So you may have heard, Al Gore has shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. My first reaction is the title of this post. I’m staggered that the comittee couldn’t find someone more befitting of the intention of the award.

Firstly, let me lay my cards on the table. I believe that:

* Climate change is real (because scientists tell me it is and they know more about it than me).

* Climate change is at least partially to blame on humans (because scientists tell me it is and they know more about it than me).

* The effects of climate change and the impact that it will have on the world is only theoretical. As a consequence, scientists can only guess as to what the impact will be, and how long until it happens. The Earth is a complex ecosystem that is incredibly difficult to model. You can’t know for certain what the temperature will be in a weeks time so I struggle to believe that anyone could possibly predict with any confidence what the sea levels, mean temperature or any other observable climatic measure will be in the future (they’re still working on what the temperature is going to be one week from now). You’ll note that next to the two prior points I’ve said that basically because its the job of climate scientists to study it then if they can all (or mostly) agree on a fact then that’s good enough for me. I am yet to see any agreement on specific effects of climate change apart from very hand-wavy, vague and obvious notions.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at what the charter of the prize entails.

“to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.

Gore’s shared award was for his

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.

This probably not a good week for a UK High Court judge to find that “nine statements in the film were not supported by mainstream scientific consensus”. One of the claims was found to be “distinctly alarmist”. Overall, the judge’s comments are unlikely to matter. Gore ’sold’ climate change to the world and he did it well.

The press release goes on to say

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.

Count the instances of the word ‘may’ in the above quote. Nobody knows what is going to happen due to climate change. It may all be a fizzer even if we do nothing. As I’ve said, scientists can’t agree on the magnitude of the impact and how that impact will affect the Earth in 100 years time.

The Peace Prize is notable amongst the Nobel prizes because it is often awarded to people soon after their achievement. Scientific Nobel prizes (e.g. Physics, Chemistry) are awarded many years after the initial work (Einstein waited 16 years). I don’t have a problem with this lack of delay. However, when we don’t know if climate change will produce wars of attrition, I would suggest we wait for the science to settle. Once again, let me be clear: I’m not disputing the existence of climate change or its cause, but rather the unknown amplitude of its impact and the way in which people like Gore extrapolate the worst possible scenarios and then tweak them a little bit more. Gore may have achieved in the past few years a great advancement for humankind and averted many wars and saved millions of lives, but it’s way too early to make that call.

So what are we left with? All I can see is that the committee wanted to make a political statement. Something along the lines of “hey, climate change is important”. Sure it is (and thanks for getting on the bandwagon), but it’s not the most important problem facing humanity. At this point I’ve put in a video of a TED talk from Bjorn Lomborg. In it he uses an economic value model to assess what exactly are the most important problems to solve. Here’s a spoiler: if every country signed Kyoto it would reduce the effect of climate change in such a way that instead of someone in Bangladesh getting flooded in 2100 they would get flooded in 2106. It would also cost $150 billion. But hey, climate change is sexy and HIV/AIDS isn’t.

I’m fully aware that I can’t just whinge about it and not put forward an alternative, so if not Gore, then whom? According to one betting guide some of the other favourites included Irene Sendler and Martti Ahtisaari. Sendler is estimated to have saved 2,500 Jewish children during the Holocaust. Ahtisaari has had a distinguished diplomatic career and recently negotiated a peace treaty in the Indonesian territory of Aceh. Both seem good to me.

Stumbling on Happiness
by Daniel Gilbert
(Buy it at Amazon)

Firstly, this is not a self-help book. I felt burning eyes of judgement when I pulled it out on the train but of course if I stood up and shouted the truth I’d look more crazy. This book is about the science behind happiness and how the brain works. It contains some very interesting revelations. If you won the lottery how happy do you think you would be in one year? More happy than someone who has a car accident and becomes paraplegic? Of course you would think you would be but Gilbert shows otherwise. We discover that lottery winners are equally as happy as paraplegics one year after the major change in their life.

There’s two reasons for this. Firstly, we are really bad at predicting future outcomes of events. We over-emphasise the duration and intensity of our abnormal feelings about these outcomes. We think a lottery winner would be a lot happier than they actually are and we think that these feelings would last a lot longer than they actually do. Secondly, we synthesise happiness in the absence of ‘real’ happiness. People whose situation from the outside may seem hopeless will often our brains soften the impact of bad events.

