Al Gore

Founder and chair of Alliance for Climate Protections, Co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management, Co-founder and Chairman of Current TV

Why He Matters

Albert Gore (also known as Al, or Veep, or the guy who was almost president in 2000) has a new calling card: the nation's leading voice for action on climate change. Many assumed the former vice president and Nobel laureate would play a role as "climate czar" under President Barack Obama, but Gore says he's content pushing for action from the private sector.

But inside or outside government, Gore will continue to shape how the public and policy-makers think about climate change. Gore first turned his attention to the issue in the late 1980s, learning about the science of greenhouse gases and traveling the world to see the early effects of a changing climate. He was a key figure in some of the earliest congressional work on climate change, and as vice president attempted to lead the country on limiting carbon dioxide emissions.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Author, An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and The Assault on Reason (2007); Democratic presidential candidate (2000); Vice President of the United States (January 1993 to January 2000)
Birthday: March 31, 1948
Hometown: Born in Washington, D.C., and spent his childhood between D.C. and Carthage, Tennessee
Alma Mater: Harvard University, B.A., 1969; Vanderbilt University Divinity School, attended; Vanderbilt University Law School, attended

Spouse: Divorcing Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Gore
Religion: Baptist
Office: 2100 West End Avenue, Suite 620, Nashville, Tenn., 615-327-2227
Web site

Path to Power

Gore Jr. was born March 31, 1948, to Albert Gore Sr. and Pauline LaFon Gore in Washington, D.C. His father was a congressman representing Tennessee from 1939 to 1953, and a Senator until 1971. Back home in Carthage, Tenn. the family raised hay, tobacco and cattle.

Gore attended Washington's St. Albans School, an elite, private all-boys school. He earned a B.A. in government from Harvard University in 1969, and after graduation enlisted in the U.S. Army. He served as a journalist within the Army for two years during the Vietnam War, and received honorable discharge. He became an investigative reporter with the Tennessean in Nashville, and attended divinity school and later law school at Vanderbilt University.

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Time in Congress

Gore abruptly quit law school and jumped into politics in 1976, running to fill his father's former House seat in the 4th Congressional District. At age 28, he won the House seat, and served in the lower chamber for eight years. During his time there, he served on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the Committee on Science and Technology and the House Intelligence Committee. He was considered a "moderate," as he opposed federal funding for abortion, and voted against a ban on interstate sales of guns and for a bill supporting a moment in silence in public schools.

In 1984 he made a successful bid for the Senate, where Gore was known as one of the "Atari Democrats" - a group of technophiles who wanted more government work on biomedical research, genetic engineering, and information technology. These interests also ignited Gore's interest in the environmental impacts of the "greenhouse effect," an issue that was getting increasing attention in the scientific community.

Gore made his first presidential run in 1988, and at 39 was considered the youngest viable presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy. Gore won seven states in the Democratic primary, but it was Michael Dukakis that won the Democratic nomination that year. While many assumed Gore would make another bid for the presidency in 1992, a traumatic, near-death accident involving his 6-year-old son Albert III in April 1989 convinced him to stay out of the presidential arena for several years. Gore has said that his son's accident had made him "increasingly impatient with the status quo, with conventional wisdom, with the lazy assumptions that we can always muddle through" - on issues like the environment.

Taking Up the Environmental Cause

Back in the Senate, Gore became even more involved in environmental issues, authoring the World Environmental Policy Act of 1989 and joining with a bipartisan group of senators to hold the first Interparliamentary Conference on the Global Environment in 1990, bringing world leaders to Washington, D.C., to discuss environmental concerns. Gore won re-election to the Senate in 1990, and traveled broadly to observe the impacts of climate change in Antarctica, the North Pole, and the Amazon rainforest.

It was shortly thereafter that he wrote Earth in the Balance, in which he stated that "our system is on the verge of losing our essential equilibrium." "The problem is not so much one of policy failures; Much more worrisome are the failures of candor, evasions of responsibility and timidity of vision that characterize too many of us in government," he wrote in the 1992 book.

Gore traveled to the Rio de Janeiro United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in June 1992 as a Senate delegate. He has said that his opposition to the first Bush administration's positions on global warming, which he saw in Rio to be out of touch with rest of the world, helped convince him to accept an offer to serve as Bill Clinton's vice presidential candidate.

Vice President

While Gore expressed interest in making some major environmental changes from the role as veep, his eight years in the White House focused more on efforts to streamline the federal government, approve the North American Free Trade Agreement and balance the budget. He was also influential in guiding the work of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which was led by his former legislative director, Carol M. Browner (now Obama's energy and environment czar). During the Clinton years, the EPA was able to make significant regulatory changes on air, water and toxics issues.

Kyoto Accords

The major action on climate change occurred during Gore's trip to the climate treaty negotiations in Kyoto, Japan, where he participated in breakthrough discussions that committed developed nations to cutting carbon dioxide emissions. "Let us resolve to conduct ourselves in such a way that our children's children will read about the 'Spirit of Kyoto,' and remember well the place and the time where humankind first chose to embark together on a long-term sustainable relationship between our civilization and the Earth's environment," Gore told the gathered delegates in Kyoto.

The Kyoto pact was highly controversial back in the U.S., largely because it committed developed nations to tougher emissions limits than the developing nations. Businesses and industries were largely opposed, and at the time awareness about the subject of climate change was very low in the United States. Though he signed the treaty, Gore said he would wait for "meaningful participation by key developing nations" before sending it to the Senate. It was never submitted to the Senate for approval.

