A former Representative and Senator from Tennessee, and a Vice President of the United States, Albert Gore, Jr. was born in Washington, D.C., on March 31, 1948. The son of former U.S. Senator Albert Gore, Sr., Al Gore attended the public elementary schools of Carthage, Tenn. and St. Albans High School in Washington, D.C., before graduating from Harvard University in 1969. After joining the Army and serving in Vietnam for two years, he attended Vanderbilt University School of Religion and then Vanderbilt Law School, while working as an investigative reporter for the Nashville Tennessean.
In 1976, Gore was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served two terms before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984 and re-elected in 1990. In 1992, Gore was elected Vice President of the United States on the Democratic Party ticket headed by William Jefferson Clinton. As Vice-President, Gore promoted the development of information technology which led to the internet dot-com boom. He popularized the term Information Superhighway, but when ridiculed for supposedly claiming to invent the internet, computer professionals and congressional colleagues argued in his defense. Gore was also involved in a number of initiatives related to the saving the environment. He strongly pushed for the passage of the Kyoto Protocol, which called for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Gore also promoted a NASA satellite that would provide a constant view of the earth. He was also involved with Digital Earth.
After serving two terms, Vice-President Gore ran for president against Republican George W. Bush in 2000. On election night, news networks first called Florida for Gore, but later changed the projection, and called Florida for his Republican opponent, George W. Bush. Florida's Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, who served on Bush's election campaign, eventually certified Florida's vote count. However, numerous election irregularities led to the Florida election recount, in order to further examine the state's results. The Florida recount was halted a few weeks later by the Supreme Court of the United States. In their ruling, Bush v. Gore, the Florida recount was called unconstitutional and that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by the December 12 deadline, effectively ending the recounts. This case ordered an end to recounting underway in selected Florida counties, effectively giving George W. Bush the presidency. On December 13, 2000, Gore conceded the election stating that, "for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession." The controversial 2000 election was the subject of a 2008 tv starring Kevin Spacey called "Recount."
Desipte the loss of the election, Al Gore would not retreat from the public forum. In 2004, he co-founded Generation Investment Management, a company that creates environmental-friendly portfolios, managing the assets of pension funds, foundations and endowments. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, Gore chartered two planes in order to evacuate 270 people from New Orleans and criticized the Bush administration's response to the disaster. In 2006, he criticized President Bush's use of domestic wiretaps without a warrant. Also in 2006, Gore launched The Alliance for Climate Protection, an organization which in turn started the We Campaign and Repower America. Gore also starred in the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth", a movie about global warming which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In 2009, he also won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for the audio version of his book, "An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It."
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