Al Gore & Climate Change Wins Nobel Peace Prize

October 12, 2007 · Filed Under News 

In a perhaps unsurprising decision this year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded jointly to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their work on promoting climate issues (The BBC). The award carries with it a $1.5million reward and Gore has already announced that he will donate his share to the Alliance for Climate Protection. The award was given to recognise the fact that climate change and it’s implications (e.g. famine, flooding, loss of territory, population displacement, scarcity of resources) is a seriously potential threat to world peace. Reactions to the award can be found at The BBC.

However, not everyone is a big fan of Gore - or more specifically his Oscar winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Stuart Dimmock, a parent from Dover, had requested that the film was banned from being shown in schools. However a high court judge has ruled that the film can be shown, with added guidelines, as the film “promotes partisan political views but it is not unlawful to show to students.

So Gore has picked up another accolade for his attempts to raise awareness of climate change. There’s no doubt that there is a political angle in his views, and there’s now even calls for Gore to stand for President 2008. However, he has managed to keep climate change in the news and public domain (although Live Earth was a pretty poor show) and perhaps for that reason the award is well deserved.

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