Former vice president Al Gore and the United Nations Panel on Climate Change were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today for their work educating the world about global warming and advocating for political action to control it.

“We face a true planetary emergency,” says Gore in a statement on his blog. “The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.”

In the spirit of activism, and because the absolutely necessary climate movement that Al Gore’s work has helped create is only in its infancy, I wanted to take this opportunity to encourage everyone to see “An Inconvenient Truth” briefing in person — if not by Gore then by someone he has trained.

Gore, via The Climate Project, has trained 1000+ people who, in turn, have given somewhere over 5000 presentations in less than a year’s time.

On the Climate Project site you can request a presentation or you can find out if any are already planned near you.

Al Gore has done some tremendous work educating the public about the defining issue of our time, and we wouldn’t be able to make the claim, as we so often do, that we have science on our side if not for the tireless work of the remarkable scientists that make up the IPCC. Congratulations to Al Gore, to the IPCC, and to everyone around the world working on climate change! This is a great day for the climate.

Something that I think best illustrates how important Al Gore’s work has been is this quote by film critic Roger Ebert:

“In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: ‘You owe it to yourself to see “An Inconvenient Truth”. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.”

Mike Town of the Sierra club presented the Citizen