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Your View: Awarding the prize
After learning of Al Gore's being chosen for the Nobel Prize for his work on global warming, I recalled one of Mr. Jensen's columns on the topic and went to the on-line archives and sure enough, the column for Aug. 1, 2007, popped up and, to synopsize, Mr. Jensen summarily dismissed Mr. Gore's contributions using statements such as "hysteria" and "Gore has the Hollywood crowd awash in their frenzy to save us from ourselves" and that he had read other experts in the field that discounted the global warming alarmists almost equating them with a Chicken Little mentality.
It now seems that the majority of the scientific community is in agreement with Mr. Gore and while I sometimes find the Nobel's committee's choices somewhat outre, I do believe that they are of a different mind that the expert to which Mr. Jensen refers and whom I would wager is not a recipient of the Nobel Prize.
In the past, Mr. Jensen has been fair-minded enough to admit his errors and I am sure he would recognize his pronouncement to be out of touch with the consensus of the scientific community. This certainly does not make Mr. Gore a messianic figure, but it certainly should take him out of the crackpot category. Simply because he is not a conservative Republican does not automatically relegate him to the status of wanker.
T. DeReign
The Nobel Committee - to no one's surprise - selected the honorable Mr. Gore for his efforts. However, I take exception to your assertion that the "consensus of the scientific community" walks in lock-step with Gore's predictions. In fact, thoughtful study would indicate otherwise. And let me share the following:
One of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works."
Dr. William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.
His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honored Mr. Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.
Michael Jensen