Nicely done, Al!
Along with the IPCC, he's been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".
I'm proud of him and feel he deserves recognition for many of his efforts, not the least of which would be the work he's done recently to bring attention to environmental issues. However, part of me wonders why the Peace Prize is used almost as a "do-gooder" type of award some years instead of strictly being awarded to those who promote peace. I feel that the argument can be made that protecting the environment can, in a sense, be considered "making peace" with the planet, but it seems so abstract.
According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "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".
Would it be more suitable to present the prize to a pacifist rather than an environmentalist? Is environmentalism a form of pacifism? Preserving the environment is crucial to all our endeavors, I understand, but does it promote peace?
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WARSAW (EJP)--- A 96-year old Polish woman who saved more than 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during the Holocaust, has been announced as an official candidate to the Nobel Peace Prize.
Irena Sendler was born in 1910 in the Warsaw suburb of Otwock. Just after the outbreak of WWII she began helping the Jews from the Warsaw ghetto. In 1942 she became a head of the Children Department of the Council to Aid the Jews established by the Polish Underground Authorities.
As an employee of the Warsaw City Council Social Welfare Department, she had a special pass to the ghetto. On numerous occasions Sendler entered the closed Jewish district with the Star of David on her arm, leaving with Jewish children.
She took these youngsters and, with the fake documents, placed them in Polish families, orphanages or Catholic convents. She made sure she hid all the original certificates of birth certificates and other documents in jars, so after the war all the children could be returned to their Jewish families.
CAPTURE AND RESCUE
In 1943 she was arrested by the Gestapo, tortured and sentenced to death. During the tortures she didn'..'s nomination to the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Polish Jews Forum has set up an online petition to support her nomination.
The open letter urges the Nobel prize committee, "To honor a living person for heroic deeds that are by any measure the very essence of that work which must be not only emulated, but honored, in order to ensure a peaceful future for humankind. Rescuing the most vulnerable of an oppressed minority from the horror of totalitarian mass murder is the quintessence of charity and humanity."
"She is one of the last heroes from the generation of our parents and our grandparents, who when confronted by the unparalleled evil of twentieth century totalitarianism, revealed great bravery, simple conviction, and the power of human will and intention," the petition adds.
Irena Sendler exemplifies the definitions of courage, heroism, selflessness, and peace. She risked her life daily throughout World War 2. She endured nearly endless torture at the hands of the Nazis. She saved over 2500 Jewish children from certain death.
Judge finds 9 errors in "An Inconvenient Truth"
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301071,00.html
While I am all for doing what we can for the environment, I think Al Gore and his propaganda is full of inconsistencies and more for his own political gain and make that wallet of his a little fatter.
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