The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Democrat Al Gore today increases pressure on him to launch a late bid for the US presidency, but advisers say he is showing no signs of interest in the 2008 race.
Gore, the former vice president who lost a Florida vote recount battle in the 2000 election to George W Bush, has attracted growing support in recent days from thousands of Democratic activists who want him to enter the race.
An organisation called draftgore.com is one of several trying to persuade Gore to run. The group ran a full-page ad in The New York Times on Wednesday described as an open letter to Al Gore''. Many good and caring candidates are contending for the Democratic nomination,’’ the ad said. But none of them has the combination of experience, vision, standing in the world, and political courage that you would bring to the job.'' The attention represents how far Gore has taken his quest to call global attention to concerns about climate change with the movie that won him an Oscar, An Inconvenient Truth. San Francisco-based Current TV, Gore's television network, won an Emmy award last month for outstanding achievement in interactive television service. After losing the Supreme Court case that cost him the White House, Gore from all accounts had a difficult time getting over the closest presidential election in US history. He escaped to Europe for a time, and, puzzlingly, grew a beard. Once considered a wooden speaker, he now is a pop culture icon, and happily engaged in a life that includes many speaking engagements about climate change, positions on corporate boards and much travel. At a time when the United States is preoccupied with the most wide-open presidential race in more than 50 years, former aides like Julia Payne say he does not talk much about politics, recalling that she saw him at the wedding in Nashville of a former staffer. The last time I talked with the vice president, we talked light bulbs, not politics,’’ she said.
Long-time adviser Carter Eskew said he talks to Gore about once a week.
I don't think he's going to run,'' said Eskew. He has said technically he hasn’t ruled it out. But I can tell you he’s making no moves and no sounds to indicate to me that he’s going to run.’’
Gore’s spokeswoman, Kalee Kreider, was more definitive.
He has no intentions of running for president in 2008,'' she said recently from Nashville, where Gore lives. But that is not stopping the draft Gore movement. Peter Ryder is an activist in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, trying to persuade Gore to run. His group, Algore.org, is planning a November 11 concert to raise money for the effort. He said none of the other Democrats running in the race for the November 2008 election have the complete package like Gore. I think we need more than just a good president. I think we need someone with the potential for greatness. Al Gore, his rational approach to issues and problems, and obviously his work on global warming, made my decision to support him,’’ Ryder said.
A West Virginia activist, Jim Tate, agreed. He said he was concerned that the current Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, could be defeated by the Republican nominee because she carries a lot of baggage with her.'' He said he also believes Gore is the person who can do the most for our country, and bring back foreign policy. We have no foreign policy.’’
Former US vice-president Al Gore said he was honoured to share the Nobel Peace Prize with the UN climate panel today for their work on global warming and said climate change is a moral, not political, issue.
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. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level,'' Gore said in a statement. I am deeply honoured to receive the Nobel Peace Prize,’’ he said.
This award is even more meaningful because I have the honour of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - the world's preeminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis - a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years.'' Gore also said he would donate all of his share of the cash award. My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 per cent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organisation that is devoted to changing public opinion in the US and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.’’
The Alliance for Climate Protection is the nonprofit group Gore founded last year to raise public awareness of climate change.
Al Gore? Nobel Prize??? I heard his global warming threats were a bit of quackery. What’s the consensus on this? I am ignorant about the issue.
in the science world global warming is a concensous which is very rare for something in science if to be argued its almost not falsafiable(spelling), the ones that call it quackery are the politicians or any other people affiliated with products within the market that could serverly be hampered from this forecoming disaster.
A politician or the world’s foremost climatologist who thinks that there is no evidence to say that humans are the cause of global warming. You know, just making sure you got the facts on this one.
Only a few hundred years ago there was a mini-iceage and before that there was a period of warming where average temps around the world were almost 10 degrees higher than they are now. Very hard to conclusively say anything .
What is the link between climate change and peace? 
Exactly! What melted the Ice in the Ice ages? Was it an increase in temperature?
yeah we live in one the colder parts of the worlds climate, it will rise, however we will enter another ice age anyways and so the cycle continues.
I’d take the “quackery” very seriously. There’s miles of information available online to validate the effects of global warming. Only now is the Bush administration claiming to take climate change seriously and behind China, nobody else does Climate change like the USA.
Rupert
CharlieFrancis.com
The issue is not whether or not global warming is taking place to some extent, but how it is caused. There is next to no conclusive, scientific evidence to say humans are to blame as opposed to it being a natural cycle. Again, a few hundred years ago we had a mini ice age and during the dark ages there was a global warming period where the average temps were 10 degrees higher than now. In fact, it was a global warming that led people out of the dark ages in europe, if I recall (not to say it was the cause, but it happened along the same time).
Yea, evidence inconclusive at best.
Are temperatures rising yes, why is a guess right now?
Wasnt it just a couple decades ago people were worried about global cooling instead?
BTW, not sure, but we are going into a cooling stage overall arent we? There are always blips in the cooling and warming trends and this is probably just one of them.
A couple years of warming over the existence of Earth and people are coming to definite conclusions come on.
Shenanigans
Current evidence suggest that average global temperature during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was no higher than during the mid-twentieth century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
Further, the instrumental temperature record, which uses data going back to 1850, shows a clear increase in average global temperature of ~0.8 degrees C over the last 150 years, approximately half of this increase coming during the last 25 years. This would make the current average global temperature ~0.4 degrees C higher than it was during the MWP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
The measurement of temps form the past is always in question (many in the field will say there is nothing but educated guess after a certain point), without a doubt, and I am sure there will be further questioning in the future about the new finds, but it is quite clear that something was going on in that period with the climate that was NOT caused by humans. This still does not explain why humans must be the cause or even part of the cause rather than this being a natural event.
I am just hoping that, having won the Nobel Prize, Al Gore will decide that his life’s work is finished and he will shut up forever on all topics.
Of course, I am also hoping to see pigs fly.
Proof for Global Warming
A few south pacific Islands have disappeared as result of higher sea levels, melting polar ice caps by global warming. I was born in Fiji ( not Fijian) and many of the small boarding Islands have disappeared. What a tragedy!
The world just decided it was time to heat up…
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070202085036.htm
If Al Gore is so worried about global warming why does he spend more on heat then my whole block.
He’s notorious for having an astrominical heating bill. And something tells me his motives arent as good as we think they are. Shame on these politicians. Nothing is real!
I thought maybe Al Gore had won a Nobel for re-inventing the internet.
http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/default.cfm?Action=ReleaseDetail&ID=15637
Savior of the Planet Al Gore Burns More Energy at Tennessee Estate in a Month Than Average U.S. Home Uses in a Year