nobel peace prize

What will Al Gore do?

by Charles Chamberlain, DFA Field Director [courtesy of Blog for America]

Let's face it. A lot of us wanted Al Gore to run. I held out as long as I possibly could for it. I voted for him first in our October pulse poll. Well, I was over at Huffington Post and I saw this quote from Joe Klein in Newsweek. And even if it were a dream, this idea is absolutely crazy:

"Let's say the elders of the Democratic Party decide, when the primaries end, that neither Obama nor Clinton is viable. ... All they'd have to do would be to convince a significant fraction of their superdelegate friends, maybe fewer than 100, to announce that they were taking a pass on the first ballot at the Denver convention, which would deny the 2,025 votes necessary to Obama or Clinton. What if they then approached Gore and asked him to be the nominee, for the good of the party-and suggested that he take Obama as his running mate? ... A prominent fund raiser told me, 'Gore-Obama is the ticket a lot of people wanted in the first place.'"

 However, here is a does of sanity from the New York Observer:

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How Emissions Trading Can Help All Communities in California and Fight Global Warming

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Sasha-Werblin.gif By Sasha Werblin
Sustainable Development Fellow
Greenlining Institute

The United States now stands as the only industrialized nation still opposed to the Kyoto Protocol after Australia ratified the international treaty. Despite the Bush Administration’s failures to ratify Kyoto, American corporations, with little government prodding, are eager to participate in the $5 billion carbon market. Unfortunately, communities of color most impacted by global warming are unlikely to see the direct benefits of this growing carbon market unless changes are made to our current model of purchasing and trading carbon credits.

Current Carbon Market and Its Limitations

The carbon market is an offshoot of the Kyoto Protocol that demands greenhouse gas emission cuts from industrialized countries. The mechanism under the protocol allows rich countries to buy carbon credits to offset their targets, in return providing funds to developing countries to buy clean technologies.

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Al Gore: Leave a blank spot for the US and go around to make progress

by Linda*in*SFNM [courtesy of Blog for America]

Al Gore electrified the Bali Summit when he spoke to the delegation of 187 countries at the Bali Climate Summit on Thursday.

Al Gore's oratory electrifies Bali summit

Thursday, 13 December , 2007, 20:05

Bali: In a speech likely to go down in history as an oratorical milestone in the fight against global warming, Al Gore, former US vice-president and co-winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, electrified the December 3-14 UN conference on climate change on its penultimate evening on Thursday.

Clearly speaking from his heart, Gore exhorted the nearly 11,000 delegates from 187 countries gathered here for the summit to bypass the US government delegation that is threatening to derail the entire Bali roadmap to start global negotiations that will help fight global warming.

Pointing out that climate change was already here, that it was no longer a matter that would affect future generations but was affecting the present one, Gore quoted the famous lines from the Nazi era: "First they came for the Jews and I did not do anything; then they came for the gypsies and I did not do anything; then they came for the neighbours and I did not do anything; when they came for me there was nobody to do anything for me."

A Legal Licking, Nobel Gesture, and a Planet Melting Faster Than Expected: Hot Week for Global Warming

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Gary-Patton.gif By Gary A. Patton

Yesterday, the state of California prevailed in a lawsuit filed by the Auto Industry which had sought to overturn tougher emission standards for new cars and trucks. AB 1493, also known as the Pavley Standard, limits the greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles sold in California beginning in model year 2009. The federal judge who dismissed the suit relied on the string of recent court decisions regarding global warming in his rejection of the automakers' arguments.

California must still receive a waiver from the U.S. EPA to implement the law, and the Bush Administration continues to drag its feet on California's request.

On Monday, Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) accepted the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

In his acceptance speech, Al Gore called on the United States and China, the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, "to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act."

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Today's Fresh Meat

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

A political gridlock is in the works for California in 2008, predicts the Sacramento Bee.Between elections, term limit reform, and a $10 billion budget deficit,expect little work to be done on big-issue legislation in the comingyear.

Al Gore has received his Nobel Peace Prize today and urged the US and China tomake bold moves on climate change.  "We must quickly mobilize ourcivilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seenonly when nations mobilized for war," said Gore. Be sure to watch thespittle fly on Fox News this week.

Victims of the law of unintended consequences, hundreds of Hollywood production workers marched yesterday to urge an end to the Writer's Guild strike."Although these so-called below-the-line workers are not part of thenegotiations, most are out of work until the strike is over andproductions begin again."

There's more... 


Image courtesy of the LA Times. 

Gore's Not the Only One Who Won

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

mary_lyon.gif By Mary Lyon

Pardon my cackling. I'm savoring my win.

The man from whom the highest American honor imaginable was stolen at the end of 2000 has now been awarded the highest honor the world community has to offer. And. I. Am. Loving. It.

Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize is richly-deserved. By all rights he should be accepting it in Oslo at the end of this year as a magnificent bookend near the conclusion of his second term as the forty-third President of the United States, at the opposite end of his triumph over George W. Bush seven years ago. Perhaps he wouldn't have had the time to develop public awareness about the crisis of global warming if he'd had the kind of load on his shoulders that any competent president has to carry. Or maybe, with the clout, luster, and bully-pulpit of the White House at his command, he could have put that much more “oomph” into this cause. We would at least have been much farther along toward solving this crisis after almost seven years. Who can say? Nevertheless, this latest and most magnificent accolade is all the sweeter because it's OUR win, as well.

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There's a Buzz in the California Air About Al Gore

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Thunderous applause and standing ovation at Barbara Boxer fundraiser--Before the Nobel Prize

Petitions on the street to place him on the California ballot

Boxer-and-Gore-095.jpg

By Frank D. Russo

At last night's Barbara Boxer fundraiser in San Francisco, the St. Francis Hotel was thick as thieves with reporters. Before Boxer arrived to hold an impromptu press conference with these reporters, the questions being bandied about amongst the press were all about Al Gore. Would he run for President? Would the Nobel Peace Prize, if he won it, give him a boost to run for President? And could he win by getting in at such a late date.

I joined in and made a few comments about the pros and cons to some of the news folks I knew and before I knew it, the cameras lit up and I was being asked these questions by two TV news reporters and another political writer for a newspaper.

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