He also discusses how the brain ‘cheats’ in its memories by filtering out a lot of the boring stuff and highlights key points in events. For example, our opinion of a movie is heavily skewed towards the ending just because our brain picks key parts (it can’t store every event in our lives) out and ‘fills in’ the rest when required. This filling in is not always reliable though so although you may really enjoy a movie at the time but aren’t impressed by the ending, recalling the movie in a few months time will probably bring the bad ending to forefront so your memory later is that you didn’t really like it.

Maybe if I hadn’t already read The Paradox of Choice before reading this I would have gotten more out of it. There is a bit of overlap between Gilbert and Schwartz’s work. I did end up struggling through this one from about three-quarters of the way in until the end. The themes do get slightly repetitive although there is a liberal dab of humour thrown in there to keep you interested.

I wouldn’t recommend you read both Paradox and Stumbling and I would probably recommend Schwartz’s work over this one.

Gilbert’s appearance at TED is below and he covers a couple of the studies he discusses in the book.

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less - How the culture of abundance robs us of satisfaction
By Barry Schwartz
(Buy it at Amazon)

Decisions, decisions. That’s what this book is all about. More to the point, it’s about the choice we are faced when we are required (or invited) to make decisions that affect our life. One thing that has crept up on us in modern times is that there’s just so much ’stuff’ to choose from. Even at something so mundane as the supermarket, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by choice. This book hit a nerve with me because I’m currently facing the choice of where I want to work after I graduate - not a small decision by any stretch of the imagination. What I realised after reading this book though is that obsessing about choices you make will definitely not make you any happier - something that I’m trying to keep in mind as I attend interview after interview.

Anyway, enough about me and more about this book. Schwartz divides the book into When (we choose), How (we choose), Why (we suffer) and What (we can do). Schwartz argues that the advancements in freedom (a subjective term I know) should be voluntarily curtailed by self-imposing limits and rules on the choices that we evaluate. For example, I’m not looking for any jobs that would involve me moving from my hometown - that greatly simplifies my choice of where to apply for jobs. If I didn’t limit where I applied by location I would be completely snowed under with the choice of where I should work. In fact, after reading this book I realised that if I only got one job offer then it’s likely that I’d be happier than if I got 10.

He identifies two groups of people: maximizers and satisficers. Maximizers agonise over every decision they make. They don’t just want to make a good choice, they want to make the best choice. Satisficers are generally satisfied by making a choice that is good, but not necessarily the best. The result is that maximizers are generally speaking less happy with their decisions than satisficers even though the maximisers have made better choices.

That’s just a brief glance at what this book contains. There’s a lot more to it, Schwartz highlights many studies that backup his points. It’s also an immensely readable book (unlike the last book I read) and I absolutely raced through it in about a week (which is good for me considering I only really read when I’m on the train).

I’ve included Schwartz’s appearance at TED for you. He discusses many elements that are in the book and should give you a good taste for the subject at hand (just under 20 minutes long).

This week something has been missing.
Ze Frank’s The Show finished last week.
Unlike some other video blogs that claim amazing success (but I sometimes wonder how many people watch them just for the pretty faces) Ze Frank actually created real success because he had a higher goal than just to ‘be famous’.

The Show wasn’t ever about quirky stories (something that I think Rocketboom seemed obsessed with, although I haven’t watched it in ages). It was about getting people to stop being passive watchers and to inspire people who wouldn’t normally do strange/quirky/wacky things to be creative. The simple way in which he explained issues that aren’t typically under the media microscope was also refreshing. And let’s not forget all the in-jokes which made his viewers feel part of a community. The fact that within minutes of a new clip being posted someone would transcribe it on the relevant wiki page is testament to the devoted and loyal fans that Ze Frank managed to build.

Today Slate has an article about Ze Frank that talks a bit about how his popularity has risen dramatically in the past year (The Show only ran for one year).

And if you’re of the whole “gah, I don’t want to watch a whole year” attitude then just take a look at the talk he gave at TED a while ago.