Les Jones

News > Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize

He should have won the Nobel Prize in Zoology for discovering ManBearPig (language warning).

Nobel Peace Price Rockin' Fun Zone Facts!

Gore is pitching carbon offsets as a solution to global warming, while serving on the board of a company that sells carbon offsets. That's funny, when four-time Peace Prize nominee Gandhi was going on hunger strikes to protest British occupation of India I don't recall him hawking Old Mahatma's Miracle Diet Pills. (That's right - Al Gore won a Peace Prize, but Stockhokm Oslo* snubbed Gandhi four times.)

Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela spent 28 years in a South African prison for opposing his country's policy of racial apartheid. Peace Prize winner Mother Theresa spent more than 40 years serving the poor and sick in third world countries. Al Gore flew around in a private jet giving lectures and filming a documentary while hobnobbing with Hollywood celebrities. So, you know, same difference.

In the science categories, Nobel prizes are generally awarded ten years or more after the original work was done. (This year's winners in medicine began their work in the 1980s.) The belated recognition ensures that the work was both correct and relevant. This past week a British judge found nine significant errors of fact in Gore's documentary, and ordered schools showing it to provide balancing viewpoints. Gore's co-winners the IPCC has had to significantly adjust their past predictions of sea level changes downwards.

Finally, Al Gore is a hypocrite. After winning an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth it was revealed that Gore's mansion uses $30,000 a year in electricity and gas. It's as if Gandhi was hunger striking during the week and secretly spending his weekends at an all you can eat buffet.

* I just read that while the other Nobels are awarded in Stcokholm, Sweden the Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway.