# Mr Gore's Nobel: Like the wife-beater winning for Shelters **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 12, 2007, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456 "2007-10-12T11:35:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/1 "2007-10-12T11:35:43Z")
Given Mr Gore’s personal total energy consumption, giving him the Nobel is ridiculous. I do not recall the Nobel being given to an individual whose personal behaviour is so far removed from what he recommends for everyone else. If the world consumed energy at the level of Mr Gore, and if anthropic GW is real, we’d all be parboiled already. To add insult to injury, his personal consumption of energy has risen over the period during which he has been aware and concerned of the problem for which he has been given the Nobel. I see no difference between this and giving a wife-beater the Nobel for establishing Shelters for Abused Women. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/2 "2007-10-12T11:42:09Z")
Sorry anthropogenic. Aware of and concerned about. I was just so upset… ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/3 "2007-10-12T11:59:35Z")
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant] Given Mr Gore’s personal total energy consumption, giving him the Nobel is ridiculous. I do not recall the Nobel being given to an individual whose personal behaviour is so far removed from what he recommends for everyone else. If the world consumed energy at the level of Mr Gore, and if anthropic GW is real, we’d all be parboiled already. To add insult to injury, his personal consumption of energy has risen over the period during which he has been aware and concerned of the problem for which he has been given the Nobel. I see no difference between this and giving a wife-beater the Nobel for establishing Shelters for Abused Women. [/QUOTE] Well, yeah, but, but… he pays for carbon offsets. So there! ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/4 "2007-10-12T11:59:40Z")
If he succeeds in getting world governments and businesses to reduce greenhouse emissions, that would dwarf the small personal contribution he makes to global warming. His private jet may burn a lot of fuel, but if his flying leads to a net reduction in carbon emissions, then he has done well for the planet. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/5 "2007-10-12T12:25:19Z")
> [@](#): > > Given Mr Gore’s personal total energy consumption, giving him the Nobel is ridiculous. I do not recall the Nobel being given to an individual whose personal behaviour is so far removed from what he recommends for everyone else. If the world consumed energy at the level of Mr Gore, and if anthropic GW is real, we’d all be parboiled already. To add insult to injury, his personal consumption of energy has risen over the period during which he has been aware and concerned of the problem for which he has been given the Nobel. > > I see no difference between this and giving a wife-beater the Nobel for establishing Shelters for Abused Women. If it helps any, pretend he’s a conservative. Apparently there’s no difficulty in seperating their personal flaws from their message. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/6 "2007-10-12T12:27:06Z")
How does his activity promote peace? Regardless of its worth vis-a-vis pollution, I don’t think it does, so I don’t think he should have been given that Nobel. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/7 "2007-10-12T12:43:59Z")
To the OP, I’d have to ask how energy consumption has anything to do with global warming? There are two branches for acting against global warming, one being to go back to living in caves eating bark, and the other being to invest in cleaner technology. The first option is, frankly, stupid. It’s never going to happen and, if anything, the power consumption of the world is going to massively increase as time goes on so trying to even get it to plateau would be stupid. You aren’t going to ever convince the world to give up using their air conditioner when it’s hot nor to turn off their computer and get happy with books again. So, what in the second tactic do you see that has any relevance to power consumption? [QUOTE=Quartz] How does his activity promote peace? Regardless of its worth vis-a-vis pollution, I don’t think it does, so I don’t think he should have been given that Nobel. [/QUOTE] Since most or all wars ever fought have been over attaining resources and global warming will either lessen or move the location of the world’s food sources, it seems likely that the longer the world heats up, the longer all the various tribes of the world will spend fighting for shifting crops. I agree that this is a bit circuitous, though. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/8 "2007-10-12T13:11:02Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] How does his activity promote peace? Regardless of its worth vis-a-vis pollution, I don’t think it does, so I don’t think he should have been given that Nobel. [/QUOTE] If you check over the [list of laureates](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize#Laureates), there seems to be a trend away from activities for peace itself, and more towards economic and other social benefits. The earliest “oddball” I saw was Mother Teresa, and last year’s winner was the founder of the Grameen Bank which gives microloans to poor women to help them start businesses. This is the first environmentally-related win that I saw, though. ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/9 "2007-10-12T13:12:18Z")
Previous winners include Kissinger, Begin, Sadat, and Arafat - it’s not like this is the first, or the worst, WTF moment by the comittee. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/10 "2007-10-12T13:15:34Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] To the OP, I’d have to ask how energy consumption has anything to do with global warming? [/QUOTE] I didn’t want to hijack my own point by reiterating arguments about AGW per se, but generally speaking I am accepting as predicates that fossil fuel burning is a source of CO2 emissions and that the infrastructure currently in place will take some time to be replaced by AGW-friendly alternatives. There is, therefore, an urgency to minimize CO2 emissions now, as I understand the argument. I have also assumed that Mr Gore is promoting an effort to reduce CO2 emissions as proximately as possible due to the Inconvenient Truth that the joint is heating up now. If it’s OK to wait until we swap out for a greener infrastructure and OK to just buy credits but otherwise be as profligate as we want in our energy use, why that Truth is not nearly as inconvenient as I thought, and I’ll just hop back into my Hummer to take me to my private jet while I leave the thermostat on my home at 78 for the wife. Here’s my check for the carbon credits, and god bless us rich folk for not being inconvenienced. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/11 "2007-10-12T13:17:25Z")
