Al Gore Biography

American politician, ex vice president, philanthropist and lawyer, is considered a "green

politician" since 1976, when he first served as a congressman, is a staunch defender of
the environment and the need to raise awareness of the problems that people they
afflict him. The film that he starred in, "An Inconvenient Truth", gave a lot to talk about
and received an Oscar for the best documentary of 2007. He won the Nobel Peace
Prize and received the Prince of Asturias Award (International Cooperation).

QUICK FACTS

NAME
Al Gore
OCCUPATION
Environmental Activist, U.S. Vice President
BIRTH DATE
March 31, 1948 (age 70)
EDUCATION
Harvard University, Vanderbilt University
PLACE OF BIRTH
Washington, D.C.
“Fear is the most powerful enemy of reason.”
—Al Gore

Al Gore was the 45th Vice President of the United States from
1993 to 2001. He is also known for his work regarding
environmental issues.

Synopsis

Al Gore, born on March 31, 1948, in Washington, D.C., served in both the
House and Senate. He lost his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination to
Michael Dukakis in 1988, but was President Bill Clinton's successful running
mate in 1992 and again in 1996. In his 2000 presidential campaign, Gore won
the popular vote, but eventually conceded defeat to Republican George W.
Bush.

Early Life

Former vice president Al Gore was born Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., on March 31,
1948, in Washington, D.C., where his father, Albert Gore, Sr., was serving as a
Democrat in the U.S. House from Tennessee. His father also served in the U.S.
Senate (1953-'71) and was considered a possible vice presidential nominee
(1956 and 1960). Gore's mother, Pauline LaFon Gore, was one of the first
women to graduate from Vanderbilt Law School.

Gore's childhood was divided between a hotel room the nation's capitol during
the school year and his family's farm in Carthage, Tennessee, in the summer.
Gore attended Harvard, where he roomed with future actor Tommy Lee Jones.
He earned a degree with high honors in government in June 1969 after writing a
senior thesis titled "The Impact of Television on the Conduct of the Presidency,
1947-1969."

Military Service

Gore opposed the Vietnam War, but said that his sense of civic duty compelled
him to enlist in the U.S. Army in August 1969. After basic training, Gore was
assigned as a military journalist writing for The Army Flier, the base newspaper
at Fort Rucker.

Gore's father was defeated for re-election to the U.S. Senate in November
1970, largely due to his liberal positions on many issues such as the Vietnam
War and Civil Rights.

With seven months left in his enlistment, Gore was shipped to Vietnam, arriving
in January 1971. He served with the 20th engineer Brigade in Bien Hoa and at
the Army Engineer Command in Long Binh.

Entry into Politics

When he returned to the States in 1971, he worked as a reporter at the

Tennessean. When he was later moved to the city politics beat, Gore
uncovered political and bribery cases that led to convictions. While at the
Tennessean, Gore, a Baptist, also studied philosophy and phenomenology at
Vanderbilt University. In 1974, he enrolled in Vanderbilt's law school.

Gore quit law school in March 1976 to run for the U.S. House from Tennessee.
He was elected four times. He also became the first person to appear on C-
SPAN. In 1984, Gore successfully ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate, which had
been vacated by Republican Majority Leader Howard Baker. Gore pushed the
High Performance Computer and Communication Act of 1991, which greatly
expanded the Internet.

Vice Presidency
In 1988, Gore made a bid for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. He
won five southern states on Super Tuesday, but eventually lost to Michael
Dukakis. Gore remained in the Senate until presidential candidate Bill Clinton
chose him as his running mate in 1992. They were elected into office that year
and re-elected in 1996. During his tenure, he worked to cut back on government
bureaucracy. But his image suffered when he was investigated by the Justice
Department for his fund-raising activities.

Bush v. Gore

In his 2000 presidential campaign, Gore won the Democratic presidential

nomination after facing down an early challenge from former Senator Bill
Bradley. Gore chose Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut as his running
mate, the first Orthodox Jew ever to be named on the ticket for a major national
party. Gore won the popular vote, but conceded defeat to Republican George
W. Bush after five weeks of complex legal argument over the voting procedure
in the presidential election.

Environmental Activism

On December 10, 2007, Gore accepted a Nobel Prize for work on global
warming. In accepting the prize, he urged the world's biggest carbon emitters,
China and the U.S., to "make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before
history for their failure to act." Gore shared the prize with the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for sounding the alarm over global warming
and spreading awareness on how to counteract it.

"We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency - a threat to

the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential
even as we gather here," Gore said at the gala ceremony in Oslo. He donated
his share of the $1.6 million award that goes with the prize to a new non-profit
organization, now known as the Climate Reality Project, devoted to taking
action on the climate change problem.

Recent Projects

Since departing politics, Gore has become a successful businessman, author

and public speaker. In 2004, he co-founded Generation Investment
Management with David Blood. Gore has backed numerous ventures and
invested in such companies as Amazon.com and eBay through this firm.

In 2005, Gore founded a liberal news channel called Current TV with Joel Hyatt.
The cable network eventually grew to reach more than 60 million households
across the United States. Gore announced in January 2013 that Current TV
was to going to be sold to Al-Jazeera, an Arab news network. According to the
Associated Press, Gore said Current TV and Al-Jazeera shared a common
mission "to give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to
power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the stories
that no one else is telling."

Gore was expected to receive about $70 million for his 20 percent share of
Current TV. Not everyone is thrilled with his decision to sell the channel,
however. Time Warner Cable dropped the channel from its line-up soon after
hearing about the deal. Some Current TV personnel, such as former governor
Eliot Spitzer, quit rather than work for the channel's new owners. In 2014, Gore
sued Al-Jazeera for allegedly trying to illegal take $65 million in escrow funds
connected to the deal, according to a Wall Street Journal report. 

Around this time, Gore published his latest books, The Future: Six Drivers of
Global Change (2013) and Earth in the Balance: Forging a New Common
Purpose (2013). He saw years of work come to fruition in 2015 with the launch
of the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite, nicknamed DSCOVR, in 2015.
DSCOVR has a special camera that "will monitor specific wavelengths that alert
scientists to the presence of certain materials like ozone, aerosols, and volcanic
ash," according to a statement on Gore's official website.

In 2016, Gore appeared at a TED conference in Vancouver, Canada. His talk

was called "The Case of Optimism on Climate Change." He pointed to the
decreasing cost associated with renewable energy and the recent agreement
reached at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference as reasons for
a more positive outlook for the future.

Personal Life

Gore has been linked to fellow environmentalist and Democratic Party supporter
Mary Elizabeth Keadle. He divides his time between homes in Nashville,
Tennessee, and San Francisco, California. Gore has four adult children with his
first wife Tipper. The couple separated in 2010 after 40 years of marriage.