While people know that Al Gore is a steward of the environment, what first comes to mind for many people is his devastating loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 election, and his time as Vice President under President Clinton.
The reality is that there is much more to Al Gore than meets the eye – especially when it comes to environmental activism. Of course, many of us remember his 2006 documentary titled, “An Inconvenient Truth,” but his passion for saving our planet spans back to the mid-1960s.
Here’s a timeline of his environmental activism:
- 1965: While at studying at Harvard for us undergrad degree, Gore becomes interested in the topic of global warming after taking a course with Professor Roger Revelle, one of the first scientists to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
- 1976: After Joining the House of Representatives, Gore held the first congressional hearings on climate change, and co-sponsored hearings on toxic waste and global warming.
- 1984: Gore runs for U.S. Senate representing the state of Tennessee, further expanding his pro-environment platform.
- 1992: Gore was chosen as Bill Clinton’s running mate and also published his book titled, “Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit.”
- 1993: As Vice President, he advocated for the implementation of a carbon tax to modify incentives to reduce fossil fuel consumption, which was partially implemented.
- 1994: On Earth Day, Gore launched the Globe program, which aimed to use the Internet to increase student awareness of the environment.
- 1997: Gore helped to broker the Kyoto Protocol and pushed for the passage of the treaty, which called for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
- 2004: He launched Generation Investment Management, which aims to blend traditional equity research with sustainability issues.
- 2006: “An Inconvenient Truth” is released in theaters. The film wins the Oscar for best documentary that year.
- 2007: He organized Live Earth, a seven-continent, 24-hour sequence of concerts taking place in London, Sydney, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hamburg and New York to raise global awareness on climate change. He also won the Nobel Peace Prize that year.
- 2013: Gore becomes a vegan, and stated that, “it’s absolutely correct that the growing meat intensity of diets across the world is one of the issues connected to this global crisis.”
- 2016: Wired Magazine published an article about how Gore is “winning 10 years after ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was released.”
Clearly, Al Gore is a visionary politician and activist whose ideas were ahead of their time. Though fortunately, not too far ahead – as we are seeing many new and highly laudable efforts to counter climate change that were inspired by his efforts.
Much like we have done with Neil Young, we are calling on Al Gore to further become an ambassador for the Earth by securing his own .earth domain name. Just imagine: AlGore.Earth. We hope he visits one of these registrars to secure his own .earth domain!
