I share the delight of Kossacks in the recognition given to Al Gore today. I do not want to take anything away from it. Yet I am going to risk an extraordinary bluntness in my own comment.
By awarding it, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is making a very important statement but, unless Kossacks cease to take responsibility for the country of which they are citizens and are seen as such by the rest of the world, then feelings of partisanship pride should give way to a sense of national shame.
One of my favourite writers, Meteor Blades, records "The "world" - or at least the millions of the world's citizens who have seen An Inconvenient Truth, and the far fewer who have read the IPCC's extensive reports on global warming - may indeed have an understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.
Well, I’m going to take this sentence in isolation (because in reality I agree with the thrust of what the writer is portraying in his excellent diary) and say this is a comment of extraordinary American arrogance. "The world", or the seeming irrelevant part of it which exists outside your boundaries, has recognised the need for action for years before Inconvenient Truth. Many years ago, this concern had it culmination in the Kyoto Agreement. Al Gore’s achievement is remarkable, but it is only remarkable in that it is by an American in America.
Many of the great heroes and heroines who have won the Nobel Peace Prize have done so not because they are necessarily the finest advocates of their cause in the world but because they have shown a bravery and courage in taking their stance within the context of the politics and environment of their own country. Thus Shirin Ebadi won the award for her stance on women rights in Iran, Kim Dae-jung won it for his fight for democracy in South Korea, David Trimble and John Hume for their brave peace advocacy in Northern Ireland.
Much of the world didn’t need Al Gore. Its scientists and its own global warning advocates had achieved years ago the recognition of the challenge that we face. The debate on the issues has been peculiarly your own, to the despair of many outside your borders.
In this first day of basking in the warmth of the award of this prize, many Americans will feel that they have now joined the world community in facing up to the enormity of what needs to be done. This is, of course, an untruth. As untruthful as the purloining of the rhetoric of the global warming campaigners by George Bush to dress up the empty shell of his policy in his specially convened group a few weeks ago to take attention away from the United Nation’s own debate.
Those who are in a frenzy today because the award commends Al Gore to run as a President or because it shows a real advance in the promotion of his ideas within his country need to make a more sober assessment of what the Nobel Committee are saying about the United States. If Kossacks don’t do this, then the rest of your fellow citizens won’t do so. I have yet to see the White House statement on the prize, but I have no doubt that they will try and adopt this award as a matter of pride for the American people. It is not. There is a powerful element of shame in it.