Gore's Nobel

I'm sure you've heard about Gore's Nobel Peace Prize by now (note that he shares it with the UN climate panel). I feel a little weird about it, to be honest.

It's not that Gore isn't a good guy who has done great stuff. I just think the precedent is a little odd. I was reading...somewhere, and I'm too lazy to try to dig up the reference...about some of the political dynamics of the economics Nobel work. The Nobel in economics tends to be given to someone for work they did 15 to 20 years ago, the reason being that it's only with that much historical perspective can you tell if the work was accurate and if it had an effect.

I feel like the same standard should apply here. It may well be that Al Gore's efforts have catalyzed global action on climate change, but I don't think we have the perspective yet to be able to assert that. Maybe he will have turned out to be the one to lead the sea change in policy opinion and priority that ultimately leads to the aversion of a climate crisis. But what if we've already fucked ourselves? What if anything we do now is too late and has essentially no effect? What if the momentum of the past few years fizzles and amounts to nothing? Has he really done the most to promote global peace in those contexts?

And, frankly, what has he done other than utilize his celebrity to highlight the issue and educate? Not that that isn't useful, but is it really the stuff of a Nobel award? Will this be forever known as the Apple Keynote presentation that won a Nobel Peace Prize?