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Earth losing race against rising carbon emissions
by Chee Chee Leung October 23, 2007 - 7:00AM
The Earth's natural carbon sinks are "losing the race" against growing greenhouse gas emissions, scientists warn.
Australian
and international researchers have found that weakening of the land and
ocean sinks is causing carbon dioxide to accumulate in the atmosphere
faster than expected.
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Al Gore, UN Climate Panel Share 2007 Nobel Peace Prize
Date: Friday, October 12 @ 13:09:14 GMT
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Al Gore, UN Climate Panel Share 2007 Nobel Peace Prize
© Bunny Nooryani and Kim Chipman WebSite
Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) --
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and a United Nations panel on the
environment won this year's Nobel Peace Prize for raising awareness
about the threat of climate change.
Gore, 59, and
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were honored for ``their
efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about manmade
climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are
needed to counteract such change,'' said Ole Danbolt Mjoes, director of
the Oslo-based Nobel Committee that picks the winner.
The
peace prize tops off a year of accolades for Gore, marking a turnaround
that some say makes him ``the comeback kid,'' a moniker typically
associated with his former boss, Bill Clinton. The former vice
president last year published the book and released the Oscar-winning
do*****entary film ``An Inconvenient Truth'' as part of a campaign
against global warming.
India's
Rajendra Pachauri, 67, is chairman of the IPCC, which was set up by the
World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental
Program in 1988. The group has about 2,500 scientists whose mandate is
to assess ``scientific, technical and socio-economic information
relevant for the understanding of climate change.''
``I
am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize,'' Gore said in an
e-mailed statement. ``We face a true planetary emergency. The climate
crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge
to all of humanity.''
The prize is ``a recognition of the contribution of the scientific world,'' Pachauri told reporters today in New Delhi.
Human Cause
The
IPCC said in a report in February that the probability that humans are
causing global warming is 90 percent, and world temperatures and
sea-levels will increase by the end of the century. The Bush
administration said the human role in climate change is ``no longer up
for debate'' following the report.
``There
are already climate wars unfolding and the worst area for that is the
Sahel belt in Africa,'' Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Institute of
International Affairs, told reporters in Oslo on Sept. 28. ``Nomads
fight pastoral farmers because there is less land available, because of
long-term climate change.''
``Clearly
we are endangering all species on earth, we are endangering the future
of the human race,'' Pachauri said in an interview earlier this year.
``We are probably beyond the stage where we could have called it
urgent. I would say it is immediate,'' he said, referring to the need
for governments to reduce emissions.
Glaciers Melting
Scientists
have said global warming caused by manmade emissions is responsible for
melting glaciers and ice sheets, and increased instances of storms,
droughts and floods. Over this century, those effects may be magnified,
according to the February report.
``The
consequences of inaction will be devastating to both the environment
and the economy,'' Gore told the U.S. Congress at a special climate
change hearing this year.
Gore,
vice president from 1993 until 2001, drew an audience of an estimated 2
billion people on July 7 with Live Earth, a single day of concerts on
seven continents aimed at promoting awareness of what he terms a
``climate crisis.''
Growing
up, Gore's time was divided between Washington, where his father was in
the U.S. Senate, where he would later serve, and his family's sprawling
farm in Tennessee.
Harvard Graduate
Shortly
after graduating from Harvard University in 1969, Gore enlisted in the
Army and served for six months as a military reporter in Vietnam. He
then spent five years at the Tennessean, a Nashville newspaper. He also
attended, yet never graduated, from Vanderbilt University's divinity
and law schools. He was first elected to the House of Representatives
in 1976.
Gore
married his wife, Tipper, in 1970. They met at Gore's high school prom
at St. Alban's, an elite Washington prep school. They have four
children, Karenna, Kristin, Sarah and Albert III. Gore has multiple
homes, though his main residence is in Nashville.
As
President George W. Bush and his former colleagues in Congress grapple
with record-low job approval ratings, Gore has spent the last year
basking in the limelight and taking his environmental message to venues
ranging from the Grammy Awards to ``The Oprah Show'' to Capitol Hill.
In May, he also published ``The Assault on Reason,'' a best-selling
book that's highly critical of the Bush administration.
Gore's
success is seen by supporters as vindication for a man who acknowledges
his discomfort in a political world driven largely by sound bites.
Panned by Pundits
The
former Tennessee senator was panned by some pundits and late-night
comics during the 2000 election for reportedly claiming to ``invent the
Internet'' and similar types of comments, at least one of which was
later shown to be misquotation.
Former
President George H.W. Bush derided Gore as ``ozone man'' during his
1992 campaign against Clinton. In his 2000 race against George W. Bush,
Gore was widely ridiculed by Republicans as too much of a stiff
``know-it-all'' to connect with average voters.
Yet
Gore's popularity surged after the release of ``An Inconvenient
Truth,'' a do*****entary film featuring the former vice president
lecturing worldwide about the threat of global warming. The movie also
touches on Gore's personal life, including the psychological aftermath
of his stinging loss to Bush in the disputed 2000 presidential
election.
British Case
Gore's
do*****entary has been distributed to all British secondary schools by
the U.K. government. A High Court judge in London this week ruled that
the film contains scientific errors and that students must view it with
guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination. The film has nine
main errors with some arising in the context of ``alarmism and
exaggeration,'' Judge Michael Burton ruled.
The
film garnered critical and commercial praise, earning two Academy
Awards. Gore also won an Emmy award last month for Current TV, a cable
and satellite television network for young people that's based on
viewer-created content and ``citizen journalism.'' Gore co-created the
channel and serves as its chairman.
Gore
is chairman of Generation Investment Management LLP, a firm focused on
long-term sustainable investing. Gore also is a board member of
Cupertino, California-based Apple Inc. and has been a senior adviser to
Google Inc., owner of the world's most popular Internet search engine.
Gore
was awarded stock options at both Apple and Google that have made him a
multimillionaire, a fact supporters point to when talking about the
possibility of Gore jumping into the 2008 presidential fray.
2000 Election
Gore
won the popular vote for president in 2000, though he lost the
presidency to Bush when the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote ordered the end
to a vote recount in Florida.
While
Gore has repeatedly said he has no plans to run for office, the
prospect of his Nobel Prize win has reinvigorated a grassroots campaign
calling for the former vice president to declare his candidacy.
This
week a group called DraftGore.com placed an open letter in the New York
Times urging Gore to run. The letter, in the form of a full-page
advertisement, said 136,000 people have signed its petition asking Gore
to run.
Other
Democratic candidates don't have Gore's ``vision, standing in the
world, and political courage,'' the group said in the letter. The group
criticized the Bush administration's policy on the war on terrorism and
commended Gore's early stance against the war in Iraq.
``There
are times for politicians and times for heroes. America and the Earth
need a hero right now,'' the letter said. ``Please rise to this
challenge, or you and millions of us will live forever wondering what
might have been.''
Alfred Nobel
The
peace prize, worth 10 million kronor ($1.56 million) was created in the
will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel more than a century ago.
Past recipients include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President
Jimmy Carter and the Red Cross. The prize was first handed out in 1901.
Bangladesh's
Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank won last year for advancing social
and economic development by giving loans to the poor.
The
honor is formally awarded at a ceremony in Oslo on Dec. 10, the
anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896. Nobel also set up prizes for
achievements in physics, medicine, chemistry and literature, which were
announced earlier this week by the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation.
The
recipient of an economics award, established in memory of Nobel by
Sweden's central bank in 1969, will be made known on Oct. 15.
Last Updated: October 12, 2007 06:37 EDT
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