Al Gore's Nobel Prize

Al Gore, who was elected President of the United States in 2000 but denied the office by the United States Supreme Court, has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global climate change. The Nobel citation noted that he "is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted” to slow down this cataclysmic threat to world peace and stability. The New York Times article on this award is here.

What will be interesting in the next few days--aside from the inevitable speculation on whether or not he will now decide to run for President--will be how the right-wing attack machine will go into full assault mode in its endless efforts to deny climate change and smear Gore personally. The temperature is rising, and the polar ice caps are melting, yet the well-funded climate skeptics, encouraged by the Bush-Cheney junta, will do anything to protect the interests of the fossil-fuel trust.

Global climate change is probably the most pressing issue in the dismal history of the human species. Among other things, it will disrupt agriculture, raise sea levels, cause mass extinctions, and alter precipitation patterns. There's not much time left to avert the worst of what is likely to happen to our planet's already endangered ecological health.

Al Gore deserves this award, and he deserves our respect and support for his efforts to wake up a somnolent world community.