Blog Action Day

I've signed up to participate in Blog Action Day, a movement to get all bloggers to blog on the same subject for one day. This year's topic: the environment. I'd like to thank Al Gore for winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in raising awareness for the consequences of global climate change; it makes this easy.

In preparation for this blog entry I went to Google News and typed in "climate change." Mr. Gore dominated the articles listed, which only supports how beneficial it is to have him as a spokesperson for this issue. For some reason, many, many people do not like Al. But even those trying to discredit him give him and the climate change issue publicity (Al dislikers: keep it up--and he'll continue to prove you wrong.)

New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman wrote a great article today on Al and his decractors. He notes that the Wall Street Journal didn't even mention Al Gore's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, and instead made a list of all the people who deserved it instead. National Review Online writer Iain Murray likened Al Gore to a terrorist because Osama bin Laden is also against global warming. Mr. Krugman offers analyses of why Al his so hated, and how he's overcome it all. However you feel about Al, it's an interesting read.

Sharing the prize with Al is the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Al has made sure to mention this group in every public statement about the prize. So I would like to also give credit to them here. The Vancouver Sun offers an article about one of the involved scientists, Professor John Robinson, or "Dr. Sustainability" as he is called. He's been fighting to raise awareness since the early 1980s, and is happy it's finally getting the recognition it demands. Dr. R.K. Pachauri, head of the panel, has appealed to developing economies such as India and China to develop new, more environmentally friendly technology, and to stop their current consumption and pollution patterns; developed countries are not good examples to follow. The panel's report titled "The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change" can be found here. On February 2nd of this year the panel presented that global warming was unequivocally occurring, and was the result of human activity. An international, bipartisan effort, the panel finally got the world to open their eyes. On February 2, 2007. Hopefully it's not too late.

So if you don't want to listen to me, listen to the scientists. If you don't want to listen to Al Gore, listen to the scientists. What they'll say in much more elegant and intelligent ways is: Stop being so selfish and ignorant! The consequences are going to kill more than trees and animals and Democrats.