Do you think the Nobel Committee should have done their homework before giving Al Gore The Peace Prize based?

on his enviormental contributions ?





Environmental Trendiness (and Hypocrisy)

In the past, Al Gore has made his environmental positions a big part of his message, notably in his book "Earth in the Balance", which sold well. We don't critique candidates' policy positions, but some of that may come back to haunt him by making him look extreme, trendy or hypocritical.



Gore runs the risk of being shown up as a hypocrite, the way Mike Dukakis was in 1998 after Boston Harbor's pollution problem was exposed.



One example is the Pigeon River in North Carolina and east Tennesee. The Champion International paper mill has pumped tons of chemicals and byproducts into it for years, turning it the color of cofee and adding a sulfurish smell. Gore campaigned hard against this pollution and lobbied the EPA to crack down. But in 1987, as Gore started running for president the first time, he was pressured by 2 politicians whose support he craved for the North Carolina Super Tuesday primary. Terry Sanford (then a Senator) and Jamie Clarke (North Carolina congressmen) lobbied him hard to ease up on Champion. Gore did, writing to the EPA again and now asking for a more permissive water pollution standard. Sanford and Clarke endorsed him, and Gore won the state handily.



Another example is a Gore family property that has been mined for zinc and germanium for decades. The Vice-President and his dad, the late Senator Albert Gore, Sr., obtained the land in a very favorable deal with the late Armand Hammer of Occidental Petroleum. Gore, Sr. was heavily supported by Hammer financially, and carried his water in the U.S. Senate.



Back in 1972, when zinc was discovered across the river from the Gore family land in Carthage, TN, Hammer sent engineers out and offered $20,000 per year for a mineral rights lease on some property owned by a church that had been willed the land. Instead, they wanted to sell and Hammer won a bidding war to buy the land for $160,000. He then sold it to Gore Jr. and Sr. for the same amount, and immediately started leasing the land back from him for the same $20,000. Lynwood Burkhalter, who in the 70s was president of the company that assumed this lease from Occidental Petroleum, called the payments "extraordinarily large."



Mining is, of course, a very messy business environmentally. The mine itself hasn't been that bad. Republicans have claimed that it's polluting the local drinking water, but according to the Wall Street Journal those problems "are actually very minor." However, the Journal notes that the plant in Clarksville TN, which processes the Gore minerals, is a federal Superfund site contaminated with cadmium and mercury, posing "a threat to the human food chain."





There's also a damning quote about cutting down Yew trees to make a promising cancer treatment that we used to include in our Gore quotes section. Except that the really embarrassing part -- which we got from an editorial in the Austin, Texas American Statesman -- turns out to be distorted and out of context. The full quote, which is still a little odd, is:



"The Pacific Yew can be cut down and processed to produce a potent chemical, taxol, which offers some promise of curing certain forms of lung, breast and ovarian cancer in patients who would otherwise quickly die. It seems an easy choice -- sacrifice the tree for a human life -- until one learns that three trees must be destroyed for each patient treated, that only specimens more than a hundred years old contain the potent chemical in their bark, and that there are very few of these yews remaining on earth." - Gore, in "Earth in the Balance", p. 119



The distorted version puts a period after "for each patient treated," as if the ratio of trees to humans was what bothered Gore. In reality, his point is that treating all current cancer patients would destroy all of the trees, leaving none of the drug for future cancer patients

Do you think the Nobel Committee should have done their homework before giving Al Gore The Peace Prize based?
I say why not give a Nobel Peace Prize to Dr. Suess his stories are just as acurate as Gores,but more entertaining.
Reply:The question was too long to read in full so my answer is they probably did do their homework.
Reply:Giving Al Gore any kind of prize is a testament to how stupid a segment of the world has become.



I knew him when he was eight or nine years old. He was a whinny little s*** then. The only thing that has changed is he got taller and put on weight.
Reply:I don't believe you're looking for an answer; you appear to believe that you already have all the answers!



Yes, I think it was justified, as were the Oscar and Emmy. Even Bush now admits that we are approaching a crisis, and that human activity is playing a role.



I'm sure he knew he would be criticized by people like you, which is all the more reason he deserves the honor--for doing what he believes is right.
Reply:It REALLY DISCREDITS the status of NOBEL.
Reply:you bore me with your question after the first paragraph so i didnt finish reading it.. however, i think they would of done their homework before giving that prize to him...! so just stop hating.. and let the man live his life and a nobel peace prize winner :-)
Reply:I think they did and his film is very informative. Al Gore earned the Nobel Peace Prize
Reply:No one is perfect. Gore is fighting hard for something most reasonable people believe to be a good and just cause.



Many of us might forgive his past transgressions in order to reap the benefits of his present crusade.
Reply:I think they made a terrible choice for the Peace Prize. His movie and activism are stoking the fires of fear, and global warming is in the process of being debunked.
Reply:The Nobel Committee gave Gore and the IPCC the award cause they believe that the UN is the greatest organization ever and that the way to a global govt run by them is champion a "so-called" global issue. If the nobel committee is found of handing out awards on faulty science, i've got a rock that keeps tigers out of america. Unfortunatly this rock is breaking apart at all the hot air enviromentalists wakos are spewing. If they keep talking about stuff they no nothing about this rock will break and tigers will run into america and kill us all. I'll take "greatest man ever" on my peace prize plz.

*That's how absurd gloabl warming is, read micheal chriten's book "State of Fear" Check out some of the work on temp avgs per year over the last 150. You'll see that the 1930's were the hotest. And that during the 1980's the globe actually cooled. Ouch, guess the IPCC doesn't really state ALL the facts just the ones that support more UN and more hate for America!
Reply:Nobel Peace Prize = Leftist of the Year Award
Reply:I think your question is very long.

ben