Gore & co-nominee Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutieris a favorite to win Nobel

[ourbluenation]

Climate activists tipped for peace prize

By John Acher Fri Oct 5, 8:01 AM ET

OSLO (Reuters) - Former Vice President Al Gore and other campaigners against climate change lead experts' choices for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, an award once reserved for statesmen, peacemakers and human rights activists.

snip

Gore, who has raised awareness with his book and Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," and Canadian Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier, who has shed light on how global warming affects Arctic peoples, were nominated to share the prize by two Norwegian parliamentarians.

"I think they are likely winners this year," said Stein Toennesson, director of Oslo's International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) and a long-time Nobel Peace Prize watcher.

"It will certainly be tempting to the (Nobel) committee to have two North Americans -- one the activist that personifies the struggle against climate change, raising awareness, and the other who represents some of the victims of climate change."

snip

"I have a feeling it will go to Al Gore, and I think he deserves it. He certainly has done a remarkable job of creating awareness on the subject and has become a crusader," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071005/wl_canada_nm/canada_nobel_peace_col

[ourbluenation]

1. here's some info on his co-nominee, Watt-Cloutieris...what a rock star.

A long-time political spokesperson for the Inuit, Watt-Cloutier, is actively engaged in climate change initiatives with the aim of persuading states to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases and the use of toxins.

The very survival the Inuit is at stake, she says.

"We go out and hunt on the sea to put food on the table," Watt-Cloutier said in a recent interview. "You go to the supermarket."

And if there is one place on the planet where the effects of the "great warming" are immediately felt it is in the Arctic says Watt-Cloutier who as chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference represents some 155,000 Inuit in Canada, The USA, Russia and Greenland.

"We on a daily basis observe the minute changes that are occurring in the environment," Watt-Cloutier said. "We are the guardians of the environment, in fact, because we're on the land every day...we're the early warning system for the rest of the world."

Originally from Nunavik in Northern Quebec and educated in Manitoba, she now lives in Iqaluit capital of the new territory of Nunavut.

Her people are witnessing first hand the devastating affects of climate change and its relentless assault on their traditional way of life. "We're already living this reality," Watt-Cloutier, said. "It's not a theory in the future, it's right now in the present."

[gateley]

5. Very impressive. Thank you for posting this. nt

[w4rma]

2. What is Reuters implying with the phrase, "once reserved for"? (nt)

[ourbluenation]

3. very good question. n/t

[Cha]

4. I read kissinger won it

one year..so what was it "reserved" for that Year?