Revealed: the man behind court attack on Gore film (UK Funded by Mining/Energy Interests)

ROBERTS: 35 minutes after the hour. Breaking news this morning, Al Gore awarded the Nobel Peace prize. He is sharing it with the Intergovernmental panel on climate change, that's a United Nations organization. They are recognized for informing the world about climate change and then laying the foundations for doing something about it. Al Gore, though was a controversial choice. A British judge had just ruled that errors in his film "An Inconvenient Truth" make it unfit for showing in British classrooms at least without a caveat. Mary Jordan is the London bureau chief for "The Washington Post." She joins us now. So just how much of a controversy has this created in Britain there, Mary?

MARY JORDAN, "THE WASHINGTON POST," LONDON BUREAU CHIEF: Well, really it's more of in the details. The judge actually said that Gore's film builds a powerful case that humans are causing climate change and that urgent and inconvenient means are need to combat it, but he said if the British government's plan to distribute the film to 3 million students here is to go ahead, the teachers have to point out nine errors, so it's really more of a little, in the details, not in the big scope. And the errors are things --

ROBERTS: Yes, the errors are things like --

JORDAN: The kind of errors -- sorry.

ROBERTS: He claims that sea levels will rise by up to 20 feet in the near future. The judge ruled that's not going to happen any time soon, only after millennia. Pacific atolls had to be evacuated, no evidence of that, the judge said. The Gulf Stream will shut down according to "An Inconvenient Truth," the judge said very unlikely that that's going to happen. These are some pretty significant claims that he makes in this movie

JORDAN: He uses some strong words. First of all, this case is a very oddly timed. It has nothing to do with the Nobel Prize today, but it comes up, because a local school official, who had two students in the schools, didn't believe the film. He didn't want his kids to see it, and he said it was, "sentimental mush." And so it went to a court, because the judge, who doesn't have an expertise, but he had both sides come to him and weigh the evidence, and they did spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees and research to look at case by case.

Now, the Gore people who are pretty darned happy today, said, look, there were thousands of facts presented in this film that did win an Oscar and now has been a key thing about winning the Nobel prize but you know what? The judge took issue with a handful of them. One of the most interesting ones was that Gore says during the film that there's a new study that shows that polar bears are drowning for the first time because they have to swim up to 60 miles to find packed ice. So the judge said, well he gave weeks for people to find these studies and the only study they could find was one that said four polar bears died but it was because of a storm.

ROBERTS: Do you think the fact that he has been awarded the Nobel Prize will tamp down this controversy at all?

JORDAN: Yes. I mean, I think that no one's going to rain on his parade today. I thought it was interesting what the Gore camp was saying, they said we're gratified that the judge has agreed with our main thesis here, and interestingly enough, Gore is sharing the prize today with the U.N. panel of climate experts.

ROBERTS: Right.

JORDAN: It was the U.N. panel that the judge used to say, you know what, Mr. Gore, you're not agreeing with the U.N. panel, and this was what he was using to talk about the nine errors. But I think today, it's a big day for Gore and a big day for climate change.

ROBERTS: Certainly is.

JORDAN: And the British government is very happy that 3 million kids there are going to see Gore's film.

ROBERTS: I'm sure they are. But there's irony in everything. Mary Jordan, the London bureau chief for "The Washington Post." Thanks for being with us this morning. Good to see you.

So, what do you think about all of this? Did Al Gore deserve to win the Nobel Peace prize? Cast your vote at CNN.com/am. We're going to have the results throughout the morning.

Right now here's what the tally looks like. 77 percent of you say yes, he does deserve the honor. 23 percent of you say no, those numbers really haven't changed for about the last hour. Keep voting. Let's see how it ends up when we go off the air in about an hour and a half.