Al Gore is frontrunner for a Nobel Peace Prize for advocacy in global warming
By Juontel White
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 10/9/07—Al Gore is said to be the leading candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize this year, not usually given to environmental activists. In fact not usually given to anyone who hasn’t helped avert a war – only 94 have ever been given to individuals.
The Nobel will add to an increasingly unusual trophy shelf for a politician. The former U.S. vice president will receive an Emmy on Nov. 19 in New York from the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for launching the cable/satellite TV channel, Current TV and being a leading advocate for climate change.
He also won an Oscar for “An Inconvenient Truth” and has won numerous accolades for his global warming work.
Gore qualifies for the world’s most prestigious award, the Nobel Peace Prize, based upon this advocacy work.
“I think climate change is the biggest challenge we face in this century,” Boerge Brende, former Norwegian minister of environment and of trade, told The Associated Press.
“Al Gore, like no other, has put climate change on the agenda. Gore uses his position to get politicians to understand,” said Brende.
Politicians have won before, such as Jimmy Carter, Mandela, Gorbachev and even Yasser Arafat — usually ones who actively worked on peace treaties or human rights.
But then again, they don’t have Oscars. “An Inconvenient Truth” exposed the drastic acceleration of global warming and its potential to affect human life.
Gore’s climate change campaign also included measures he pushed for and supported while serving under President Bill Clinton. Measures like the Kyoto Treaty were international agreements meant to create laws to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
Also nominated for this year’s award is Vietnamese Monk Thich Quang Do and Sail Training International, a British-based charity which fosters youth development through sailing, according to MSNBC.com
Last year’s winner was Bangladeshi Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank to help the poor with loans as little as $10 to $1000 to help move them up from whatever level they were on.
Nobel candidates are chosen by a committee consisting of past laureates, Norwegian legislators, members of national governments, university professors worldwide and the five member award committee and its staff.
Named after its Swedish industrialist creator Alfred Nobel, the annual prize is presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.
The winner is typically announced in mid-October. If Gore wins this year he will be the only person to win both a Nobel Peace Prize, Emmy, Oscar and