Al Gore and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change both won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, announced this morning. The Nobel Committee cited the work of the former Vice President and the IPCC in raising awareness of man-made climate change and presenting solutions for combating the crisis.
“His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change,” the Nobel citation said. “He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.”
It cited Gore’s awareness at an early stage “of the climatic challenges the world is facing.”
In a press statement, Gore said, “I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the world’s pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis — a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.” Gore also said he would donate all of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection.
And with that, media attention immediately shifted to whether Gore would parlay the Nobel Peace Prize into a presidential campaign.
The speculation strikes me as wildly misplaced.
In fact, I haven’t the foggiest idea how the two are connected in any way. Are Nobel prizes traditionally used as a spring board to political campaigns? Actually, no. Has Gore hinted, even once, that he would decide on his political future after hearing from the Nobel Committee? Not at all.
Do American voters place so much emphasis on the Nobel Peace Prize that support for a Gore campaign will suddenly flourish? As Steve M. noted, it’s highly unlikely.
The people who are impressed enough to vote for Al Gore — and who began feeling that way either before or after An Inconvenient Truth — will continue to feel that way, Nobel or no. As for the rest, it’s hard to see why a Nobel would change their minds, and it’s easy to imagine that the award would give Limbaughnistas even more backyard-barbecue rhetoric to spew about evil internationalists who have no God and therefore worship the earth.
The breathless speculation in the media about Gore’s presidential plans got a huge boost this morning because the media enjoys breathless speculation about Gore’s presidential plans. Indeed, in some ways, this is a case study of what Gore talked about in “The Assault on Reason” — he just won the Nobel Peace Prize for raising awareness on global warming, and far too many news outlets are rushing right past the point of the award to focus on a horserace of which Gore isn’t a part.
Late yesterday, the WaPo’s Dan Balz reported:
[I]f the United States awakes to the news Friday that Gore has won the Nobel, he will become the center of the political story once again — and be forced yet again to demure — but not to fully close the door — on running.
He’ll be “forced” to answer these questions in large part because the media can’t stop asking them.