Alexander Cockburn says that Al Gore's peace prize is as ridiculous as giving it to Goebels in 38. Agree?

Question

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn10132007.html

The leftist Alexander Cockburn says that Al Gore's Nobel is as ridiculous as it would have been to give it to Geobels in 1938. Do you agree with him?

Answer 1

No I don't agree.

That is just political hype. Just like the global warming political hype. It is all hype. Meaningless hype than only fools care about.

Answer 2

It is almost that ridiculous, but not quite. Promotion of an unproven scientific theory is not really related to peace.

The Nobel Committee has honored a number of very worthy people in chemistry, medicine and other fields. However, the Nobel Peace Prize has a very mixed history. They gave it to Yasser Arafat (known terrorist), Mikhail Gorbachev (who had no intention of presiding over the dismantling of the Soviet Empire but it happened on his watch) and Jimmy Carter. People will compare Al Gore's honor with these three.

Answer 3

i dont think goebels is comparable to gore obviously, but i dont think he should have got a frigin nobel prize...he hasnt worked very hard for it! the people who wrote the script and the scientists who did the research worked hard and i dont think they should share the prize because a star struck nobel pannel couldnt see the forest for the trees. think of all the other people nominated and what a slap inthe face it was, they have dedicated everything they have...what did gore do? read a pre-written script and then flew off in his private jet. lammeeee

Answer 4

Goebbels didn't win the peace price in 1938, or any other year.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/

So this is a silly straw-man argument. Did you get this from Rush?

Cockburn dislikes the idea that man's use of fossil fuels is modifying climate because he feels it gives the nuclear power industry a green light for constructing power reactors. Cockburn *really* dislikes the nuclear power industry, that came out in his series of climate change columns in The Nation earlier this year. It is also clear that Cockburn misunderstands the underlying physics, that was also apparent in his columns. Much as I like Cockburn in general, on this issue he is misinformed and undereducated.

Answer 5

er, no.

As it is put in wiki;

Cockburn also does not think that global warming is primarily caused by humans, citing the claims of Dr. Martin Hertzberg that rising CO2 levels are a symptom, not a cause, of global warming, which he asserts is the result of natural, predictable changes in the earth's elliptic orbit. In fact, Dr. Hertzberg is a semi-retired explosives expert who does not claim to be a climatologist. This has prompted accusations that Cockburn is not consulting with and deferring to the appropriate experts, much as he complains the 9/11 conspiracy theorists don't defer to the NIST.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Cockburn

It is only the sceptics theory that all those on the left automaticly support the concensus on AGW, so it is only they who think that any 'dissident leftist moved into the sceptic camp' is some sort of breakthrough.

Answer 6

Considering that he had this to say about one of the greatest collections of scientists and science on the planet:

"the pr hucksters and falsifiers at the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change"

no, I don't think I'll be agreeing very often with CockBurn.

Answer 7

Who cares what Alexander Cockburn says. I have never heard of the burnt pud before in my life.

Answer 8

I am glad that Al Gore got a peace prize. He has worked very hard to try to come up with a way to stop global warming, and even though people just complain at him he keeps working at it. I wish he could have been president.

Answer 9

With a name like that he needs some ointment....

And Al Gore is an idiot.

Answer 10

I don't think I do. I think that whenever someone calls climate scientists falsifiers and hucksters I stop taking them seriously.

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Edit: I see that Dana agrees. 8p