There is wide speculation that Al Gore will win the Nobel Peace Prize today, and the betting odds are highly in his favor. Let’s get this straight. Alfred Nobel’s Will says that the Peace Prize shall be given to:

the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

Sure, climate change has the potential to cause wars, but aren’t there people who have been instrumental in fighting for peace in existing wars? Ironically, this is happening when a British court judge ruled that Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth contained nine errors.

What are the various opinions being expressed?

Reuters:

“Such an award would fall under the expanded concept of peace but the activity can be linked to the climate-conflict combination and is highly timely,” said NRK veteran journalist Geir Helljesen who has a solid record of tipping prize winners.

Please enlighten me if anyone understood that.

Salon: Why Al Gore deserves the Nobel Peace Prize

What’s world peace got to do with global warming? Perhaps everything. Or it will if things don’t change fast — if, in 10 or 20 or 40 years devastating floods and droughts displace millions of refugees and spur nations and tribes to desperate bloodletting. At which point, no one will have the slightest doubt why members of the renowned Scandinavian foundation thought former U.S. Vice President Al Gore was an obvious choice for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

There’s one ‘perhaps’ and two big ‘ifs’ in that statement. Since when were Nobel Peace Prizes awarded based on ifs?

Tennessee Center for Policy Research:

Handing a Nobel Prize to Al Gore, a proven hypocrite on the issue of climate change, would be an injustice to the many people bravely fighting for peace and freedom throughout the world. We discovered that while Gore told us to curtail our energy use, he guzzled more electricity at his posh Nashville mansion in a month than the average American family used in a year.

I don’t know about the hypocrite part, but I do think that it will be an injustice to the other deserving folks.

The Investors Business Daily (quoted on an Australian site) writes on how the stature of the Nobel Peace Prize has deteriorated over the years, and says:

“Just what the Nobel committee really needs, another fraud in its pantheon of laureates. If Gore wins the prize as expected, it will mark another step in the long politicized decline of a once highly regarded international award.”

Most environmentalists are gaga over the news. Brandon Keim, from Wired Magazine, stands out among the lot. A staunch supporter of the fight against climate change epitomizes my thoughts behind this post:

If the Nobel committee does choose Gore or Watt-Cloutier or the IPCC, they’ll certainly send a message to the world. A good message, in fact. But it would still be a shame if the meaning of the Nobel Peace Prize itself became a casualty of global warming.

If he does get it, the Norwegian Committee will have screwed up the AlGorethm for the Peace Prize.

Further Reading: Common misconceptions about the Nobel Peace Prize