Gore Not First Nobel Laureate for the Environment

When the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded this morning to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Nobel Committee signaled -- not for the first time -- that environmental issues are important to the well-being of humankind, just as is peace in the more traditional sense.

Wangari Maathai, in 2004, is considered the first to have been awarded the prize primarily for environmental work (she was also the first black African woman to win the award). Maathai's work, at its most basic, is to plant trees, and she's nurtured that simple action into a movement that promotes environmental conservation, democracy and human rights across Africa.

The 2007 Peace Prize highlights the role of climate change in conflict. The Darfur region of Sudan has been identified, by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon among others, as a conflict exacerbated by climate change and its influence on a scarce resource, water. Numerous high-ranking military men, and members of the CIA, have also warned that global warming could upset the shaky balance of power in numerous volatile regions around the world ill-equipped to deal with sea-level rise, additional flooding, drought or other consequences of global warming. Also, the melting of the Arctic has inspired a scramble for resources there that some suggest could lead to new conflicts between world superpowers.

"The award of this Nobel Peace Price is clear recognition for the growing global movement to stop climate change," said Hans Verolme, Director of WWF International's Climate Change Programme.

"With their decision, the Nobel Committee has for the second time signaled that peace with the environment is an essential requirement if we are to have peace between human beings," said Oystein Dahle, Chairman of the Board of Worldwatch Institute.

Here's a list of past winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, with those awards for environmental work highlighted:

* 2007 - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change And Al Gore Jr.

* 2006 - Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank

* 2005 - International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei

* 2004 - Wangari Maathai

* 2003 - Shirin Ebadi

* 2002 - Jimmy Carter

* 2001 - United Nations, Kofi Annan

* 2000 - Kim Dae-jung

* 1999 - Medecins Sans Frontieres

* 1998 - John Hume, David Trimble

* 1997 - International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Jody Williams

* 1996 - Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, Jose Ramos-Horta

* 1995 - Joseph Rotblat, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs

* 1994 - Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin

* 1993 - Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk

* 1992 - Rigoberta Menchu Tum

* 1991 - Aung San Suu Kyi

* 1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev

* 1989 - The 14th Dalai Lama

* 1988 - United Nations Peacekeeping Forces

* 1987 - Oscar Arias Sanchez

* 1986 - Elie Wiesel

* 1985 - International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

* 1984 - Desmond Tutu

* 1983 - Lech Walesa

* 1982 - Alva Myrdal, Alfonso Garcia Robles

* 1981 - Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

* 1980 - Adolfo Perez Esquivel

* 1979 - Mother Teresa

* 1978 - Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin

* 1977 - Amnesty International

* 1976 - Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan

* 1975 - Andrei Sakharov

* 1974 - Sean MacBride, Eisaku Sato

* 1973 - Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho

* 1972 - No prize awarded.

* 1971 - Willy Brandt

* 1970 - Norman Borlaug

* 1969 - International Labour Organization

* 1968 - Rene Cassin

* 1967, 1966 - No prize awarded

* 1965 - United Nations Children's Fund

* 1964 - Martin Luther King

* 1963 - International Committee of the Red Cross, League of Red Cross Societies

* 1962 - Linus Pauling

* 1961 - Dag Hammarskjöld

* 1960 - Albert Lutuli

* 1959 - Philip Noel-Baker

* 1958 - Georges Pire

* 1957 - Lester Bowles Pearson

* 1956, 1955 - No prize awarded

* 1954 - Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

* 1953 - George C. Marshall

* 1952 - Albert Schweitzer

* 1951 - Leon Jouhaux

* 1950 - Ralph Bunche

* 1949 - Lord Boyd Orr

* 1948 - No prize awarded

* 1947 - Friends Service Council, American Friends Service Committee

* 1946 - Emily Greene Balch, John R. Mott

* 1945 - Cordell Hull

* 1944 - International Committee of the Red Cross

* 1939-1943 - No prize awarded

* 1938 - Nansen International Office for Refugees

* 1937 - Robert Cecil

* 1936 - Carlos Saavedra Lamas

* 1935 - Carl von Ossietzky

* 1934 - Arthur Henderson

* 1933 - Sir Norman Angell

* 1932 - No prize awarded

* 1931 - Jane Addams, Nicholas Murray Butler

* 1930 - Nathan Soderblom

* 1929 - Frank B. Kellogg

* 1928 - No prize awarded

* 1927 - Ferdinand Buisson, Ludwig Quidde

* 1926 - Aristide Briand, Gustav Stresemann

* 1925 - Sir Austen Chamberlain, Charles G. Dawes

* 1924 - No prize awarded

* 1923 - No prize awarded

* 1922 - Fridtjof Nansen

* 1921 - Hjalmar Branting, Christian Lange

* 1920 - Léon Bourgeois

* 1919 - Woodrow Wilson

* 1918 - No prize awarded

* 1917 - International Committee of the Red Cross

* 1914-1916 - No prize awarded

* 1913 - Henri La Fontaine

* 1912 - Elihu Root

* 1911 - Tobias Asser, Alfred Fried

* 1910 - Permanent International Peace Bureau

* 1909 - Auguste Beernaert, Paul Henri d'Estournelles de Constant

* 1908 - Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Fredrik Bajer

* 1907 - Ernesto Teodoro Moneta, Louis Renault

* 1906 - Theodore Roosevelt

* 1905 - Bertha von Suttner

* 1904 - Institute of International Law

* 1903 - Randal Cremer

* 1902 - Elie Ducommun, Albert Gobat

* 1901 - Henry Dunant, Frederic Passy

COMMENTS ()