Klimaatverandering 100

'Woman, fighting to save her people from extinction
By Andrew Gumbel

If Nobel Peace Prizes could refreeze the polar ice caps, then Sheila Watt-Cloutier would be a very happy woman indeed because her people are, "defending the right to be cold".
As it is, the Canadian activist, who lives in a remote community up above the Arctic circle, is thrilled to have her name put forward as one of the 181 nominees for this year's accolade from the Nobel committee, because it can only advance the cause for which she has been fighting for the past 12 years - protecting the Inuit peoples whose lives are directly and most immediately threatened by the change in the world's climate and raising awareness about global warming. As she said recently: "It's been a long haul and a daunting task to get the message out. When you're 155,000 people at the top of the world, there aren't very many people who even know who you are or what you're facing."
It is far too soon to say who will emerge as this year's Nobel Prize winner - the nominations were announced yesterday, and the peace prize is not awarded until October - but already the environment has emerged as this year's big theme and Ms Watt-Cloutier, as the tribune of a remote people living with the stark realities of global warming on a daily basis, is perhaps the closest thing the planet has to a beacon of hope for a better future.
Two Norwegian members of parliament, Boerge Brende and Heidi Soerensen, announced very publicly that they were championing two candidacies this year: Al Gore, who put climate change on the global agenda thanks to the runaway success of his global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and Ms Watt-Cloutier, who has worked "from the ground up" to save the planet.
Mr Gore is, naturally, the superstar in the Nobel Peace Prize field. Not only is he a former vice-president and a man who, in his own words, "used to be the next president of the United States". He is even up for an Oscar this weekend, and seems quite likely to win it.
If the Nobel committee decides, though, that he is too polarising a figure, or simply too political - there is still talk, after all, that he could run for the White House again next year - then Ms Watt-Cloutier would appear to be the next best thing to a frontrunner in the field. Her story is exactly the kind of narrative the Nobel judges seem to like - an ordinary woman from a very unusual part of the world who has used her determination and force of character to put herself and her cause on the political map.'

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030807A.shtml Of:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2300381.ece