Albert Arnold Gore

"You look at that river gently flowing by. You notice the leaves rustling with the wind. You hear the birds; you hear the tree frogs. In the distance you hear a cow. You feel the grass. The mud gives a little bit on the river bank. It's quiet; it's peaceful. And all of a sudden, it's a gear shift inside you. And it's like taking a deep breath and going, "Oh yeah, I forgot about this," Al Gore.

The Beginning
Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. was born in Washington, DC, to Albert Arnold Gore, Sr. and Pauline LaFon Gore on March 31st, 1948. His childhood consisted of living in and out of an apartment in Washington, and on the family farm in Carthage, Tennessee. Al also had an older sister, Nancy Gore Hunger, who unfortunately died of lung cancer in 1984.

Schooling
Al Gore attended the St. Albans School before he went on and enrolled at Harvard University. He graduated with honors from Harvard in June 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. Later Al attended divinity school at Vanderbilt University. His objective was to discover the spiritual issues that he was most interested in. During this period of time he worked part time as a reporter. After finishing his one year Rockefeller Foundation scholarship he left the divinity school to work full time as a Journalist. A few years later Al went back to Vanderbilt to study law, but took away no degrees because he suddenly decided to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Political Career
From 1993 – 2001 Al Gore served under Bill Clinton as the 45th Vice President of the United States. Al ran for President 3 times, in 1988, 2000, and 2004. None of which he won. But the 2004 election was the closest vote in all of American history, some even say that the final vote was a miscount. Bush vs. Gore… Bush won by one vote!

Environmental Awareness
"Gore was one of the first politician to grasp the seriousness of climate change and to call for a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases. He held the first congressional hearings on the subject in the late 1970s," according to The Concord Monitor. On April 22, 1994, Earth Day, an education and science activity was launched. Al launched the Globe program to make extensive use of the Internet to increase student awareness of their environment. Gore was also a strong believer in the Kyoto Protocol. But his biggest achievement, in my mind, was starring in the film 'An Inconvenient Truth'. This film is an educational phenomenon. It gives you an intense presentation of the depressing, heart throbbing, truth. Al stays carbon neutral with carbon offsets. More recently Gore organized the Live Earth concert in benefits to climate change.Al Gore has received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize award for his efforts to building up and disseminating greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and for laying the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.

“You see that pale, blue dot? That's us. Everything that has ever happened in all of human history, has happened on that pixel. All the triumphs and all the tragedies, all the wars all the famines, all the major advances... it's our only home. And that is what is at stake, our ability to live on planet Earth, to have a future as a civilization. I believe this is a moral issue, it is your time to cease this issue, it is our time to rise again to secure our future!” Al Gore.

This is my favorite line from "An Inconvenient Truth". This line expresses everything that I would like to say to the world, WAKE UP, WE'VE GOT TO CHANGE, because really if we keep doing what we're doing we might not be so proud to call our home a home.
In my opinion Al Gore shows all characteristics of a hero. He is wise, generous, caring, and very opinionated which he uses for the better of our world. He has helped me realize the truth, the one thing that I don't hear from very many politicians. It was depressing at first to find out that in the future of my great great great grand kids, there might not be a planet to live on. But I soon got over it and decided to do something. He is my hero and my teacher. Al uses his popularity for our own good and I am very appreciative. Thanks to Al I am now a young environmentalist and doing my best to keep the world clean. Thank you Al, for everything.