American politician and environmental activist, who was Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 . Candidate for the Presidency of the United States by the Democratic Party , he was defeated in a controversial election by the Texan George W. Bush .
After his retirement as a politician, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his contribution to reflection and global action against climate change , and the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation. Since then he has spearheaded an intense campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of pollution and global warming .
Biographical synthesis
Son of the American senator also named Al Gore and Pauline LaFon Gore. He grew up in Carthage Tennessee , moving to Washington while he was in politics, graduating in government studies from Harvard University in 1969. His father taught him to value natural resources. After graduation, he entered the US Army as a publicist serving his military service in Vietnam .
Studies
It was at Harvard where he attended the classes of Professor Roger Revelle who taught natural sciences. Revelle was one of the first scientists to realize the high levels of absorption of CO2 in the atmosphere and the oceans and therefore its consequences on the global climate. Once he graduated, he traveled to Vietnam in 1969 as a journalist, upon his return he worked at The Nashville Tennessean performing the same function.
Political career
Inspired by his father, he ran as a Democratic Party candidate in Tennessee’s fourth district for the United States Congress in 1976 . He was elected to the Senate in 1984 , and reelected once more in 1990 . His period was vice president from the 20 January of 1993 -20 January 2001 at the side of President Bill Clinton . However, he was unsuccessful in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 .
In 1992 he published the book: “Earth in the balance: ecology and human spirit” , which translated into Spanish means: The land at stake: ecology and human consciousness, in which it raises the necessary ecological revolution for the 21st century becoming then one of the world’s leading ecology leaders. He symbolically signed the Kyoto Protocol during his term as vice president of the Clinton-Gore administration ( 1993 – 2001 ), in addition he sealed with his signature the Plan Colombia that uses as a systematic method aerial spraying with glyphosate (herbicide) to populations and coca plantations .
During his time in the Clinton administration, he presented several ecological initiatives to contribute to the solution of the climate crisis (improvement of treatment plants, laws to protect air and water, measures against toxic waste or protection of areas of the mining or oil exploitation territory) trying to convince the Senate to ratify the Kyoto Protocol that he himself had helped draft.
Presidential candidate in 2000
Accompanied in the formula by Joseph Lieberman , Gore was a candidate for the Democratic Party for the White House for the November 2000 elections , being the candidate with the most votes, slightly more than George W. Bush and well ahead of Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan.
However, his Republican opponent, George W. Bush , won in collegiate numbers. Very important to this result was that Bush officially obtained a few hundred more votes in Florida, a key state for the recount due to the tightness of the results. The validity of these results was highly disputed, among other reasons because ballots were presented at various tables that could lead to misunderstandings, because many citizens of Florida were not allowed to vote due to their criminal records, and because serious obstacles were placed on voters whose names and surnames coincided with those of citizens vetoed by their antecedents. In spite of everything, after a few weeks of successive recounts and judicial appeals, Gore gave up and recognized Bush as the winner.
After losing the 2000 election , Gore became a journalism professor for a few months, and then went back to lecturing on ecology. In September 2002 strongly he condemned Bush’s policy in Iraq , calling it “a distraction” and accusing Bush of damaging the image of the US abroad.
After raising great expectations, he did not appear in the 2004 Democratic primary , but supported the failed candidacy of Howard Dean.
Awards
Albert Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize in the year 2007 together with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) UN for its efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about climate change caused by man and lay the foundations for taking the necessary measures to counteract this change.
He was also awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation.
critics
A large section of the population criticizes Gore for various reasons. On the one hand, they accuse him of using the hypothetical climate change to profit personally, since his personal fortune went from 2 to 100 million euros in 2008 , pocketing approximately 70 million euros in 7 years, giving lectures worth close to at 100,000 euros each.
Other very severe criticisms refer to the evident contradiction that exists between the award of the Nobel Peace Prize and the scandalous US attack on an alleged chemical weapons factory in Khartoum ( Sudan ), without sufficient investigation or proof, in August 1998 , with Al Gore being vice president with Clinton .
On the other hand, they also accuse him of hypocrisy and double standards, for not setting an example of their recommendations. They report that Gore consumes 20 times more energy than the average American family and that he uses a heated swimming pool, gas streetlights in his garden and an electric gate. He is also accused of owning some of the most polluting metal ore mines in the US.
Present
Al Gore during an intervention during COP15 in Copenhagen , Denmark
Currently, A Gore is director of Current TV, a television network based content created by viewers, and Generation Investment Management, also belongs to the board of Apple Computer and is a consultant to Google Inc . Gore, has traveled the world giving lectures, supported by a slide presentation, in which he has tried to raise public awareness about the danger of climate change and the importance of life on a clean planet.