Al Gore

The 45th Vice President of the United States, Albert Gore, Jr. received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007 for his effort to raise international awareness of the human impact on global climate change. The son of Senator Albert Gore, Sr. of Tennessee, he grew up in Washington, and on the family farm in Carthage, Tennessee. He studied literature and government at Harvard, where he first became interested in environmental issues. After graduating with honors from Harvard, he enlisted in the United States Army and served in Vietnam. He worked as a reporter for an army newspaper during the war, and on his return to civilian life he became an investigative reporter for the Nashville Tennessean. In 1976, he was elected the Congressional seat previously held by his father. In the House of Representatives, he held the first hearings on global climate change, and became one of the body’s experts on arms control and telecommunications. In 1984, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he wrote the High performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 (the Gore Bill), which led to construction of the National Information Infrastructure, which Senator Gore dubbed, the “information superhighway.” At age 39, he sought the presidency for the first time, but withdrew before the 1988 Democratic convention. His 1991 book Earth in the Balance became a national bestseller, and introduced many readers to the issues of climate change. In 1992, Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton selected Gore as his running mate. Clinton and Gore were elected to two full terms, and in 2000 Gore became his party’s nominee for president. Although Gore won a plurality of the popular vote, the Electoral College vote went to George W. Bush after a controversial Supreme Court decision put an end to a recount in the closely contested state of Florida. Returning to private life, Gore resumed his environmental advocacy. His book on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, became a national best-seller and inspired an Oscar-winning documentary. Gore founded the Alliance for Climate Protection and the Current TV network, both of which he chairs. This podcast was recorded at the Academy of Achievement’s 1988 Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, when Gore was United States Senator.

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