Nobel Peace Prizes and Shopping Cart Sweepstakes

The Nobel Committee today announced that Al Gore had been awarded its prize for this year - which follows such distinguished prior winners as Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan. Carter has, especially after his presidency, contributed to nothing but hot air, which one could easily call global warming. His contributions to peace have been near zilch. His latest book was, according to many scholars of the Middle East, an assault on a sovereign nation (Israel). And Annan's corruption as Secretary General (he allowed countries with genocidal policies to participate in the Human Rights Committee of the UN) was legendary. With those types of predecessors excuse me for not being excited. I will admit there have been some deserved winners, but for the most part each of these awards is a statement of political correctness.

The Peace Prize often involves a lot of politics. One person's peace is another person's yabbering. Anyone can admit that Mr. Gore has vaulted the issue of climate change to the highest levels. But his relentless efforts to only look at one set of data and to look at one set of results is not likely to present much in the way of ultimate solutions.

Also noted on the award was the UN Panel which works on the same subject and helped to produce the Kyoto Protocol. (Notably done in 1997 during the Clinton Administration's watch but not ratified. In fact, the Byrd-Hagel amendment passed in 1997 (Senator Byrd is a democrat from coal producing West Virginia but in this case his home state interests were on the right track.) said the US should not ratify the Protocol. The Clinton Administration did not pursue much beyond that. The Clinton Administration produced a report which argued that implementation of the agreement would result in a significant reduction in GDP. Again, that was the right conclusion. So while Mr. Gore has talked a lot about this issue, his record when he had the ability to affect policy was much less stellar.

After he left the White House, some enterprising journalist snooped out his records on his own energy use (with the logic that if this is such a problem he should probably lead by example) and found him to be an energy hog who then argued that he was purchasing dispensations with carbon offsets. So excuse me if my response to the Nobel Committee is whoopdie frickin doo.