Al Gore

Gore entered national politics after working as an investigative reporter for The Tennessean and serving in the U.S. Army as a journalist in Vietnam. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976 at age 28 and served four terms before winning a U.S. Senate seat in 1984. He was reelected to the Senate in 1990.

During his congressional career, Gore developed policy expertise in arms control, hazardous waste, environmental protection, biomedical issues, and technology. He sponsored the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 and proposed the World Environmental Policy Act in 1989. In 1990, he was a founding member of the first Interparliamentary Conference on the Global Environment.

In 1992, Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton selected Gore as his running mate. Gore became the 45th vice president on January 20, 1993, and served two terms. As vice president, he advised Clinton on government waste and fraud, information technology, and environmental initiatives, and helped secure congressional passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Gore sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 but was unsuccessful. He became the party's nominee in 2000 and ran against Republican nominee George W. Bush. Gore won the nationwide popular vote by more than 500,000 votes, but Bush won the Electoral College 271-266.

The result depended on Florida, where Gore challenged the certification of Bush's narrow victory and sought recounts. The dispute continued through state and federal courts until the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore stopped the recounts on December 12, 2000. Gore conceded the election and later presided, as outgoing vice president, over the congressional session that counted the Electoral College votes and declared Bush elected.

Gore's environmental views were set out in Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, published in 1992. The book became a New York Times best-seller and was followed by works including An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do about It, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, The Assault on Reason, and The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change.

The 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, in which Gore discussed global warming, won two Oscars. Its sequel, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, was released in 2017. Gore shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for raising awareness of global warming and the dangers posed by climate change.

After leaving electoral politics, Gore continued working as a writer, lecturer, and environmental activist. He founded and chairs The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit focused on addressing the climate crisis. He is also a founding partner and chairman of Generation Investment Management and a co-founder of Climate TRACE.

Gore co-founded Current TV in 2005, and the cable news network was sold to Al Jazeera in 2013. His later honors include the Dan David Prize for Social Responsibility in 2008 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which President Joe Biden awarded him in 2024.