Nobel committee warms up to Al

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded last week to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their work promoting a theory of global warming, which makes us ask: What exactly is the Nobel Peace Prize and why does Al Gore deserve it?

The Peace Prize is one of the five original Nobel Prizes created as a bequest in the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel (the guy who invented dynamite) and based on Nobel's instructions it is to be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Nothing in there about climatology one way or the other.

Of course you can make the argument that if a once-fertile country becomes arid and unproductive, then it could lead to war as the population seeks to replenish its resources by stealing someone else's. You could make that argument, but there is a difference between making an argument based on a theory and actually getting people who hate each other to lay down their arms and work together for peace. And that, we think, is what the peace prize, is really intended for.

Besides, if such a dire scenario as outlined above were actually to play out, would it be better to give the Peace Prize to the mediator who stopped the wretched war or to the weatherman who explained what led to it?

Perhaps what we need is a Nobel Prize for Peace and Climatology, so that we are more clear about the parameters used by the committee in its selection process. Or more realistically, if the Peace Prize is going to be awarded in the field of climatology, it should go to someone who can resolve the widely divergent claims of those who believe in man-caused global warming and those who don't. After all, Al Gore is not a mediator in this battle; he is a general leading a campaign which has been fought with rancor and disdain.

Gore says, "the debate in the scientific community is over," but of course it is not. Many scientists are struggling to be heard above the din of climate doom, but Gore and his supporters (including members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) seem to be intent on silencing them.

Is that the kind of behavior which the Peace Prize should be promoting? You would think one of the conditions of peace would be the free exchange of ideas without fear of threat or duress, but many scientists - let alone lay people - are afraid to question climate-change dogma because they will be labeled as "deniers," "corporate toadies," or just plain "evil."

It is remarkable that only a few days before Gore was coronated as the savior of the planet by the Norwegian Nobel committee, a British judge declared that the former vice president's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," was suitable to be shown in schools only if a warning were issued with it to explain that it is one-sided and contains many factual errors.

Perhaps the same kind of warning should have been issued with the Nobel Peace Prize.