Nation-Building

Al Gore has ruled out running for President in 2008, saying "I'm in another kind of campaign." In an interview with Norwegian broadcaster NRK, he said he would not make a fresh bid for the White House. Mr Gore told NRK he wanted to focus on his climate change campaigning, which won him a Nobel Peace Prize last week. Mr Gore, the beaten Democratic candidate in the 2000 election, had repeatedly stated he had no interest in standing again for president. But a national organisation which has campaigned for him to stand once more for the White House said traffic on its website had surged in the wake of his Nobel triumph. [...] Mr Gore told NRK it was a "great honour" to be awarded the prize for his climate campaigning. Asked how it would affect his political future, he replied: "I don't have plans to be a candidate again so I don't really see it in that context at all. "I'm involved in another kind of campaign. It's a global campaign to chan...

As expected, Al Gore has won the Nobel Prize for Peace: Climate change campaigner Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The committee cited "their efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change". Mr Gore, US vice-president under Bill Clinton, said he was "deeply honoured". Mr Gore, 59, won an Oscar for his climate change film An Inconvenient Truth while the IPCC is the top authority on global warming. [...] He said he would donate his half of the $1.5m prize money to the Alliance for Climate Protection, reported the news agency Reuters. The Prize was jointly awarded to Gore (an individual) and to the entire UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, whose chairman is Rajendra Pachauri. The work that the IPCC did in establishing and validating the scientific concensus should not be underestimated, and they deserve the prize as much as Gore. From the article,...

In a nutshell, Gore is not opposed to nuclear power, but his focus is on global warming, and as far as nuclear power is being promoted (for example, by Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore ) as a panacea to the GW problem, he is skeptical, for pragmatic rather than ideological reasons. I think this is a realistic approach, and is perfectly compatible with rigorous pro-nuclear domestic energy policy. From Gore's climate policy speech at the NYU Law School on Sep. 18, 2006. Many believe that a responsible approach to sharply reducing global warming pollution would involve a significant increase in the use of nuclear power plants as a substitute for coal-fired generators. While I am not opposed to nuclear power and expect to see some modest increased use of nuclear reactors, I doubt that they will play a significant role in most countries as a new source of electricity. The main reason for my skepticism about nuclear power playing a much larger role in the world's energy future is no...

"I have no intention to run for president," Gore said in an interview conducted in Los Angeles and broadcast Thursday by the BBC. "I can't imagine in any circumstance to run for office again," said the former Democratic vice president under then-president Bill Clinton. What is there to really say about this? It's a direct quote, with as clear phrasing as you might imagine. I think the Draft Gore fundraising by ActBlue is still worth keeping, though, seeing as the funds go to the DNC (and Howard Dean's 50-state strategy) if Gore doesn't run. Gore for Senate? UPDATE: So close! Drat that music!!!