Profile Of Al Gore Jr.,Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) was the forty-fifth Vice President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Prior to the vice presidency, Gore served in the U. S. House of Representatives (1977–85) and the U. S. Senate (1985–93), representing Tennessee.


Gore was the Democratic nominee for President in the 2000 election. A legal controversy over the Florida election recount, ultimately settled in favor of George W. Bush by the Supreme Court, made the election one of the most controversial in American history.

Today, Gore is president of the American television channel Current TV (which won the Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Television award at the 2007 Primetime Emmys), chairman of Generation Investment Management, a director on the board of Apple Inc., an unofficial advisor to Google's senior management, and chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection.

As an environmental activist, Gore lectures widely on the topic of global warming, which he calls "the climate crisis." In 2006, he starred in the Academy Award-winning documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, discussing global warming and the environment. Under his leadership, one of Gore's organizations, Save Our Selves, organized the July 7, 2007 benefit concert Live Earth in an effort to raise awareness about climate change.

While Gore has frequently stated that "I'm not planning to be a candidate again," there are continuing efforts to convince him to run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.


According to a February 27, 2007 article in The Concord Monitor, "Gore was one of the first politicians to grasp the seriousness of climate change and to call for a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases. He held the first congressional hearings on the subject in the late 1970s." During his tenure in Congress, Gore co-sponsored hearings on toxic waste in 1978–79, and hearings on global warming in the 1980s. On 14 May 1989 while still a Senator, Gore published an editorial in the Washington Post which argued that, "Humankind has suddenly entered into a brand new relationship with the planet Earth. The world's forests are being destroyed; an enormous hole is opening in the ozone layer. Living species are dying at an unprecedented rate."

On Earth Day 1994, Gore launched the GLOBE program, an education and science activity that, according to Forbes magazine, "made extensive use of the Internet to increase student awareness of their environment".

In the late 1990s, Gore strongly pushed for the passage of the Kyoto Treaty, which called for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. He was opposed by the Senate, which passed unanimously (95-0) the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States".On November 12, 1998, Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations. The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification.

In recent years, Gore has remained busy traveling the world speaking and participating in events mainly aimed towards global warming awareness and prevention. His keynote presentation on global warming has received standing ovations, and he has presented it at least 1,000 times according to his monologue in An Inconvenient Truth. His speaking fee is $100,000.

In 2004, he launched Generation Investment Management. This firm, which he chairs, seeks out companies which take a responsible view on global issues such as climate change. It was created to assist the growing demand for an investment style that can bring returns by blending traditional equity research with a focus on more intangible non-financial factors such as social and environmental responsibility and corporate governance.

Gore is a vocal proponent of carbon neutrality, buying a carbon offset each time he travels by aircraft. Gore and his family drive hybrid vehicles.In "An Inconvenient Truth" Gore calls for people to conserve energy, but the Gore family mansion in Nashville consumes 12 to 20 times more energy than the average family home, and its consumption has risen since the film was produced in 2005. Gore's supporters, however, counter that the Gore Family has done much to offset their carbon footprint and electrical usage, such as through the installation of solar panels.

Interest in Al Gore's speeches reached such a point that a public lecture at University of Toronto on February 21, 2007, on the topic of global warming, led to a crash of the ticket sales website within minutes of opening. A few weeks later, he spoke at another event in the same city and, for the first time, made the argument that employers have a significant role to play in mobilizing their employees to take action on climate change.

During Global Warming Awareness Month, on February 9, 2007, Al Gore and Richard Branson announced the Virgin Earth Challenge, a competition offering a $25 million prize for the first person or organization to produce a viable design that results in the removal of atmospheric greenhouse gases.

On July 7, 2007, Live Earth benefit concerts were held around the world in an effort to raise awareness about climate change. The event was the brainchild of both Gore and Kevin Wall of Save Our Selves.

On July 21, 2007, he announced teaming with actress Cameron Diaz for a TV climate contest 60 Seconds to Save the Earth to gain people's support in solving the climate crisis.

Gore starred in the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.The Oscar was awarded to director Davis Guggenheim, who asked Gore to join him and other members of the crew on stage. During this time, Gore gave a brief speech: "My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's not a political issue; it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it."

The film, released on May 24, 2006, documents the evidence for anthropogenic global warming and warns of the consequences of people not making immediate changes to their behavior. In late July, it surpassed Bowling for Columbine as the third-highest-grossing documentary in U.S. history. Gore also published a book of the same title, which became a bestseller.

About the use of nuclear power to mitigate global warming:
“ Nuclear energy is not the panacea for tackling global warming ”


Goremade the following statement after hearing the Nobel Prize news:

I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the world's pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis -- a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. 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. My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.