October 13, 2007
The Nobel Peace Prize III Posted by John Steele Gordon at 11:30 AM EST Just a few responses to Alexander Burns’s post. The nature of peace and war has changed markedly since Alfred Nobel established the Peace Prize in his will, calling for it to be awarded to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” I think he would be astounded at how much standing armies have shrunk in size over the last few decades and how long it’s been since there was a “peace congress.” Great-power war was a constant threat in Nobel’s day—Abou Ben Adhem’s nightmare. It is much more remote today. So who receives what is perhaps the most prestigious prize in the world has—and should have—changed. Perhaps its name should be changed to the Nobel Humanitarian Prize to reflect the new reality. And certainly I have no objection to the prize, whatever it’s called, going to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have done good work in the cause of humanity. Mr. Burns mentions three people who have not contributed to peace in any direct sense but have won the Nobel Peace Prize: Norman Borlaug, Muhammad Yunus, and Al Gore, and puts them on the same plane. I do not. Both Borlaug and Yunus, when they were recognized, had accomplished a great good. Borlaug had developed strains of wheat that produced much higher yields. Thanks to these new strains, Mexico became a net wheat exporter by 1963 and Pakistan and India both saw wheat production double between 1965 and 1970, the year Borlaug won the Peace Prize. The “green revolution” he fostered has continued to spread to other areas and other crops, greatly reducing world hunger. He is one of the giants of the twentieth century and was known to be so when he won the Peace Prize. Yunus began his microloan program in 1976 and established the Grameen Bank (which shared the prize) in 1983. In the next two decades it helped tens of thousands of Bangladeshis lift themselves out of abject poverty by providing low-interest credit, and the idea has spread widely to other countries. Increasingly, private foundations are helping to reduce poverty in this way, rather than by means of grants to governments, which are often deeply corrupt in poor countries (by no means the least of the reasons they are poor). But Al Gore was awarded the prize merely for his prediction of the consequences of not following one possible way to combat global warming. His movie, An Inconvenient Truth, won an Oscar for best documentary but is, in fact, propagandistic, selecting facts and making unsubstantiated claims with gay abandon. A British judge recently ruled that there were at least nine serious errors of fact in the movie and ruled that it can only be shown in British classrooms if it is accompanied by balancing information. Al Gore has consistently refused to debate the subject, even though he is an excellent debater. (He mopped the floor with Ross Perot on the subject of NAFTA, for instance, early in the Clinton administration.) Even The New York Times, which gave the story the lead with a two-column head, (all other Nobel prizes this year got only a reefer on the front page), states that Gore’s co-winner, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is much more cautious in its predictions. Gore, for instance, predicts a 20-foot rise in sea levels over the next century; the panel thinks one foot (about equal to the rise in the last hundred years) is more like it. That’s a very big difference. Al Gore has unquestionably raised the public consciousness regarding global warming. But he has done his level best to shut down any discussion of both its causes (an open scientific question) and possible solutions other than the one he favors—capping and then reducing carbon emissions—an open political question. To use a financial metaphor, Borlaug and Yunus had their money in the bank when they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Al Gore has, at best, a paper profit. If he ends up intellectually broke, the Nobel Peace Prize will have been diminished. Mr. Burns is correct that I erred in saying that the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Parliament. It awarded by the Nobel Prize Committee, which is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. That strikes me as a distinction without a whole lot of difference. (By the way, if someone would like a short course in how microlending works and would like to read a wonderful novel in the process, let me recommend A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute. Shute was a wonderful storyteller perhaps best remembered today for his On the Beach, made into an unforgettable movie by Stanley Kramer.)
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