Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

In a few hours from now former Vice President Al Gore will most likely be the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. If he wins, and I think he will, he should go for the trifecta.

The White House awaits. Buhdydharma at Daily Kos has a message for Mr. Gore: "Please?"

Good luck Mr. Vice President and, after you win, consider Buhdydharma’s request.

Update: Al Gore wins the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel Peace Prize press release:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.

Indications of changes in the earth’s future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth’s resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world’s most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.

Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming. Thousands of scientists and officials from over one hundred countries have collaborated to achieve greater certainty as to the scale of the warming. Whereas in the 1980s global warming seemed to be merely an interesting hypothesis, the 1990s produced firmer evidence in its support. In the last few years, the connections have become even clearer and the consequences still more apparent.

Al Gore has for a long time been one of the world’s leading environmentalist politicians. He became aware at an early stage of the climatic challenges the world is facing. His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change. He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.

By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world’s future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind. Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man’s control.

Today Mohammad Yunus accepted the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway. He shares the Nobel Prize jointly with Grameen Bank, the microcredit bank he founded. While Bangladesh teeters on the brink, the ceremony at Oslo City Hall offered hope at a time of disturbing developments in the country.

Professor Yunus’s Nobel Lecture today was a call to arms on the global war on poverty. Below are excerpts from his speech. The full text is available here. A video of the ceremony is available here.

By giving us this prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has given important support to the proposition that peace is inextricably linked to poverty. Poverty is a threat to peace.

World’s income distribution gives a very telling story. Ninety four percent of the world income goes to 40 percent of the population while sixty percent of people live on only 6 per cent of world income. Half of the world population lives on two dollars a day. Over one billion people live on less than a dollar a day. This is no formula for peace.

The new millennium began with a great global dream. World leaders gathered at the United Nations in 2000 and adopted, among others, a historic goal to reduce poverty by half by 2015. Never in human history had such a bold goal been adopted by the entire world in one voice, one that specified time and size. But then came September 11 and the Iraq war, and suddenly the world became derailed from the pursuit of this dream, with the attention of world leaders shifting from the war on poverty to the war on terrorism. Till now over $ 530 billion has been spent on the war in Iraq by the USA alone.

I believe terrorism cannot be won over by military action. Terrorism must be condemned in the strongest language. We must stand solidly against it, and find all the means to end it. We must address the root causes of terrorism to end it for all time to come. I believe that putting resources into improving the lives of the poor people is a better strategy than spending it on guns.

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I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the economic and social system that we have designed for ourselves; the institutions and concepts that make up that system; the policies that we pursue.

Poverty is created because we built our theoretical framework on assumptions which under-estimates human capacity, by designing concepts, which are too narrow (such as concept of business, credit- worthiness, entrepreneurship, employment) or developing institutions, which remain half-done (such as financial institutions, where poor are left out). Poverty is caused by the failure at the conceptual level, rather than any lack of capability on the part of people.

I firmly believe that we can create a poverty-free world if we collectively believe in it. In a poverty-free world, the only place you would be able to see poverty is in the poverty museums. When school children take a tour of the poverty museums, they would be horrified to see the misery and indignity that some human beings had to go through. They would blame their forefathers for tolerating this inhuman condition, which existed for so long, for so many people.

A human being is born into this world fully equipped not only to take care of him or herself, but also to contribute to enlarging the well being of the world as a whole. Some get the chance to explore their potential to some degree, but many others never get any opportunity, during their lifetime, to unwrap the wonderful gift they were born with. They die unexplored and the world remains deprived of their creativity, and their contribution.

Grameen has given me an unshakeable faith in the creativity of human beings. This has led me to believe that human beings are not born to suffer the misery of hunger and poverty.

To me poor people are like bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a flower-pot, you get a replica of the tallest tree, only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted, only the soil-base that is too inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong in their seeds. Simply, society never gave them the base to grow on. All it needs to get the poor people out of poverty for us to create an enabling environment for them. Once the poor can unleash their energy and creativity, poverty will disappear very quickly.

Let us join hands to give every human being a fair chance to unleash their energy and creativity.

Congratulations Professor Yunus.

Today Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank were awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below." Today is a day of celebration for all of Bangladesh and Bengalis everywhere. In a country racked by political infighting, corruption and poverty, Dr. Yunus and his faith in the poorest souls on Earth has always been a slight ray of hope. Today that ray shines a little brighter.

Dr. Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his pioneering work in the use of microcredit. Dr. Yunus is an economist who founded Grameen Bank in 1976 (formally in 1983) to give small loans to mostly poor women in rural Bangladesh to start small businesses. These women, who were otherwise deemed "unbankable" by conventional banks, proved to be a lower credit risk than most "creditworthy" borrowers. Grameen Bank’s loan repayment rate is over 98% - significantly higher than most commercial banks in the Third World. Dr. Yunus discovered that microcredit can be both commercially viable and an engine for socio-economic change. Grameen Bank has helped millions of Bangladeshis rise above poverty, not through charity, but through hard work and a little faith in their abilities.

Dr. Yunus’s success in helping the poor help themselves has been duplicated in almost all other developing countries. He has proven the value of direct investment from the bottom up in bringing about economic development. Microcredit and its success stands in direct contrast to the billions of dollars in foreign aid that is wasted when the West gives "aid" to Third World tyrants and dictators.

In awarding Dr. Yunus the Nobel Peace Prize, the Committee said:

Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries.

Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty.

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Every single individual on earth has both the potential and the right to live a decent life. Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development.

Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy cannot achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male.

Dr. Yunus had a simple idea that he turned into action. In doing so, he has changed millions of lives.

Everyday hundreds of millions of people on our planet struggle to just survive. They struggle not with questions of war and peace, not with decisions to launch bombs or practice diplomacy; but with how to find enough food to feed themselves and their families. Their needs are basic and consume most of their existence. These people, our fellow human beings, our fellow brothers and sisters, live on the neglected edge of society. Dr. Yunus, three decades ago, resolved to do his part to help his fellow brothers and sisters step away from the edge. In doing so, Dr. Yunus understood what the current occupant of the White House to this day does not: that peace and stability in this world cannot be achieved until and unless the roots of poverty are addressed.

For his efforts to alleviate poverty to bring about a more peaceful world, the Nobel Committee today awarded Dr. Muhammad Yunus the Nobel Peace Prize.