Posted on 10/15/2007 6:27:16 AM PDT by Kaslin
Alfred Barnard Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and innovator born in 1833. As the inventor of dynamite, he amassed a great fortune through the manufacture and sale of armaments. The Nobel Prize was established through his will in1895. Every year since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace.
It is one of the most impressive accolades any public servant can receive. The fact that the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” its Academy Award, and Vice President Gore’s activism led to this incredible honor is tantamount to the Nobel Committee endorsing his work. Giving him the Nobel Peace Prize places Vice President Gore in the company of greats like Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1964, Mother Teresa In 1979, Lech Walesa in 1983, and Nelson Mandela in 1993.
Through this award, the international community is saying to us, “Environmental concerns are very important and America needs to step up to the plate of international leadership!” Although we would hardly place Gore in the same category as King or Mother Teresa, the award adds cache and credibility to the former Vice President’s agenda.
Ironically, last week, I asked my readers to consider taking practical steps to frame the debate on the environment. I suggested that we consider weaning the nation off of foreign oil as a way of starting down a balanced approach to both pollution and reducing CO2 emissions. There are a myriad of approaches to energy reform and environmental policy reform that conservatives can take that will help move these issues forward in a balanced manner. My greatest concern is that we will wait too long to attack this issue.
Little did I know that the Nobel Prize would be awarded to Gore and the IPPC days after my last column. If the Peace Prize causes the voting public of our nation to move environmental issues to the top of the list of public concerns, they will mandate that a solution be found and implemented.
Fortunately for the nation, environmental activists have not yet gained enough public attention for them to unveil their “solutions”. As these activists wait for their “moment,” conservatives should use the time we have to develop incentive-based approaches to reducing CO2 emissions. Even increasing the use of nuclear energy as a source of power within the US should not be taken off the table.
Many writers have noted that this present global warming scare is not new. In fact, in the spring of 1975 Newsweek published an article on climate change. The following words were written by sensationalistic journalists:
“There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now.”
According to many news reports, the Earth was moving into another ice age. Just 30 years later, not only did the ice age not appear, but now we are told the world is on the verge of unprecedented global warming.
In my discussions with scientists, I have once again discovered a difference between the words of the scientific community and the alarmist rhetoric of writers and activists. In fact, scientific journals of the 1970s were saying that there would likely be warming because of greenhouse effects, sooner than the return of an ice age. Unfortunately, the complexity of the real scientific story was not easily reduced to a thirty second sound bite or a catchy headline.
Telling the full story with all of its scientific nuances, would have not produced headlines. For this reason the science was compromised, conclusions were framed in a sensationalistic manner, and the public was entertained – not informed. It would have been better to say that there are big cooling cycles coming, interspersed with smaller warming cycles.
Why the flip-flop in the media? I am not sure. Could they be misleading us again? I certainly hope not. In an interesting study of the media’s coverage of “climate change,” R. Warren Anderson and Dan Gainor examined how major media outlets covered the issue of climate change over the last 100 plus years . What they discovered was that there have been four climate change scares; a concern over global cooling beginning in 1895, followed by fears of global warming in 1929, only to be replaced by alarm over global cooling; now we are back to global warming. With each succeeding crisis, the call for a government solution has grown louder and louder.
It is now confirmed, the name of the Nobel Peace Prize has been unofficially changed to
The Nobel Glob[e]l Socialism Prize
Alfred Nobel must surely be turning around in his grave
Not only should it not be taken off the table, it is realistically, the ONLY way we can possibly reduce CO2 emissions substantially, while still maintaining our standard of living and productivity. But see, for the envirofascists, its all about bringing us down to their socialist/luddite utopia..
the silver lining to all this is that the Nobel “Peace” Prize is forever sullied after Gore’s win — it is now seen naked for what it is: merely a vehicle for attacking the United States and capitalism.
“Alfred Nobel must surely be turning around in his grave”
I’ve yet to have anyone explain to me how pimping a lie for personal profit contributes to the advancement of “Peace”...
It also places him in the company of Yasir Arafat, Kofi Anan and Jimmy Carter. The Nobel Committee isn't very picky these days. If he/she/it advances world Socialism, he/she/it gets the prize. I'll let you decide if Al Gore is a he, she or it.
“But see, for the envirofascists, its all about bringing us down to their socialist/luddite utopia..”
Which includes going back to living in caves, walking everywhere and of course, showering (as they do) only once a month.
“while still maintaining our standard of living and productivity”
This is the whole point - bringing down our standard of living, while the “elites” fly around in their private jets.
Their blatant use of the environmental issue to institute socialism is so easy to see - those who don’t are either in cahoots or blindingly ignorant.
Uh, WHY should we do this?
OK then, let’s use more, safe, clean etc. etc. nuclear power, then plug electric cars into the grid.
What, Nuclear Energy alarmists too?
But...why should we reduce CO2 emissions?
No it isn't. It's a tiny group of moonbat Liberal marxists who control the awards purse strings, and are desperate to push this global warming SCAM on us that are saying this.
No. That happened when Carter and Arafat got it. Gore only confirms the joke.
I thought that the Nobel Peace Prize was forever sullied after they gave it to Jimmy Carter for the “Agreed Framework” to help North Korea develop the atomic bomb!
Why? To be politically correct?
Argh. Where's the editor when you need him?
The word is "cachet", not cache. The former is pronounced "cashay", the latter is pronounced "cash."
The award certainly did add cash to Gore's agenda, but it also lent it cachet.
Don't be worried about CO2 emissions. I don't think you quite realize the scale of the Global Warming Hoax - the idea that CO2 causes high temperatures is nonsense. The Vostok ice-core data shows that it is exactly the other way round.
We should dig up the abundant coal we have and build more coal fired plants like China.
Maybe then the USA will be given carbon credits to sell to other western countries who (like the USA is now) pollute far less than any of the turd world crap holes like China and India that are somehow on the recieving end of these green credits.
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