Ignoble Nobel, part 1

This is a little late, but I was on the road the day that Al Gore was announced as the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel committee tasked with selecting the winner of the Peace Prize has a spotty record. According to an excellent editorial in the New Hampshire Union Leader, this is the purpose of the award:

[Nobel] endowed the Nobel Peace Prize and instructed that it go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

I was very happy with 2006's recipient, although his work does not exactly fit the profile laid out by Nobel, it seems clear that extending credit to underserved populations is more impactful to peace than writing a book and making a movie. As the Union Leader states:

On Friday the prize was given to Al Gore and the International Panel on Climate Change. Two days before, a British judge ruled that Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," contained so many errors (read: lies) that it could be shown in British public schools only if accompanied by a fact sheet correcting the errors.
The Nobel Peace Prize is worse than a joke. It's a fraud. It is such a transparent fraud that the five Norwegian politicians who award it have been reduced to defending their decision by concocting elaborate rationalizations. This year they laughably claimed that Gore deserves the prize because, well, global climate change" may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the Earth's resources," and "there may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars."

More on this tomorrow.