Al Gore Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Folks, I keep saying it… You need to see An Inconvenient Truth. As more proof, Al Gore was just nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. So, come on, what’s it going to take? :-)

The fight for the global climate is a fight for peace, say members of parliament Børge Brende and Heidi Sørensen, and they have nominated former US Vice-president Al Gore for a share of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The two green-thinking MPs suggest that Gore share the prize with Inuit Sheila Watt-Cloutier, in recognition for their efforts to put the danger posed by climate change on the global political agenda.

“This is clearly, absolutely, one of the important efforts to achieve conflict prevention. Climate change can lead to enormous flows of refugees on a scale the world has never seen before. Fighting climate change is immensely important work for global peace,” Heidi Sørensen, member of parliament for the Socialist Left Party (SV), told Aftenposten.

“The Nobel Committee has previously been adept at addressing new threats with their awards. Climate change is one of the greatest and most serious threats humanity faces. The United Nations’ climate panel now maintains that the earth may be changed more in the next 100 years than in the 10,000 years since the last ice age,” Conservative Party MP and former Minister of the Environment Børge Brende said.

The former US VP has toured the world the past year with the film “An Inconvenient Truth”, which has actualized the climate change issue for a great many people. Gore has worked with environmental issues for over 20 years and had a decisive role in forming the Kyoto protocol for reducing CO2 emissions in 1997.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier is a Canadian Inuit and for years has been one of the leaders of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, which represents over 150,000 Inuit. In recent years she has concentrated on focusing attention on the rapid warming taking place in the Arctic, and made a massive effort to explain to world leaders that the Arctic is the planet’s barometer of climate change.

“Climate change is also a threat to global welfare. One hundred million climate refugees, major changes in potable water supply and a reduction in biological diversity that will first and foremost hit the poor who live in and depend upon nature – these things will quickly become a major security threat,” Brende said.

“Al Gore has done a very important job as former US VP and has created so much pressure in the USA that for the first time President Bush must now say that climate change is a problem. No other single person in the last year has done so much to put the threat of climate change on the agenda, and contributed to lasting changes in international policy,” Børge Brende said.

“Gore played a key role in Kyoto and Sheila Watt-Cloutier has opened the world’s eyes to what is happening in the Arctic. When she communicated this, the climate debate took a new and important turn. She has communicated the drama and given it a face,” Heidi Sørensen said.

Read the original article here.