Political Profile

Al Gore is best known for his work as an American politician and environmentalist. He served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. From 2009 to 2017, he was a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc.

Childhood

Gore was born in Washington, D.C., the second child of Albert Gore Sr., a U.S. Representative from Tennessee, and Pauline LaFon Gore, one of the first women to graduate from Vanderbilt University Law School. He grew up in Carthage, Tennessee, where his father owned a farm and served in the U.S. Senate from 1953 to 1971. Gore attended St. Albans School, a private boys’ preparatory school in Washington, D.C., from 1956 to 1965, where he learned politics from discussions with his father and was a congressional page. He was an altar boy at the St. Albans Episcopal church. Gore graduated from Harvard College in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. While at Harvard, he rowed on the crew team and sang in the glee club and acapella groups. He attended Vanderbilt University Divinity School in the 1970s.

Achievements

In 1993, Gore became Vice President of the United States under President Bill Clinton, to whom he had been close since their time together at Yale Law School 20 years earlier. During his eight years as Vice President, he continued to advocate for action to combat climate change, an issue that he had first raised during his time in the House of Representatives.

On November 7, 2017, it was announced that Gore would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for countering such change.” He is set to receive the prize alongside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change