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Al Gore and the Environment |
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Al Gore, the former Vice President of the United States (1993–2001) and the co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been involved with the environmental activist movement for many decades.
Al Gore joined the United States House of Representatives in 1976. In the same year, he held first congressional hearing on climate change, toxic waste, and global warming. Later Al Gore came to be known as Atari Democrats.
In the year 1990 Senator Gore presided over a three-day conference where legislators came from over 42 countries. The aim was to create a Global Marshall Plan to help less developed countries grow economically and ensuring environmental protection at the same time.
Contribution as Vice-President
Throughout his term as a Vice President, Al Gore took part in a number of environmental initiatives. In the year 1994 he launched the GLOBE program which was aimed increasing environment awareness among students through extensive use of Internet. Later in 1990’s, Gore advocated for the passage of the Kyoto Protocol, for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The US Senate opposed him stating that the United States shall not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations, for it is likely to cause immense damage to the US economy.
The protocol was signed by Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman in November, 1998. In the same year, Gore started promoting a NASA satellite that would provide a constant view of Earth. Meanwhile, he also came to be associated with Digital Earth.
Awards and recognitions
In 2005, Al Gore was chosen as the recipient of the Global Environmental Citizen Award by the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. The following year, he received the Quill Award for his book, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. He was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which was shared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2008, Al Gore received Dan David Prize for "Social Responsibility with Particular Emphasis on the Environment."
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