Al Gore
Academy of Achievement
The 45th Vice President of the United States, Albert Gore, Jr. received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007 for his effort to raise international awareness of the human impact on global climate change. The son of Senator Albert Gore, Sr. of Tennessee, he grew up in Washington, and on the family farm in Carthage, Tennessee. He studied literature and government at Harvard, where he first became interested in environmental issues. After graduating with honors from Harvard, he enlisted in the United States Army and served in Vietnam. He worked as a reporter for an army newspaper during the war, and on his return to civilian life he became an investigative reporter for the Nashville Tennessean. In 1976, he was elected the Congressional seat previously held by his father. In the House of Representatives, he held the first hearings on global climate change, and became one of the body's experts on arms control and telecommunications. In 1984, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he wrote the