Jeff Jacoby has written a very astute piece about Gore and the Peace Prize, which is included in a post on Powerline.com. (There’s other great stuff in the Powerline post, as well.)

As I understand him, in all prize venues other than the (Swedish determined) Peace Prize, the worthiness of accomplishments is sorted out over years or even decades, when they are measured against rival accomplishments or where their use unequivocally has defined their importance.

Those that, over time, prove themselves to be the most important accomplishments are nominated, while those accomplishments which do not stand the test of time so well are not nominated. It is for this reason that so many Nobel winners are so old.

Only wrt the (Norwegian decided) Peace Prize is the award ever made before one’s contributions have been proven worthy by time. The Peace Prize winner is often capriciously determined by the politics of the day — what’s a trendy political statement — rather than the actual impact and staying-power of a contribution.

As Wretchard puts it in his post Does the Precautionary Principle Cover Actual Problems?:

[Mr. Gore's] Nobel citation is nothing for something that’s already happened. It’s for the achievement of preventing something that could, possibly happen in the future if a certain climate model is correct.”

Brian