact that government overreach is the single biggest threat to world peace we have ever faced.

[tessalu]

Al Gore is the President of “The sky is falling, Chicken Little Crowd”. The world has far far greater problems.
If the world gets too much water, just move to higher ground. I think it is more than likely that there will be too little water. Global warming is designed to detract from the really serious problems of the world.

[Always Right]

Gorebull Warnings are nothing but propaganda. It’s all politics.

[plangent]

This will become “An Inconvenient Prize”

Stupid Nobel Committee + preening of award winner + debunking of “concensus” scientists = deflatus.

There was a time when a critical element of scientific
inquiry was robust scepticism. Now we have wholesale scientific quest for acceptance. Go along to get along.

A pox on them all.

[citizencon]

I agree with the Czech President...
Gore’s prize should have been for voo doo science...

[Clink]

Another quote:

"The Nobel prize will go a long way in legitimizing Al Gore's crass agenda of making billions of dollars through his fear mongering of chicken-little citizens who swallow his unscientific bullshit".-Clink

[null and void]

There is no such thing as "global warming."

We're still in an ice age?

[LdSentinal]

We're still in an ice age?

That will happen if Hillary gets elected president.

[Cicero]

I sympathize somewhat with Piers Forster’s pain.

It must be a little deflating to a junk scientist that hundreds of junk scientists were passed over for the award, while Al Gore got it for doing a Power Point show about junk science.

[Aliska]

Seems like the Guardian only quoted a few negative comments, and they are obviously politicizing it, too. I'm open to the possibility of global warming, but we have had it before in ages past when there weren't enough people and fossil fuels to have brought it about. As to affecting me, where I live, generally the winters have been a little warmer and the summers not as hot for such long stretches as often happens.

Maybe I'm ignorant, but I don't see that it has a whole lot to do with peace. The nations are raging as never before, even though we aren't currently into as severe wars as the two world wars of the past as to body count, it is very serious now what we are now facing with the terrorists, and how global warming has anything to do with that is beyond me.

Even though fossil fuels are non-renewable, think of how mad those countries with oil will be if the money supply dries up if alternative energy comes into widespread use. They will be fighting mad. As if they aren't already. Just much worse.

Most people around me are true believers and have bought into the hype, useless to argue with them when you aren't up on the science of it. Some pretty prestigious scientists have stated that they do not believe the theory as it is being proliferated, and they are quickly discredited, ignored, or shot down.

The book of Revelation says the sun will get very hot, but does not explain why, how or when, if it is literal or figurative.

[indcons]

Hmmm, Monique....what did you do that got you banned this early on the thread?

[sourcery]

Basic References:

• Challenge to Scientific Consensus on Global Warming: Analysis Finds Hundreds of Scientists Have Published Evidence Countering Man-Made Global Warming Fears
• The Year the Global Warming Hoax Died
• Hostages to a hoax
• Water Experts Find Earth’s Warming, Rainfall Linked to Sun
• Global Warming and Solar Radiation
• Milankovitch Cycles and Glaciation
• The Myth of Dangerous Human-Caused Climate Change (PDF)
• Up against the warming zealots
• When Physics Trumps Hysteria in Global Warming
• Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics (PDF)
• Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
• Carbon dioxide did not end the last Ice Age
• Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts
• Geophysical, archeological and historical evidence support a solar-output model for climate change (PDF)
• Gamma rays and climate (PDF)
• Temperature vs. Cosmic Ray Flux
• Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development (PDF)
• Proof on Ice: Southern Greenland Was Once Green; Earth Warmer
• Global Warming and Nature's Thermostat
• The Past and Future of Climate (PDF)
• Global warming is not a crisis
• The Great Global Warming Swindle
• IceCap

Lawrence Solomon's "The Deniers" (a series of articles on the view of scientists who have been labelled "Global Warming Deniers"):

• Science, not politics
• Statistics needed
• The original denier: into the cold
• End the chill
• They call this a consensus?
• The limits of predictability
• Unsettled science
• Models trump measurements
• The ice-core man
• The hurricane expert who stood up to UN junk science
• Polar scientists on thin ice
• The sun moves climate change
• Bright sun, warm Earth. Coincidence?
• Look to Mars for the truth on global warming
• Read the sunspots
• Forget warming - beware the new ice age
• Little Ice Age is still with us
• Fighting climate 'fluff'

Other References:

• Alarmist global warming claims melt under scientific scrutiny
• Global warming 'is good and is not our fault'
• The Global Warming Myth
• Global Warming: A Chilling Perspective
• Strong Evidence Points to Earth's Proximity to Sun as Ice Age Trigger
• THE NEXT ICE AGE - NOW!
• Father of Climatology Throws Up at the Thought of Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'
• IPCC Scientists Challenge Al Gore’s View of Global Warming Consensus
• Swedish Scientist Accuses UN's IPCC of Falsifying Data and Destroying Evidence
• CO2 Science
• On the Phenomenon of Atmospheric Backradiation
• Does Man really affect Weather and Climate? Are the Interactions really understood?
• The Thermodynamic Atmosphere Effect - explained stepwise
• Global Warming and Climate Forcing by Recent Albedo Changes on Mars
• Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics
• The Real 'Inconvenient Truth'
• New findings indicate today's greenhouse gas levels not unusual
• Climate Change: Incorrect information on pre-industrial CO2
• Global Warming as a Religion
• I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train (By David Evans)
• Global Warming: it's not caused by greenhouse gases says academic
• Rising Surface Temperatures Drive Back Winter Ice In Barents Sea, Researchers Findx
• Still Waiting for Greenhouse
• GREENIE WATCH
• Why Global Warming Would be Good for You
• Global Warming Primer (PDF)
• Global Warming: An Official Pseudoscience
• Sun's Output Increasing in Possible Trend Fueling Global Warming
• Fiddler On The Roof
• Debating Global Warming
• Climate Resistance

Antarctic Temperature Trend 1982-2004:

This map (left) shows key areas of Antarctica, including the vast East Antarctic ice sheet. The image on the right shows which areas of the continent's ice are thickening (coloured yellow and red) and thinning (coloured blue). © (Left)British Antarctic Survey, (Right)Science

[ErnBatavia]

ERNBATAVIA, FREEPER EXTRAORDINAIRE:

Pandering to brand newbie Monique, will keep it simple - Al Gore found a mythical bandwagon and jumped on it. It's paid off so far, but once his "Inconvenient Truths" come full circle and bit him in the ass,becoming inconvenient for him, he'll retire to his energy hogging estate in Tennessee in disgrace.

[chaos_5]

JOSEPH BAST, HEARTLAND INSTITUTE

Al Gore doesn't understand the science behind climate change or he deliberately misrepresents it. Either way, that should disqualify him from a prize like this.

Exactly my thoughts on the matter.

[gunservative]

Gunservative: "Al Gore wants to freeze the planet!"

[2111USMC]

Junk science.

Welcome to Free Republic!

[ErnBatavia]

This account has been banned or suspended.

Good Zot, mod! There was a definite ozone whiff as soon as I clicked in...

[ErnBatavia]

Welcome to Free Republic!

Already zotted....