Oct 13, 2007

Critics Slam Nobel Winner Gore

By the Sunday Herald Sun, Australia

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the UN’s top climate panel on Friday has prompted a fresh chorus of criticism from global warming sceptics—with one dubbing the award “a political gimmick”. The former vice-president has an Oscar for his film on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, and the Nobel prize proved a laurel too far for some of his detractors.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus cast doubt on Gore’s contribution to the cause of peace, the ostensible purpose of the Norwegian prize. In a statement, the climate change sceptic said he was “a bit surprised that Al Gore has received a peace prize because the connection between his activities and world peace are vague and not very clear”. In Norway, the main opposition party expressed its surprise at the decision. Gjermund Hagesaether, from the far-right Progress Party, said: “We believe it is strange to give the prize to Al Gore for having made a film on climate that is subjective, one-sided and full of one-sided assertions.”

In France, a sour note was sounded by a leading French climate sceptic, former Socialist education minister and award-winning geochemist Claude Allegre. He brushed off Friday’s announcement as “a political gimmick”, saying: “The amount of nonsense in Al Gore’s film! It’s all politics, it’s designed to intervene in American politics. It’s scandalous. There’s a presidential election upcoming in the United States, and it’s well known that Gore wants to run.”

And one of the world’s foremost meteorologists called the theory that helped Al Gore win a share of the Nobel prize the product of “people who don’t understand how the atmosphere works”. Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, spoke to a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina and said humans were not responsible for global warming.  “We’re brainwashing our children,” said Gray, 78, a longtime professor at Colorado State University. “They’re going to the Gore movie and being fed all this. It’s ridiculous.”

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/icing-the-hype