"No matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out. "

The Former Next President of the United States!

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. is an environmental activist who was the forty-fifth vice president of the United States (1993 to 2001) under President Bill Clinton. He won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Gore has served on the board of Apple Inc. since 2003.

Gore was born in Washington, D.C., to Albert Arnold Gore, Sr., a U.S. representative (1939–1944, 1945–1953) and senator (1953–1971) from Tennessee and Pauline LaFon Gore. He lived in Washington and Carthage, Tennessee as a boy. The Gore family lived in a hotel in Washington during the school year, and in the summer Gore worked on the family farm in Carthage.

Gore attended high school at St. Albans School. He scored a 1355 on his SAT (625 in verbal and 730 in math). Based on high school tests, his IQ scores are said to have been recorded as 133 and 134. In 1965, Gore enrolled at Harvard College, the only university to which he applied. There he developed a powerful interest in government, and graduated with honors in June 1969 with a B.A.

At the time of Gore's graduation from Harvard, the Vietnam war was in full swing. He opposed the war but felt obligated to serve in some role, so he enlisted in the United States Army on August 7, 1969. After basic training at Fort Dix, Gore was assigned as a military journalist writing for The Army Flier, the base newspaper at Fort Rucker. Gore was then sent to Vietnam, arriving on January 2, 1971. He served for four months with the 20th Engineer Brigade in Bien Hoa and for another month at the Army Engineer Command in Long Binh.

In 1970, Gore married Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson, who was known as Tipper. They had first met at his high school senior prom in Washington, D.C.

After returning from Vietnam, Gore spent five years as a reporter for The Nashville Tennessean. He then enrolled in graduate studies at Vanderbilt University, initially to study divinity but then switching to law. While pursuing his law degree, he learned that Congressman Joe L. Evins, his local congressman, planned to retire in 1976. Gore quit law school in March 1976 to run for the United States House of Representatives, in Tennessee's fourth district. Gore won the Democratic primary, then ran unopposed in the general election and was elected to his first Congressional post. He was re-elected three times, in 1978, 1980, and 1982. In 1984, Gore successfully ran for a seat in the United States Senate which had been vacated by Republican Majority Leader Howard Baker. Gore served as a senator from Tennessee until 1993, when he became vice president of the United States.

Bill Clinton chose Gore to be his running mate for the 1992 United States presidential election on July 9, 1992. Gore was inaugurated as the 45th Vice President of the United States on January 20, 1993. Clinton and Gore were re-elected to a second term in the 1996 election.

In 2000, after two terms as vice president, Gore ran for president with Senator Joe Lieberman as his vice-presidential running mate. The campaign was a close race with Texas Governor George W. Bush. On election night, Florida became the pivotal state with very little margin for either candidate. News networks initially called Florida for Gore, later retracted the projection, and then called Florida for Bush, before retracting that projection as well. The race was ultimately decided by a margin of only 537 votes in Florida. After a number of court challenges and vote recounts, Florida's 25 electoral votes were awarded to Bush. Gore conceded the election to Bush after the Supreme Court of the United States in Bush v. Gore ruled that the Florida recount was unconstitutional and that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by the December 12 deadline, effectively ending the recounts. While Gore strongly disagreed with the Court's decision, he decided "for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession."

Gore was the fourth presidential candidate in American history to win the popular vote (by half a million votes) but lose the electoral vote. Gore received 267 electoral votes to Bush's 271.

As an environmental activist, Gore established his credentials early. He co-sponsored hearings on toxic waste in 1978–79 and hearings on global warming in the 1980s. On May 14, 1989 while still a Senator, Gore published an editorial in the Washington Post in which he 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."

In the late 1990s, Gore 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),[70] 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". The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification.

Gore has travelled 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. He is the chairman of the firm, which 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 starred in the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, which was released on May 24, 2006. It documents the evidence for anthropogenic (human caused) global warming and warns of the consequences of people not making immediate changes to their behavior. Gore also published a book of the same title, which became a bestseller.

An Inconvenient Truth 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. 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."

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. But while Gore calls for people to conserve energy in An Inconvenient Truth, the Gore family mansion in Nashville consumes 12 to 20 times more energy than the average family home. 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.

On October 12, 2007, Gore was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which was shared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, headed by Rajendra K. Pachauri of Delhi, India. The Norwegian Nobel Committee gave the award "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

Gore announced that he would donate his half of the $1.5 million Nobel Peace Prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection, an advocacy group he helped found.

Gore is president of the American television channel Current TV , chairman of Generation Investment Management, a director on the board of Apple Inc., an advisor to Google's senior management, and chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Al Gore Poll Results

This poll ran from October 15 to 21, 2007.

Mondo Stars Poll Results

"We are facing a global climate crisis." True 874/55% False 719/45%

Votes: 1593

Al Gore, from a speech at the National Sierra Club Convention on September 9, 2005. On October 12, 2007, Gore was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

On October 13, 2007, William Neikirk wrote in the Chicago Tribune that "the former vice president said he would donate his half of the $1.5 million prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection, an advocacy group he helped found."

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the prize was awarded to Gore and the IPCC for "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

The IPCC, which shares the prize with Gore, is a United Nations-sponsored group of about 2,500 scientists from around the world. The IPCC gathers the peer-reviewed work of thousands of scientists into a coherent picture of climate change. In 2007 the group issued its fourth assessment of the state of knowledge on climate change. It stated that the evidence supporting climate change is "unequivocal" and that the change is "very likely" caused by human activity.