The Peace Prize - Who are the real Winners?

COMMENT: GLOBE-Net provides information about the environmental business market in Canada and around the world. It is an initiative of the GLOBE Foundation of Canada, “a Vancouver-based, not-for-profit organization dedicated to finding practical business-oriented solutions to the world's environmental problems.” John Wiebe (a lower profile Maurice Strong?) runs the operation, and Michael Phelps, formerly of Westcoast Energy, is chairman of the board.
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Editorial
GLOBE-Net
www.globe-net.ca
17-Oct-2007

The Peace Prize - Who are the real Winners?

VANCOUVER, October 17, 2007 (GLOBE-Net) - The award to former US Vice President Al Gore and the U.N. Climate Panel of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize last week for their efforts to galvanize international action against global warming signals not only a quantum shift in thinking about the focus of the Peace Prize Award, but also about the seriousness of the crisis facing mankind.

Gore and the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won "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", stated the Nobel Committee.

With respect to Gore, the Committee stated "He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted." With respect to the IPCC "it has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming".

The Nobel Committee's choice generally has been celebrated, though some have commented on the political dimensions of the award and the scientific validity of the causes of global warming. These debates are as relevant to the situation at hand as would have been discussions on the after deck of the Titanic as to what really was at the root of the problem.

What stands out about the Award itself is the shift in focus away from efforts to quell real or threatened conflict between warring states to the need for global action to deal with an enemy that affects all of mankind, an enemy that knows no national boundaries; that does not discriminate between political ideologies or religions; that assails both rich and poor alike, though clearly the poor will suffer more from its onslaught.

And unlike the mission to secure a 'Peace' that led to award of the same prize to Canada's Lester B. Pearson many years ago, the Peace that must be won today deals more with coming to terms with the realities of climate change and working in common cause to deal with it. This is a mission that of necessity must unite business and governments at all levels, and which must mobilize the efforts of civil societies everywhere.

No one can deny that there will be winners and losers in this campaign; but that should simply strengthen our resolve to ensure that those who are disadvantaged by reason of location, or wealth or by lack of alternative options, do not suffer unnecessarily. If there is one common message that both the IPCC and Al Gore have stressed repeatedly it is that collectively we have the technological capacity, the ingenuity and the resources to make a difference before it is beyond our control.

There can be no finer calling for those engaged in the business of the environment, and our prize will be far more significant than that which will be given to these two winners in December. That prize will be our continued survival as a species on this all too fragile planet.

John D. Wiebe
President & CEO
GLOBE Foundation