Color me shocked and also tickled. As all of you probably know by now, the winner of the this years Nobel Prize for Peace was announced today and Al Gore won, along with the United Nations Panel on Climate Change. Ol' Al had been nominated for "putting climate change on the agenda."
To be honest, I did not think Gore would be picked because he is too much of a "celebrity." Alex had made a strong case for a group called Mercy Corps. But nevertheless I am delighted.
Of course the good news comes with the accusations of liberal bias, politicization of the prize, and its general lack of credibility. (Sour grapes seeing as everyone still pays attention to who wins it.) The fact is that for as long as peace (true peace, not world dominance) is valued more by liberals than conservatives, there will appear to be a liberal bias to the prize. And being pro-peace is political statement; it always has been. Sure, everyone pays lip service to peace but as the world situation shows, not everyone actually pursues it.
The criticism that had me flabbergasted, however, was the claim that Gore deserved a Nobel Prize for climate change, but not for Peace, because climate change has nothing to do with peace. What planet are people on? Global Climate Change IS a Peace issue. Probably more so than any other issue facing us today.
As the global climate patterns change, there is drought where there wasn't drought before. There are floods where there weren't floods before. There are increased intensity of hurricanes. The permafrost is melting and islands are going under water, meaning the loss of livable land in both the north and south. All these things are causing massive dislocations of people across borders. Where do people go when they lose their land? Or if they don't have enough fresh water to survive?
Many people predict that the next wars will be fought over fresh water, not oil. And good arguments have been made that the current genocide in Darfur is due to the several year drought that they have been experiencing.
Global climate change IS a peace issue.