Ironic that you condemn the Nobel Prize Committee as Gore is using too much energy and producing too many Green House gases in his efforts to bring awareness to the world of the probable impending disaster. Does the fact that the Nobel Prize itself was founded by the man who invented and commercialized **Dynamite** show any reason for why I find this weak diatribe ironic? Sometimes good things come from bad. Al Gore is using his fame and devoting his life to staving off what he sees as a huge disaster. You nitpick his personnel energy consumption. If you check the data behind the right wing blogs you are probably getting your information from, his increased energy consumption is in fact due to the fact he is flying around the world giving talks and lectures and encouraging people to treat this threat seriously. He is well deserving of the award and comparing him a wife-beater is unfair and rather ignorant. Dirty pool by all accounts. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/12 "2007-10-12T13:20:35Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] If he succeeds in getting world governments and businesses to reduce greenhouse emissions, that would dwarf the small personal contribution he makes to global warming. His private jet may burn a lot of fuel, but if his flying leads to a net reduction in carbon emissions, then he has done well for the planet. [/QUOTE] It’s a bit like calling Bill Gates stupid for sinking the money he did into that precursor to MS-DOS. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/13 "2007-10-12T13:21:42Z")
"Brace yourself for a hurricane of heated rhetoric. The Lede confidently forecasts that everybody and his cousin Ermintrude will be weighing in today on Al Gore and his Nobel Peace Prize, shared with the United Nations’s International Panel on Climate Change. Talk radio and television, print punditry, and especially the blogosphere will be in Category Five mode over a development that lands right in the sweet spot linking the two hyperpolarized worlds of partisan politics and climate science. " ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/14 "2007-10-12T13:22:35Z")
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant] Given Mr Gore’s personal total energy consumption . . . [/QUOTE] Does any one of his prominence consume less?! ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/15 "2007-10-12T13:32:01Z")
How do you expect him to cross the globe trying to get the message across without consuming fuel- hang glider? I consider the peace award fitting because there isn’t going to be any peace in the world once the effects of what he’s preaching against set in. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/16 "2007-10-12T13:36:04Z")
Gore does exactly what he encourages others to do–make changes within your own life to reduce your carbon footprint and to support alternative energy. His approach is very different from Ed Begley, Jr.'s extremism, and that’s what makes him a better spokesman for the movement than Begley. If Gore were out there telling everyone they had to ride a bike everywhere and move off the grid, who would listen to his sermon other than the Birkenstock-wearing, circle-drumming choir? The problem won’t be solved by getting a few people to go granola and turning the rest of them off. A better path is to get everyone aware of and focused on the problem so that we as a society can work toward large-scale solutions. Congratulations to VP Gore and the IPCC. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/17 "2007-10-12T13:43:39Z")
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant] If it’s OK to wait until we swap out for a greener infrastructure and OK to just buy credits but otherwise be as profligate as we want in our energy use, why that Truth is not nearly as inconvenient as I thought, and I’ll just hop back into my Hummer to take me to my private jet while I leave the thermostat on my home at 78 for the wife. Here’s my check for the carbon credits, and god bless us rich folk for not being inconvenienced. [/QUOTE] “Greener infrastructure” doesn’t just happen. It happens because the market has the correct incentives to produce it…and this only happens if the costs associated with emitting greenhouse gases are reflected directly in prices. Right now (at least in the U.S.) there is zero cost to using the atmosphere as a sewer for our greenhouse gas emissions and as a result the makret incentives do not exist to develop the technologies to minimize these emissions. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/18 "2007-10-12T13:44:41Z")
The whole “Gore uses too much energy” meme is a right-wing talking point that’s been around for ages, and in my veiw is frankly bogus (_cf_ **Sage Rat** ’s post). Folks, read that one and **Hamlet** ’s post, particularly the part that mentions that this year’s peace prize is a joint award to Gore and the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If you’re gonna bitch about Gore, what about the group that actually carried out the science Gore is basing his work on? Meanwhile, I find the Nobel Committee’s logic in relating the Gore/IPCC work to world peace a bit tortured, but not significantly more so than for some other recent Peace prizes. Storm in a teapot, I say. I will admit to quite looking forward to watching the Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world bursting blood vessels over this; I guess that makes me a bad person, but whatever. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/19 "2007-10-12T13:50:55Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] If he succeeds in getting world governments and businesses to reduce greenhouse emissions, that would dwarf the small personal contribution he makes to global warming. His private jet may burn a lot of fuel, but if his flying leads to a net reduction in carbon emissions, then he has done well for the planet. [/QUOTE] Well, shouldn’t we wait until we see whether he succeeds at that before giving him the NPP? If he’s already done that, then great. I don’t see that he has, although he certainly has tried. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456/20 "2007-10-12T13:51:57Z")
I think that AGW-CO2 is BS, but if the Nobel committee feels compelled to recognize this crusade, I think that Al Gore is a poor choice. Why? Because a leader of a movement should set a good example with his personal life and Al Gore is not really doing that. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-gores-nobel-like-the-wife-beater-winning-for-shelters/422456.md?page=2)