Al Gore (b.1948,) fully Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., is an American Democratic politician and environmentalist. He served as the 45th vice president of the United States 1993–2001 under President Bill Clinton. He lost the 2000 presidential election, one of the most controversial elections in American history.
Born in Washington, D.C. to a prominent political family, Gore was educated at Harvard and served as a U.S. Army reporter in Vietnam (1969–71.) He then studied theology at Vanderbilt University and worked for the Nashville Tennessean newspaper and as a farmer before entering the House of Representatives, representing Tennessee, in 1977. He was elected to the Senate in 1984.
In 1992, Gore was chosen as Bill Clinton’s running mate and served as his vice president 1992–2000, taking an active role in policy-making. In 2000, Gore ran for president but lost to Republican George W. Bush by the narrowest of margins.
Gore subsequently devoted much of his time to environmental issues. In 2007, he was awarded, with the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to raise awareness about global warming.
Gore’s publications include Earth in the Balance (1992,) Common Sense Government (1995,) Let the Glory Out (2000,) and, perhaps most significantly, An Inconvenient Truth (2006; sequel 2017.) The accompanying documentary film won an Academy Award for best documentary.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Al Gore
The struggle to save the global environment is in one way much more difficult than the struggle to vanquish Hitler, for this time the war is with ourselves. We are the enemy, just as we have only ourselves as allies. In a war such as this, then, what is victory and how will we recognize it?
—Al Gore
The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences.
—Al Gore
The will to act is a renewable resource.
—Al Gore
Topics: Activism
The relationship between our civilization and the earth has been radically transformed.
—Al Gore
Topics: Earth
Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have produced long-since a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming.
—Al Gore
A zebra does not change its spots.
—Al Gore
Topics: One liners
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Charles G. Dawes American Diplomat, Politician
Jane Addams American Social Reformer
Andrew Jackson American Head of State
Stewart Brand American Writer
Jimmy Carter American Head of State
Theodore Roosevelt American Head of State
T. Boone Pickens American Businessman, Financier
Ralph Nader American Activist
Willie Nelson American Country Musician
Abbie Hoffman American Political Activist