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Breaking News: Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize

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From the New York Times:

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and lay the foundations for counteracting it.

Good for him!

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    • any doubt?  Really?  Good for Al.  Good for us. 

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      Time to jump in!!!  We’re waiting!!!

      • You know, I hadn’t thought about it this way, but over at open left Chris Bowers asks a pretty good etiquette question.

        Wouldn’t it seem a little weird to announce that you were running for President a few days after winning the Nobel Peace Prize? While I don’t know the exact social tact on how to act during the six weeks between the announcement of a Nobel and the reception ceremony, it strikes me it might not look good to immediately announce you are entering that you are entering a longrunning campaign for the most powerful position on Earth. In fact, it might come across as kind of gauche.

        His analogies later on are kind of silly, but I think the point is clear. How does Gore, supposing he were really going to run, make it look like doing all this work wasn’t just a craven way to get back into Presidential politics?

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        I really, really, really want Gore to run, but he’s not going to. He would have announced by Labor Day.

        • It’s not too late for Gore to run:  I don’t think anyone who’s seen him lately would think that the work for which he won the Prize, work that’s been closest to his heart since his undergraduate days, is just “a craven way to get back into Presidential politics.”

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          Just last night I was with some fellow activists and we were bemoaning our own lack of excitement about (and investment in) this presidential campaign.  Progressives are casting about for an electable candidate who can get them excited about something.  I haven’t quite let go my hopes yet for Obama, but I can’t bring myself to knock on doors for Hillary.  If Al Gore entered the race (or were drafted), I could re-examine my priorities.  Don’t forget, he already won a presidential election.

        • He’s not running.  It’s too late, and if he were going to run, he would have run to win.  But at this point, he’d stand a good chance of being steamrolled by Hillary.  Since the NH primary may well be in December, there just isn’t enough time left.

        • I’m very sorry to burst bubbles, but Al Gore is never going to be president.  Don’t get me wrong, he’d make an excellent president. I voted for him in 2000 and would happily do so again. But it’s clear to me, from the 2000 run and from his life since that he doesn’t want the job, in fact never wanted the job, and is a much much happier and fulfilled person now.  I think, too, this is now clear to him as well.

        • “I see now that people are taking the environment very seriously. Furthermore, they’re saying its my duty to run for President of the United States to make a difference in saving the environment. While I’ve working tirelessly, travelling the globe, to raise awareness – there’s no better position to actually change policy, raise awareness and pressure other countries to come along with us than being the President of the United States. It is primarily for that reason that I know enter the race, but I’ll also do all that I can to help on other important matters – such as bringing a quick end to the war in Iraq and make sure that every child in America has health care. Together, we can make a better way.”

          • … launch the narrative that he’s being disingenuous.  He can make his statements and they can actually be good as well, but the other side will have their ‘differing opinion’ and the stenography corps will repeat it.

          • If you’re going to be “primarily” a one issue candidate, that issue CAN NOT be the environment. Let’s not get carried away. It’s a big issue, but not that big. Not even close.

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            Most people care more about those “other important matters” that “also” have to be part of a candidates agenda.

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            I’ll go so far as to say Gore’s success with the issue of the environment may have gotten to the point that it would’ve been a detriment to his campaign.

    • Though I didn’t buy it quite that low. Now I’m just waiting impatiently for the market creator to close the market so that I can put them somewhere else.

      • It’s at what, 99.84?  That $0.16 might be a small price to pay to move the chits in a timely fashion.

        • If you predict the winner of, say, a football game, can you still trade in the 4th quarter to minimize losses?

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          Forgive me, not entirely familiar with all the ins and outs.

          • You can trade on TradeSports / InTrade right up to the (sometimes metaphorical) buzzer, that I do know, but I don’t know about this inkling market thing.

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            (TradeSports and InTrade both use real money. They’re the same company and pretty much the same interface, but the former site is only for sports, while the latter covers everything else.)

        • meaning that trading had been halted, but the stock hadn’t yet been liquidated. Also, I had 222 shares, so the very act of my selling it would have caused a noticeable decrease in the price of the shares.

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          In any case, the market maker has done his/her job and I’ve put most of it on Niki.

  2. …several things should kept in mind. 

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    One, the Peace Prize is not awarded by the Swedish Royal Academy, which awards most of the other Nobel prizes.  It is awarded by an entity referred to as the Norwegian Nobel Committee.  The prize in economics is not awarded by the SRA, either, it is awarded by a bank, and is actually referred to as the “prize in economics in memory of Alfred Nobel.”

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    Two, it has long been noted that the Peace Prize has a highly political component.  (There are problems with the science prizes awarded by the SRA–that they go predominantly to researchers, not to theorists, but that’s another issue.)  It has been hypothesized that the Peace Prize award is not so much to award past achievements of the awardees, but to give some sort of imprimature or cover to induce them to continue their work–in a particular political direction.  Succinctly put, if the Norwegian Nobel Committee really wanted to encourage scientists to continue their work in global climate change, they would not have awarded it to a government entity IPCC or to Al Gore, they would have awarded it to a consortium of scientists who are actually involved in studies of climate change.

    • that if he doesn’t run, then there is a real possibility that he’d decline.  most would see this as a waste of their vote.  you know, the Nader syndrome.

  5. I really didn’t think he’d win.

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    Honestly, though, I disagree with Bowers and am more inclined to believe, if anything, the people who are giving him this award would want him to run. After all, they’re awarding someone for their work on the Global Climate Crisis. How could Al Gore possibly have a larger impact on it than if he were President of the United States?

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    I really hope he does jump in. There’s still plenty of time since he’s so well known. Furthermore, he doesn’t have to run like other campaigns. Sure, he’ll have to go to the debates and things like that, but I’d rather see him continue giving his global warming speech than stump speeches on most nights. Or he could turn his global warming speech into his stump speech, just adding in a few other parts for the war in Iraq, health care, etc.

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    Furthermore, even if he really, really doesn’t want to be President and never fully commits, the fact that he would enter the race would turn Global Warming into the issue of the campaign. Plus, he wouldn’t have to work tremendously hard to get the grassroots support he already needs: there are “Draft Al Gore” Groups all across the country. I’d actually join up, if he starts to hint at the race.

    • Here is a problem I’ve always though Gore faced if he decided to run again.  That is, that in 2000 capitulated too soon/too easily to Bush.  Sure, it was the gentlemanly thing to do, no one could have ever imagined, blah blah blah.  But it was also naive, half-assed and “not thoroughly committed”.  We need fully committed candidates who will see the election completely through.  There is a lot I like about A Gore, but for me he carries too much baggage from the 2000 election.

  6. This just in.  The Supreme Court of the United States has just issued an order, with 4 justices dissenting, that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is to be awarded to George W. Bush.

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