wow?

Congratulations to Al Gore and the IPCC. The conflation of issues the NPP recognizes is certainlygetting interesting...although I cannot ignore the irony in an American winning the prize for work towards global climate change! It would have been entirely justified to award the IPCC the award by itself given how much global impact the publication of its fourth report had earlier this year, but the inclusion of Al Gore is a potent reminder to the Americans - who still hold most of the trump cards at such talks - by the Nobel committee about who it feels is on the right side of this debate, with the implication that Bush, Gore's political nemesis, being still very much on the wrong side. With Bush thankfully now into the final phase of his disastrous presidency, it can be safely assumed that he has his legacy very much on his mind. Anything that can nudge him towards choosing the right course of action on climate change is welcome - but I suspect forlorn.

As for Gore, I wonder whether this will now persuade him

to go again for the biggest prize of all? Well, the $1.5m Nobel prize fund should help pay for a few hours on the campaign trail, if he does.

I love the BBC readers' forum on this one....10+ pages and counting!