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Gore
& UN Panel Win Nobel
for Work on
Climate Change
By
Alan Shapiro
To the Teacher:
This
is about as teachable a moment as we'll ever get to study global
warming and climate change with students. The student reading
below deals with the recent awarding of the Nobel Prize to Al
Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their
work on global warming. The reading includes a few of the basic
facts and a view of what can and should be done.
Each
of the following materials on this website offers further information
and activities for students.
"Energy
and the Environment: What Can We Do?" includes an array
of action opportunities for students.
"Paying
for Climate Change" offers an overview of a British government
study and an IPCC February 2007 report on climate change.
"Youth
Action on Climate Change" includes additional action
opportunities and also lists useful websites. A relatively new
one is the Alliance for Climate Protection, an organization founded
last year by Al Gore: www.climateprotect.org/aa20
"Problems at the Pump" provides
basic information about oil, gas and the U.S.
"The
Unpleasant News About Global Warming" includes a number
of quotes from scientists about global warming, information on
is being done about it and a suggested approach to launching a
student project.
Student
Reading
The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize award to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations network of scientists,
has focused global attention on climate change and global warming.
Why
would efforts on global warming warrant a "peace prize"?
The Norwegian Nobel Committee explained that Gore and the UN panel
had focused "on the processes and decisions that appear to
be necessary to protect the world's future climate, and thereby
reduce the future threat to the security of mankind." Threats
to that security could include violent competitions for resources
as well as devastating coastal flooding and crop failures that
might displace millions of people.
The
final words of the Nobel Committee: "Action is necessary
now, before climate change moves beyond man's control."
Former
vice president Gore has been speaking out and writing on global
warming for many years. But his Academy Award winning documentary,
"An Inconvenient Truth," brought the subject and its
importance to the attention of millions of people in a popular
form.
The
other Nobel winner, the IPCC, was founded in 1988 to address global
warming. Prominent scientific specialists from around the world
participate in the IPCC's working groups and task force. The panel
has issued three detailed reports so far, which have concluded
that:
-
Global climate change is occurring.
- Human
activities since the beginning of the industrial revolution,
but particularly during the past 50 years, are the main force
behind the buildup of greenhouse gases causing climate change.
-
If we do not significantly cut our planet's greenhouse gas emissions,
further warming will occur and produce additional changes in
the global climate system.
- Human
beings have the knowledge and the technologies to reduce greenhouse
gas
emissions at a relatively low cost.
The
IPCC is expected to issue another report before the United Nations
Climate Change Conference in Indonesia on December 3. At that
conference, representatives from some 180 nations will begin negotiations
on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The
Kyoto agreement, reached in 1997, is an international treaty requiring
signing nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
In
May 2007, when the IPCC issued its third report, William Moomaw,
a lead author of a chapter on energy options and a professor of
international environmental policy at Tufts University, said:
"Here
in the early years of the 21st century, we're looking for an energy
revolution that's as comprehensive as the one that occurred at
the beginning of the 20th century when we went from gaslight and
horse-drawn carriages to light bulbs and automobiles. In 1905,
only 3 percent of homes had electricity. Right now, 3 percent
is about the same range as the amount of renewable energy we have
today. None of us can predict the future any more than we could
in 1905, but that suggests to me it may not be impossible to make
that kind of revolution again." (New York Times, 5/4/07)
That
"energy revolution," as the IPCC noted in its third
report, "could offset the projected growth of global emissions
or reduce emissions below current levels" and include: "hybrid
cars, combined heat and power plants, better lighting, improved
crop-plowing techniques, better forestry, higher efficiency aircraft,
and tidal energy among others…." (Bill McKibben, "Can
Anyone Stop It?" New York Review, 10/11/07)
Michael
Oppenheimer, an atmospheric scientist at Princeton who has worked
on the IPCC's climate assessments, commented that "The award
reminds us that expert advice can influence people and policy,
that sometimes governments do listen to reason and that the idea
that reason can guide human action is very much alive, if not
yet fully realized….Public attention is now engaged at the
highest level it will probably ever be."
When
he received the Nobel Prize, Al Gore said, "I will accept
this award on behalf of all the people that have been working
so long and so hard to try to get the message out about this planetary
emergency. I'm going back to work right now." (New York
Times, 10/13/07)
For
discussion
1.
What questions do you have about the reading? How might they be
answered?
2.
What do you know about global warming and climate change?
3.
Why do scientists think it is essential to act on global warming
and climate change?
4.
What would you like to learn more about? How can we find the
information we need?
5.
Why is it so difficult to get the nations of the world to take
strong measures to curb global warming? If you don't know, how
might you find out?
6.
Consider the U.S., which is responsible for 25 percent of atmospheric
greenhouse gases. Why did President Bush oppose joining the Kyoto
Protocol? What are his ideas for reducing greenhouse gases? What
do his critics say about them?
This
lesson was written for TeachableMoment.Org, a project of Morningside
Center for Teaching Social Responsibility. We welcome
your comments. Please email author Alan Shapiro at: ashapiro7@comcast.net.
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