We’ve all been told how our daily activities are straining the planet. By being a selfish and convenience-craving nation – and to be fair, world – we’ve doomed Mother Earth to a future of tempest tantrums and hot flashes, after which she’ll complain she’s cold even though it’s clearly summer. Not to mention all that water retention. What horrible children we are, forcing the big change before we’re fully prepared to handle the consequences.

Whether this is the end of a bounteous cycle or just a mid-life crisis has been disputed for the last few decades. In the ’70s, scientists were pretty sure the world was approaching a huge transformation – an imminent Ice Age. A cooling trend made everybody worry about basically the same thing everyone is worrying about now, even though the forecast is the opposite. Turns out they scrapped the idea after they noticed it was part of Earth’s natural climate cycle. Who knew?

Okay, in hindsight, they had no scientific evidence to support the big panic, and maybe we do. But where is all this evidence? It’s in reports . somewhere. We all know about it . somehow. Most likely your daily dose of depressing climate epiphanies are brought to you by your local news station, which begins each report, “Scientists now say .”

Last week we decided to trample the vague attempts of actual, real-life educated, bona fide scientists who know stuff about chlorofluorocarbons and projected wedges to award half of a Nobel Peace Prize to the man who’s now the face of the cause: Albert Arnold Gore Jr. for, and I quote, “their 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.” That means telling the world or spreading the word.

What with the big controversy about his lost election(s), his “invention” of the Internet, plus being Mr. Blue Dress’ vice president, Gore gets a truckload of press without even trying. So when the infamous Democrat decided to publicly and aggressively support a cause by – oh, I don’t know – making a movie and holding a worldwide benefit concert, the world listened.

Despite the implied hypocrisy behind those ideas – the money, effort and energy spent to beef up the popularity of the cause – the intended effect seems to have taken over. Not because we all really care that much. We’re a rich and blessed country, and none of these vague scientists can tell us exactly what’s going to happen and when.

Everybody’s flailing around their environmentalist membership cards because it’s the trendy thing to do. Maybe that doesn’t matter if it gets the job done, but has anything based on a few well-aimed celebrities and a little panic ever weathered the storm? In all journalistic accuracy, Gore started his climate crusade pretty early, around the same time the International Panel on Climate Change was established.

The IPCC, which was awarded the other half of the Prize, is a group of 33 “experts” on climate change who prepare assessment reports about the state of the world’s ever-complicated habitat. But according to its own Web site, “The IPCC does not carry out research nor does it monitor climate-related data or other relevant parameters. It bases its assessment mainly on peer-reviewed and published scientific [and] technical literature.”

The people who are actually doing the legwork to keep us from dooming ourselves remain unmentioned – the thousands of men and women (some of whom you might even know) who devote their lives to science and did the research, writing and analyzing that these experts looked over before they decided the course of action. They didn’t take the credit – it was just given to them and Gore.

In fact, one has to wonder why the first mention of global warming within the annals of the Nobel committee was contained to an award meant to honor people for disarming nuisances, stopping civil wars and finding solutions to poverty and unrest. Don’t they have other categories for genuine scientific crises? That is definitely how this should be considered. Or was the research not sufficient enough to warrant such a prestigious title? If so, why was the mere act of promoting it so worthy a contender?

In that case, I suggest that we cure all diseases, feed the hungry, house the impoverished and stop people from killing each other. All those guys that did the work for the vaccines, the agricultural innovations and peace treaties will be happy just to know that everyone cares enough to take away their job security. Please send my check and sweet gold medal to me as soon as possible.

– Luci Van Scoy is a junior in anthropology from Newton.