Sunday, October 14, 2007

Al Gore: belittling the Nobel 'Peace' Prize

There was a time when the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to brave people and organisations who had put their own lives on the line in order to help the victims of conflicts, or it was the very peacemakers themselves who had won the award - but not anymore.

These days it appears that doom and gloom thinking is being awarded with no less than a Nobel award. Al Gore's powerful, precautionary and apocalyptic tale An Inconvenient Truth, has been put on par with the likes of the International Committee of the Red Cross (two times winner), Martin Luther King Jr, Amnesty International, Lech Walesa and even the Dalai Lama.

But how can it be, that a factually inaccurate, puffed-up PowerPoint display can be placed in the same league as someone who spent 27 years in prison and became the first democratically elected President of South Africa? Then again, the racist South African dictator F.W. de Klerk also received an award, so what can we make of these bizarre and grotesque choices of Nobel 'Peace' prizes?

It seems as if the Nobel Prize Committee's criteria is to hand out it's awards to people who in someway reflect the committee's very own dull and banal sentimentalism - and Al Gore is a perfect example of the Prize Committee's virtues. The Nobel Committee can no longer distinguish between those who want real peace in this world, and those who want to reduce the human carbon-footprint. That is why even an unelected, motley character like the U2 front man Bono was even rumoured to be given an award. The decision to award Gore has in fact belittled the real purpose of the prize in mine eye - in the future, I will be saving my round of applause to those who have the bravery and temerity to stick two fingers up (not in a victory sign) to the Nobel Prize Committee. Now, let's have a big round of applause for Le Duc Tho.

9 Comments:

At 10:12 PM, Blogger Cody Bones said...

Hear Hear.

 
At 9:40 PM, Blogger M said...

What gets me is that this has nothing to do with peace and everything to do with a trendy political agenda, also there are separate awards for scientific achievements but the scientific merit of the work of Gore and fellow recipient the IPCC obviously wasn’t considered strong enough for those.

 
At 10:25 PM, Blogger Courtney Hamilton said...

Thanks for your comment mjw - and you made a really good point there. Obviously the Prize Committee hasn't got an award for environmental science, or in Al Gore's case - environmental propaganda - so they gave them a 'peace' award instead.

 
At 11:18 AM, Blogger Cheezy said...

To me, the Nobel Prize has become a bit like the Queen's Honours list - i.e. There are always some worthy recipients, but plenty aren't.

(Come to think of it, this makes it a bit like the Oscars and the Booker Prize too...)

If Al getting the prize is symptomatic of an increasing seriously with which climate change issues are being viewed, then I won't sweat it too much... whatever I think of him, or the award.

PS: Wasn't Mandela a terrorist? ;-)

 
At 3:10 PM, Blogger Courtney Hamilton said...

Hi cheezy,

It's just a real shame that the Nobel Prize Committee didn't give that particular award to someone who really deserved it - like a Burmese Monk or something...

 
At 5:30 PM, Blogger Stran said...

I think it is the first Nobel to win an Oscar!

What is next: George Cloney?

Seriously, I think that are a lot of people in this world that were better candidates (like the example you gave, Courtney).

And we should not forget that this prize also represents money that could support good causes and give the right visibility.

To give this prize to a self promoting man that did not risk nothing to do what he does, it is simply stupid!!!

 
At 8:04 PM, Blogger Courtney Hamilton said...

"To give this prize to a self promoting man that did not risk [nothing] to do what he does, it is simply stupid!!!

I couldn't agree with you more stran_ger.

 
At 1:15 PM, Blogger Roland Dodds said...

Sadly Courtney, you are one of the "brown shirt" bloggers Gore so passionately hates. How dare you appose his ascent?

 
At 9:09 PM, Blogger Sean Jeating said...

Slightly late, I know, but I want to at least leave a short com(pli)ment: Chapeau!

 

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