The Nobel Peace Prize 2007
(republishing, copying, no restrictions)
By: Father Shay Cullen
Wuzburg, Germany
Last week the Philippine bureau chief of Reuters news agency called me
in Germany on my cellphone the day the Noble Peace Prize was to be
announced. I was on a speaking tour advocating children's rights and
Fair Trade. The journalist was checking my number and asked if I had
heard any news about winning the Nobel Peace Prize since I was nominated
three times. “Nothing could be so unlikely at this time”. I replied.
The Nobel Peace Prize awarding committee members, based in Norway (the rest of the prizes are given out in Sweden), give the prize to those they truly believe have made an international impact on issues affecting peace and where the prize will do the most good and raise awareness and promote peace throughout the world. They deserve a prize themselves.
Later, driving to the venue of my next speaking engagement I heard over the car radio the great news that Al Gore had been awarded this most prestigious of prizes. He shares the prize with the more than 2000 scientists on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Former US vice-president Al Gore, 59, who lost the presidential election by a much questioned decision of the US supreme court that declared in 2000 that his 537 ‘missing’ votes was official, has campaigned to inform the world about the dangers of climate change to humanity and world peace.
Al Gore was much criticized and maligned during the past seven years and written off as an eccentric misguided crank by President George Bush as the irrelevant ‘ozone man’ for campaigning so hard for action on stopping global warming. He recently won an academy award for his documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ that told of the dangers of climate change. The Nobel committee has said of him, ‘He is probably the single individual who has done most to create world-wide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted’.
The Nobel Peace Prize has vindicated Al Gore and strengthened the truth and urgency of his message to humanity. He tell us that we have to change our wasteful ways and deal immediately with the causes of global warming and reduce the emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere. We can all do our part, join rallies, sign petitions, phone our representatives to pressure government to act. We can do much to save energy too.
It is these industrial agricultural and vehicle gasses, especially CO2, most coming from the coal fired power stations and factories of the developed and wealthy nations (China and India too) that are blocking the escape of the earth's heat back into space.
The sun's rays are penetrating the polluted atmosphere and instead of reflected back out again from the rapidly melting ice caps they are being absorbed in the oceans and heating the planet. The earth is like a pudding in a microwave oven, it is being cooked by rays without let up. The Arctic is melting away.
Al Gore and The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have verified this and put to shame those powerful industrialists and the world leaders who have ignored the inconvenient truth and brushed aside the call for action.
The effects of climate change will be catastrophic in the years to come. There will be grave economic disruption as sea levels rise and millions of people loose their land, homes and livelihoods. Conflicts and cross border wars are inevitable as people will fight for the ever decreasing supply of water as the Himalayan and South American ice caps melt and the year round water supply disappears, most of it evaporating or pouring into the sea.
Then after the drought the warm oceans will bring massive storms and torrential rain. The floods and the destruction of crops will follow on an unprecedented scale leading to mass hunger and more conflict. This doomsday scenario is what the UN scientists and Al Gore are correctly predicting and the Nobel Peace Prize committee has acknowledged and confirmed. To stop climate change, restore the balance to the planet is what will bring stability and peace. That's why Al Gore justly deserves the Nobel Peace Prize this year and the rest of us nominees don't. -End-