2000 Presidential Bid and Beyond

In 2000 Gore made another bid for the presidency, winning the Democratic nomination and later the popular vote nationally. He did not, however, prevail in the final electoral count against Republican George W. Bush in a contest that will not soon be forgotten.

But that devastating loss gave rise to a new Gore, one that committed himself vigorously and effectively to the cause of climate change. Since the presidential race, Gore has authored two more books - An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and The Assault on Reason (2007). He starred in the documentary version of the 2006 book, which focused on global warming. He has made countless speeches and presentations on climate change in the past eight years, traveling the world to raise awareness and encourage governmental action. In July 2007, he also led Live Earth, a concert event on seven continents created to encourage action on climate change.

Gore is currently the founder and chair of Alliance for Climate Protection; the co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management; and the co-founder and chairman of Current TV. He is also a member of the board of directors of Apple Computer, Inc. and a senior adviser to Google, as well as a visiting professor at Middle Tennessee State University. He is a partner at Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm based out of California.

The Issues

Climate change

Gore has been perhaps the most vocal, visible political figure on the issue of climate change since losing the 2000 presidential election. "This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue, one that affects the survival of human civilization. It is not a question of left versus right; it is a question of right versus wrong," he wrote in the New York Times in July 2007. "Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours."

In March 2008, his Alliance for Climate Protection launched a three-year, $300 million campaign to mobilize Americans to call for aggressive emissions reductions. Gore has called for a 90 percent cut in emissions by mid-century in order to curb climate change.

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In September 2008, in a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, he equated the climate crisis to the financial crisis. "The world has several trillion dollars in sub-prime carbon assets, based on the assumption that it is perfectly alright to put 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours," said Gore.

Recently, Gore has issued increasingly urgent statements on the need for action. In a speech at the U.N. climate summit in Poland in December 2008, Gore argued that older targets for reducing global-warming pollution are now out of date, and that world leaders should aim to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million.

"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 his Nobel lecture on Dec. 10, 2007. "But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst - though not all - of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly."

International Climate Treaty

As vice president in 1997, Gore declined to submit the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate, Gore has since argued that the United States should take the lead on an international treaty to limit emissions before leaders meet again in Copenhagen in 2009.

"In order to foster international cooperation, it is also essential that the United States rejoin the global community and lead efforts to secure an international treaty at Copenhagen in December of next year that includes a cap on CO2 emissions and a global partnership that recognizes the necessity of addressing the threats of extreme poverty and disease as part of the world's agenda for solving the climate crisis," said Gore.

Shortly before the 2007 U.N. climate meeting in Bali, Indonesia, he called for world leaders to join in a new climate pact by 2010, two years earlier than the Kyoto Protocol is set to expire.

Renewable Energy

In a speech in Washington, D.C., in July 2008, Gore called for the United States to move to 100 percent carbon-free energy sources within ten years in order to prevent catastrophic climate change. "I ask you to join with me to call on every candidate, at every level, to accept this challenge," he said. "It's time for us to move beyond empty rhetoric. We need to act now."

His Alliance for Climate Protection group has since run a number of television advertisements, under the name "Repower America," urging this goal. His plan calls for maintaining the country's use of nuclear power at current levels, while dramatically increasing the amount of energy derived from geothermal, solar, and wind.

Coal

Gore has called for a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, unless the technology is designed to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions, which he noted in a Nobel lecture in December 2007. He's also been highly critical of politicians and groups who have promoted the idea that so-called "clean-coal" technology exists.

"We should stop burning coal without sequestering the CO2. The coal and oil companies have spent in the United States alone half a billion dollars in the first 8 months of this year promoting the lie that there is such a thing as 'clean coal,'" said Gore at the Clinton Global Initiative in September 2008. "'Clean coal' is like 'healthy cigarettes' - it does not exist. It could theoretically exist. The only demonstration plant was canceled. How many such plants are there? Zero. How many blueprints? Zero."

Gore has also called on young people to practice civil disobedience against the construction of new coal-fired power plants. "If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what's being done now, I believe we've reached the stage where it's time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal-fired power plants that do not have sequestration," he said.

Oil Shale

Gore has also been critical of Bush administration moves to open up areas of the western United States to oil shale development. "This is utter insanity, and it demonstrates that the wealth and power and influence of the entrenched carbon lobby, that twists policy and puts out illusory impressions, is overwhelming the free debate," he said. "We need to stop this."

Carbon tax

Gore has advocated for a tax on carbon emission, suggesting that it should replace the payroll tax. "I know this sounds like a bigger idea than the political system can accommodate," he said in a March 2008 webcast. He argues that since there is no price on carbon currently, CO2 is "invisible to the markets."

"We need to put a price on carbon - with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution," he said in a Nobel lecture in December 2007. "This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis."

The Network

Gore officially endorsed Obama on June 17, 2008, at an event in Detroit, calling Obama "a candidate who, in response to those doubting our ability to solve the climate crisis and create a bright future, inspired millions to say, 'Yes we can.'" There was speculation at the time that Gore might take another pass as vice president under Obama, but Gore denied interest in returning to the federal government.

On December 9, 2008, shortly before the names of their selections for key environment and energy posts became public, Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden met with Gore in Chicago. Some have suggested that they were seeking Gore's seal of approval on their personnel decisions. Most notably, Obama's selection for the new role of "energy and climate change" czar is Carol M. Browner, a Gore prodigy who served as the EPA chief when he was vice president. Gore and Browner have had a close working relationship over the years, and she served as his legislative director in the Senate from 1988 to 1991.

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