And the Nobel Peace Prize Goes to... Climate Change

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N. climate panel were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today for their role in bringing global warming into the international spotlight.

According to an article on the front page of The New York Times, Gore and the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won "for 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", said the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Their prize for saving our planet? $1.5 million greenbacks.

Gore says he will donate his half to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan nonprofit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion worldwide about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.

As Gore said Friday, “global warming is the most dangerous challenge facing humanity and it's time to step up awareness of the threat. It truly is a planetary emergency and we have to respond."

You can help spread the word by donning earth-friendly goods, such as jewelry made from tagua nut, a renewable rainforest product that feels like ivory but is really animal-friendly, or a magazine rack that's been handmade from banana bark in Northern Rwanda's Virunga mountains, the same place Liz got cozy with this endangered mountain gorilla and her baby.