Thursday, November 15, 2007

And the Oscar--er, Nobel goes to...


The Nobel Peace Prize was shared by Al Gore and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for their efforts to raise awareness on climate change.

The IPCC was established in 1988, by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. It is tasked with evaluating the risk of climate change due to human activity. Mr Gore’s film on global warming, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, won an Oscar earlier this year, and was a box-office hit. It had also seen the headlines recently when a British judge criticised it for being alarmist and containing errors.

In related news, Mr Gore’s fund management company set up with David Blood – Generation Investment Management – has agreed to cooperate with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture capital firm, to invest in areas such as alternative energy companies. This is seen as a further attempt to combat climate change.

Tangent’s take:
  • A Nobel for being famous for talking about climate change? Really?
  • Although governments have been touting the importance of fighting climate change, much of the investments needed has been left to the private sector. Perhaps Blood and Gore (a much better name for a fund, in Tangent’s view) may start a new trend in directing private investments towards green industries?
  • Even thought there is still debate on the exact scientific consequences of climate change, the economic effects are real – see Tayyibah Arif’s piece on pasta price fluctuations
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Please add or edit as you see fit, especially with the 'Tangent's Take' section.

Picture of earth is in the public domain. Pictures of the Nobel Prize are NOT, hence, why the earth. And also because it's prettier.

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