Congrats to Lessing and Gore on Nobel Prizes

It was announced this week that two favorites of Global Wire were awarded Nobel Prizes.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, along with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for bringing worldwide attention to global warming. A long-time environmentalist, Gore was award the Best Documentary Academy Award this year for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. This summer he organized the Live Earth concerts worldwide.

In a statement he released earlier today:

I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the world's pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis -- a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level. My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.



Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Lessing's literary style reflects everything from science fiction to religion to politics. She has also been called a feminist, which she rejects:

What the feminists want of me is something they haven't examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness. What they would really like me to say is, 'Ha, sisters, I stand with you side by side in your struggle toward the golden dawn where all those beastly men are no more.' Do they really want people to make oversimplified statements about men and women? In fact, they do. I've come with great regret to this conclusion.

– Doris Lessing, The New York Times, 25 July 1982

Check out a biographical article on Lessing's life.

Congrats to all the winners!