Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri, the head of and representing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for their work on climate change. Yes, it is an important issue. Here are Gore’s speech and Pauchari’s speech on behalf of the IPCC. Gore pulled out the stops and invoked Churchill and Hitler. The IPCC speech detailed many problems including one I recall from years ago when I took a class called the Water Planet at Berkeley. The professor had a few lectures on the science and then hammered water policy. This was around 1990 and I remember thinking his points about wars and conflicts turning on water policy were quite persuasive. Today they seem prescient. Gore’s and others’ calls for legislation and ways to address an event that will shape our future pose numerous fascinating and complex questions that require much thought. Maybe that is why I was distracted by the gala aspect of the Prize. I had always thought of the Nobel ceremony as a somber event when I read some of the speeches in high school. Apparently things are bit more festive than I realized.
First there is a banquet, “an event many would pay a fortune to attend.†(seriously right there at the home page) The banquet page details all the themes and history behind the dinner. As if that were not enough there is a big show that was almost thwarted until Kevin Spacey stepped in to cover for Tommy Lee Jones as co-host with Uma Thurman at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert. Yes, folks, the Nobel Peace Prize concert. The Web site looks more like an Academy Awards event than I expected. Alicia Keys, Annie Lennox, Kylie Minogue, Earth Wind & Fire, Melissa Etheridge, Morten Harket, KT Tunstall, Juanes, Junoon, Nick Davies (conductor) and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra perform. Wikipedia has a nice entry about the history of the concert which dates from 1994. Take a look there are some impressive names in there not to mention some Nobel Prize winners. (Sinead O’Connor singing in front of Arafat, Peres, and Rabin must have been surreal. Boyz II Men performed one year. The list is fascinating.)
Now although I do think that the issue is important I think that the committee erred. Maybe Earth Wind & Fire were a nod to the elements and the environment or maybe people miss that fat horn section (I do). Regardless the obvious choice should have been a reunion of Talking Heads and the song has to have been (Nothing But) Flowers. It was 1988 and environmental commentary with intelligent, witty satire flew. (Here are some choice lines but listen to the whole thing: “The highways and cars were sacrificed for agriculture … We used to microwave, now we just eat nuts and berrries. This was a discount store now it’s turned into a corn field”). Not to mention the world music aspect of the song seems to fit with the Nobel Prizes. The album is Naked (I also recommend Remain In Light arguably a masterpiece). You ask where is this song? As Talking Heads might say you got it.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lOEIRI5HSuQ%26%23038%3Brel%3D1%22%3E%3Ccross-posted at Concurring Opinions