Is the Nobel Peace Prize Even Noble Anymore?

In 1895 when Alfred Nobel first conceived his award for peace, he had noble causes in mind: “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." Surely someone who has met this noble goal is worthy of laud. In this posting, CARE’s Energy Counsel Member Dennis Avery looks at the diminished importance of today’s Nobel Peace Prize when compared with recipients of the past. Sure the cash reward would be nice, but most of today’s recipients don’t even need it. Other than the receipt of the dollars, would you want to be in the current company of Nobel Peace Prize winners?

Diminishing The Nobel Peace Prize
In 1964, Martin Luther King won the Nobel Peace Prize for leading the non-violent crusade against racism and slavery—bettering not only America but the entire world.

In 1971, Willi Brandt won the Peace Prize for leading Germany’s peaceful reintegration back into the “world family of nations,” healing the destruction caused by Kaiser Wilhelm and Adolph Hitler with two World Wars that caused at least 70 million deaths.

In 1970, it went to my friend Norman Borlaug, the Green Revolution plant-breeder who: 1) saved 1 billion people from almost-immediate starvation, 2) prevented the plowdown of 16 million square miles of wildlands for more low-yield crops; and 3) just incidentally laid the foundation for the material abundance now spreading around the planet.

Now fast forward to look at recent Peace Prize winners:

In 1994, Yasser Arafat, the thuggish Islamic zealot who was lavishly paid to perpetuate Moslem/Jewish conflict in the Middle East. Arafat helped lay the groundwork for today’s round-the-world suicide bombings.

In 2001, The UN’s Kofi Annan: Did he end the genocide in Darfur? Stop the war in Kosovo? How about the billion-dollar UN corruption of Saddam Hussein’s “oil for food” program—assisted informally by his son?

Now we get Al Gore, a ho-hum U.S. politician catapulted to rock-star status by a moderate and natural global warming cycle, which has been hysterically inflated by the Green movement, willing media collaborators, and massive government funding for unproven computerized climate “models.” (Note: Mr. Gore’s movie has just been found guilty in a British court of 11 serious untruths and/or unsubstantiated claims.)

Gore says:
Ice core evidence shows rising CO2 levels raise earth’s temperatures. In fact, ice cores show the temperatures rising about 800 years before the CO2 levels go up.

Mt. Kilimanjaro’s melting glacier is proof of man-made warming. In fact, the melting is due largely to local deforestation.

The Antarctic ice is melting. Most studies say it’s stable or adding ice.

Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming. Historic records show far more major, landfalling Caribbean hurricanes per decade from 1700–1850, during the Little Ice Age, than now.

Global warming could stop the Gulf Stream, and cause an Ice Age in Europe. Recent studies offer no support to help Mr. Gore on this one.

Global warming is causing species extinctions and coral reef bleaching. In fact, not one species has gone extinct due to warming. Coral reefs adjust to new temperatures—by bleaching.

A study shows polar bears drowning due to vanishing ice. In fact, four polar bears drowned in a bad storm.

Greenland’s ice could melt suddenly, causing a dangerous rise in sea levels. In fact, it will take thousands of warming years to melt Greenland’s ice cap.

Global warming is drying up Africa’s Lake Chad. The UK government agrees this is not true.

Gore’s scary graphics show cities drowning in a 7-meter sea level rise, creating millions of refugees. In fact, the 20th century increase was 6 inches and we’ve seen no acceleration. Even the UN climate change panel doesn’t agree with Mr. Gore’s scenario.

Rising seas have forced people to flee Pacific islands to New Zealand. There is no record of any evacuation triggered by sea level rise.

Just one last question for our new Nobel Peace laureate: Why did most of our moderate modern warming take place before 1940 (with 1934 being the warmest year) and why haven’t we had any warming over the last nine years? Could it possibly be the moderate natural 1,500-year cycle revealed in the ice cores and seabed sediments?

DENNIS T. AVERY was a senior policy analyst for the U.S. State Department, where he won the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement. He is the co-author, with atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the book, Unstoppable Global Warming—Every 1500 Years, available from Rowman & Littlefield. Readers may write him at the Center for Global Food Issues (http://www.cgfi.org/) Post Office Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421.