“The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to Al Gore, the former vice president, and to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its work to alert the world to the threat of global warming,” Walter Gibbs reports for The New York Times.
MacDailyNews Note: Al Gore is a member of Apple Inc.’s Board of Directors.
“The award is likely to renew calls from Mr. Gore’s supporters for him to run for president in 2008, joining an already crowded field of Democrats. Mr. Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, has said he is not interested in running but has not flatly rejected the notion,” Gibbs reports.
“Mr. Gore, who was traveling in San Francisco, said in a statement that he was deeply honored to receive the prize and planned to donate his half of the prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit climate group of which Mr. Gore chairs the board,” Gibbs reports.
“The Nobel award carries political ramifications in the United States, which the Nobel committee tried to minimize after its announcement today,” Gibbs reports. “The chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, addressed reporters after the awards were announced and tried to dismiss repeated questions asking whether the awards were a criticism — direct or indirect — of the Bush administration.”
“In this decade, the Nobel Peace Prize has been given to prominent people and agencies who differ on a range of issues with the Bush administration, including former President Jimmy Carter, who won in 2002, and Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the United Nations’ nuclear monitoring agency in Vienna, in 2005,” Gibbs reports.
“Global warming has been a powerful issue all this year, attracting more and more public attention. The film documenting Mr. Gore’s campaign to increase awareness of climate change, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ won an Academy Award this year,” Gibbs reports.
MacDailyNews Note: Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” the highest-grossing documentary of 2006, featured copious use of Apple’s Keynote presentation software, even though many reviewers of the film incorrectly described it as a “PowerPoint” presentation. Apple Keynote use in Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” is featured here.
More in Gibbs’ full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: So far — in contrast to with Jimmy Carter’s Nobel Peace Prize win (and perhaps due at least in part to the reaction it precipitated back in 2002) — Apple.com has not been converted into a congratulations page for board member Gore.
Congrats to Al and kudos to the Nobel Committee. Next stop: White House!
They also gave this award to Arafat. Arafat has just as much integrity as Gore.
Gandhi…was not given this award. I guess non-violence is not considered a peaceful way to resolve differences.
Just my $0.02
Oh boy, here we go. Whacko meltdown in 3…2…1…
Umm, what does Al Gore’s movie have to do with either Peace or Social Justice? So much for the credibility of this award.
The power of KeyNote!
In a few years global warming will be completely debunked and this will be a joke.
I can just see Al walk into the boardroom with his medal around his neck.
“Hey, everybody! Check out my bling!”
Should have been Evo Morales!
Gore is just another idle rich white guy with lots of staff… the only difference between him and bush is that has some functioning brain cells.
An Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize. Adviser to Apple and Google.
Good year for Al.
(I predict that this thread will go to a record number of pages with a raging flame war.)
loganson says “In a few years global warming will be completely debunked and this will be a joke”
Not sure what this comment is. So, the melting of the icecaps is actually freezing them back? Of course Al Gore said that “Saddam had weapons of mass destruction”
Who to believe?
” . . .global warming will be completely debunked . . .”
Debunked or defrosted?
If Al Gore decides to run for president, he will soon no longer be on Apple’s board. But I predict he won’t run. He’s enjoying his job outside of politics too much these days. Actually, I think the prize makes it even less likely that he’ll run, since he’s got almost as large a bully pulpit now, but without having to deal with Congress or an opposition party. (At least, not within the constraints of being a public officeholder.)
By the way, did anybody else notice this little blurb in the papers a couple days back that said that AT&T;just bought $2.5 billion dollars worth of 700MHz wireless bandwidth from a company called Aloha Partners, PLC? I wonder what this will do for the iPhone’s Edge and 3G service…
Here’s the story I saw: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry/2007-10-09-att-spectrum-licenses_N.htm?csp=34
@loganson…
“In a few years global warming will be completely debunked”
You must be the last asshat that would want bush for another term. If you can’t see the effects on your world around you, you are obviously wearing the same rose coloured glasses Bush wears when he looks at the reports for Iraq.
How about a class action lawsuit to rid the earth of tards like this.
This is ridiculous. How does a director/narrator of fiction deserve accolades for promoting world peace? The Nobel group is obviously agenda driven.
Yeah, good ol’ boy Al helping to fight global warming, by contributing to it… via his private jet flights and motorcades.
Giving him an award for “inventing the Internet” would have been more worthy.
Fake Steve predicted this!!!
What does global warming have to do with the Nobel Peace Prize? Of course, as someone else pointed out, this award has been given to the likes of Yasser Arafat, so it doesn’t have much credibility anyway.
I guess they give the peace prize to people who produce “documentaries” with “evidence” for global warming.
In 30 years, we’ll all be talking about global cooling again…
MW=clearly–Clearly, the Nobel Peace Prize means nothing…
So this idiot was chosen over a woman who actually saved 1500 kids lives in WWII. Exactly how does this fiction documentary contribute to peace. Just ask the english judge who ruled that school kids in England have to be warned of upwards of 11 lies in the movie before it can be shown in schools.
Wow, the madness goes on.
I’m surprised he didn’t get this for inventing the Internet.
I had to cut up my carbon credit card. I kept maxing it out with my own noxious emissions.
@middilay,
Well, so much for the open-mindedness and fairness of progressive liberals like yourself…
“…rid the earth of tards like this.”
Nice. Really nice. Instead of wishing you away, I wish, hope and pray that you’ll see that global warming is another false religion.
NAAH
Nowadays the meaning of nobel prize is & &
It’s good to be a hypocrite!
Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’? — $30,000 utility bill.
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=nation_world&id=5072659
Al does more for globel warming in 1 month that I do in 2 years.
Oh yea and he buys carbon points from himself so that he can say he is carbon nutral (carbon points the biggest scam of the 21st century).
Nowadays the meaning of nobel prize is & & & some $
concerning the MDN take:
Shouldn’t have to point this out, but considering the fact that Gore is on Apple’s board and Carter never was, I’d say congratulating Gore would be justified.