Congratulations to Al Gore.
I don’t care what any of the bitter assholes on Fox News, at The Wall Street Journal, or anywhere else say. He deserves the Nobel Peace Prize that he won today.
Anyone who thinks that global warming isn’t an issue of world peace (and international security) is a fool. Think, for a minute, about the drastic impact that the major environmental changes caused by global warming, if it remains unchecked, will have on humanity – the changing of "temperate" zones where certain kinds of food can be grown, the massive streams of refugees as certain low lying regions flood, the spread of once rare diseases into new areas.
Now, think about the economic and political turmoil that will stem from those things. It has already been said that global warming is the biggest threat to humanity since nuclear war. So too is it the biggest threat to peace and stability.
By speaking out on global warming, by educating the public and creating a greater demand for action and change, Al Gore is engaging in a tremendous effort to guarantee peace and prosperity, if not in the present, then in future generations. Regardless of what happens, our children and grandchildren will look back on this, and realize that the Nobel Prize committee made the right decision today.
My only regret is that former Vice-President Gore no longer seems to think that running for office is worthwhile. It’s entirely understandable, given the outcome in 2000, the extremely "negative" nature of U.S. politics, and the fact that the mainstream media in this country, for whatever reason, seems to hate his guts. But, it is regrettable.
Al Gore was the first person I ever voted for. In the years since, events have not only confirmed that I made the right decision, but also made me increasingly proud to have made that decision. I don’t know anyone who voted for Gore in 2000 who now wishes they voted for Bush. Gore, more than anyone else, has the knowledge, the experience, the ability, and the character to lead the country out of the quagmire we are sinking into.
Were Gore to run today, he would likely have some of the same appeal to the country that Richard Nixon had in 1968 – the "experienced hand" from an era of "peace and prosperity" returning to "lead the country out of a time of turmoil." As such, 2008 is probably the best chance Al Gore will ever have at winning the presidency. It is probably the time in which the people of this country would be the most receptive to the idea of a "Gore" White House. But, sadly, it isn’t going to happen. Because, in thirty years of Republican dominance of American politics, the system has become so nasty, and so negative, that the best of our leaders are chewed up, spit out, and rendered forever cynical of the American electoral system.
We are left, instead, with fear mongering and intellectual mediocrity. We are left, instead, with a country where the harshness and pandering of a Rudy Giuliani, or the intellectual emptiness and Hollywood "glamour" of a Fred Thompson, are considered the "qualities of leadership" that a major party should seek to put forward in an important election. We are left, instead, with a country where the most important question in a presidential election seems not to be whether the person is the most intelligent and most capable of the job, but whether they "make a show" of their religious beliefs, or whether they’re the kind of person you’d "want to have a beer with." The result of such a system is the mess that we have been living in for the past seven years.
Al Gore’s Nobel Prize is a moment of redemption and saneness in an increasingly insane world.
If only I had confidence that it could last.
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