Al Gore, The Nobel Prize and the Unbearable Lightness of Being the Planet's Most Exemplary Citizen

As described in the WSJ today, the Nobel Committee announced that Al Gore and the U.N. Panel on Climate Change are sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on Global Warming.

In the Norwegian committee's official statement on the award, they wrote

"Indications of changes in the earth's future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. . .....Action is necessary now, before climate change moves  beyond man's control."

Sadly, the WSJ article goes on to comment that  " the award's affect may prove more rhetorical than substantive". Ever mindful of this reality, on receiving notice of the Nobel award, Gore commented, "We face a true planetary emergency…''

It comes as no surprise that the event catalysed the DraftGore movement to publish a full-page entreaty in the NY Times.  For environmental idealists, it all inspires exhilarating thoughts:

To think, as a presidential candidate, Gore actually might run his entire multi-million dollar campaign to be carbon-neutral -- a great boost to the green tags or tradeable renewable energy market.

To think, as President, Gore would be in the position to instill the IPCC May recommendations for mitigating climate change directly into U.S. Energy Policy and other required policy areas. (see the IPCC May 2007 Summary Report here.)

To think, even while running for President, Gore would expose so many more Americans and American businesses to the IPCC recommendations. This alone has tremendous education value in terms of the necessary machine adjustments to the U.S. economy to become less fossil-fuel dependent

To think, if elected President, in one fell swoop, America once again regains its position as a visionary super-power, leading in thought and action on world energy reform.

Alas and alack- Gore's running and winning is not likely.  It is not a matter of campaign funds or the closing time window so much as the extreme unliklihood  that the Democratic Party could back as wonderfully uncompromising a stance on global warming as Mr. Gore's.

In the end, Mr. Gore's best stage for action is  indeed a global one - shared with the 2000+ scientists of the IPCC.  It is from just such a (relatively) politically-unfettered, scientific platform - in a sense, serving as Chief Marketing Officer for the IPCC -  that the world will most likely benefit from IPCC's progress.

Update on Monday, October 15, 2007 at 10:48AM by Lisa Thorell

As an indicator that , unfortunately, global warming is not a high-priority issue with Americans relative to other policy priorities for candidates, note this excerpt from an article in today's Christian Science Monitor regarding the Presidential candidates and their views on global warming:

"Moreover, there are indications that most Americans do not regard global warming as a top-tier issue," Pew reported earlier this year. "In Pew's annual list of policy priorities for the president and Congress, global warming ranked fourth-lowest of 23 items tested…. Roughly twice as many Democrats as Republicans say that dealing with global warming should be a top priority for the president and Congress this year (48 percent compared with 23 percent). However, the issue is a relatively low priority for members of both parties, as well as for independents."

The data from the original Pew survey is shown below:

Source: Annual national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, Jan. 2007. 

Alas- that there were a Science Party of logical positivists to help re-prioritize this in the national consciousness.