Gore, U.N. panel win Peace Prize
The former vice president shares the Nobel prize with the climate change
committee. His citation says he's done the most to boost worldwide
understanding of the challenge.
By Alan Zarembo
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

2:50 AM PDT, October 12, 2007

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo today for
their campaigns against global warming.

"His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films
and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change," the
citation said. "He is probably the single individual who has done most
to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to
be adopted."

Gore's decades-long crusade against climate change was captured in the
2006 Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," which is seen as
a major force in shifting the debate from whether the burning of fossil
fuels is warming the planet to what should be done about it.

The Nobel Peace Prize is likely to increase calls for him to enter the
2008 presidential race, despite his insistence that he has no intention
of running.

Speculation that Gore might have won the honor picked up Thursday
morning after he canceled a last-minute trip to China to discuss global
warming with government officials there, which had led him to cancel a
fundraising appearance for Sen. Barbara Boxer. The fundraiser was
hastily rescheduled at San Francisco's Westin St. Francis Hotel, but
Gore gave no indication during the afternoon talk that he had won.

Looking relaxed, Gore delivered a 20-minute speech to more than 400
Boxer supporters reprising his call for a new bipartisan, international
approach to attacking global warming. He compared the issue with the
U.S. and European nations' approach to rebuilding after the ravages of
World War II — and the urgency behind such international crises as the
AIDs epidemic and Darfur.

"They're really moral imperatives disguised as political problems," Gore
said. "Our challenge is to see them in their true light."

After the speech, with Boxer at his side, the crowd erupted in a chant
of "Run, Al, run!" Gore responded by waving his arms sideways, hands
down, in a sign to cut off the cheer.

Only recently has global warming become a key political issue in the
United States.

Gore, 59, was one of the first politicians to call attention to the
issue, first as a Tennessee congressman and then senator in 1980s.

He ran for president in 1988, he said, largely to draw attention to what
he viewed as looming environmental catastrophe -- a platform that, like
his campaign, failed to connect with voters.

During the 1992 presidential race, Gore's views, encapsulated in his
book released that year, "Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human
Spirit," continued to be a dividing point.

As vice president, he helped negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to reduce
greenhouse gases. U.S. participation was stymied by the Senate, which
passed a resolution opposing any agreement that did not require
mandatory cuts for developing nations.

After losing the 2000 presidential race, one of the most controversial
elections in U.S. history, Gore refocused his efforts on the
environment. He updated his old slideshow presentation on global warming
and began showing it to audiences around the world. It became the basis
for "An Inconvenient Truth," which won the 2007 Oscar for best
documentary feature. His supporters have raised hundreds of thousands of
dollars in hopes that he can be persuaded to run for president again.

Earlier this week, the website draftgore.com ran a full-page
advertisement in the New York Times. "You say you have fallen out of
love with politics, and you have every reason to feel that way," the
letter said. "But we know you have not fallen out of love with your
country. And your country needs you now -- as do your party and the
planet you are fighting so hard to save."

Times Staff Writer Scott Martelle and the
Associated Press contributed to this report.

- - -

A terrific honor for Al and the United States.

And Bush, of course, will be recognized by the International Association
of Corporate Robberbarons for "Warmongering Under False Pretenses,"
while Dick Cheney will receive the trophy for "Best Bag of a Two-Legged
Predator while on a Canned Hunt."