The global warming of the atmosphere, due to the buildup of greenhouse gases from human emissions, has been a topic of increasing concern, triggering international action in public policy, environmental legislation and corporate responsibility. Al Gore is widely credited with bringing the issue of climate change and its implications to the forefront of public awareness, and he is often cited as one of the earliest and most influential public proponents of the need to address global warming. When did Al Gore first start talking about global warming and how has the response changed over time?
In the early 1990s, Al Gore raised the issue of climate change in his book Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. In the book, he argued that a “stable and sane balance between human activities and the remaining parts of the Earth system” was necessary to ensure our collective survival, with a focus on reducing emissions from burning fossil fuels to reduce their environmental impact. He subsequently incorporated climate change into his platform as Vice President during the Clinton Administration, promoting the benefits of cooperation between the US and other countries to combat global warming. He argued for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and increased research investment into renewable sources of energy, notably speaking at the 1997 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Kyoto, Japan.
Gore furthered his social and political campaign for action on global warming when he produced An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, a feature-length documentary examining the dangers of climate change and its potentially devastating effects on humankind. At the time, many of his views were considered by some to be alarmist and overly simplifying, rather than presenting ground-breaking or revolutionary ideas. However, his position was largely vindicated in 2009 when he earned the Nobel Peace Prize as co-recipient, alongside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for his “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”
In recent years, Gore’s approach has been adopted by influential international organizations such as the United Nations, and has since gained the backing of prominent governments, businesses, and investors. His activism has helped bring the issue of climate change and its potential consequences to the public consciousness, and has catalyzed people to take action to transition away from high-carbon energy sources.
In spite of the growing awareness of global warming, the scale of the climate crisis has fluctuated in popularity according to political cycles and international occasions. It is therefore important to sustain meaningful and long-term engagement to ensure that climate change remains at the forefront of public discourse and that action is taken to mitigate its effects. As Al Gore remarked in An Inconvenient Truth, “each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive. We can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero.”
It is clear that Al Gore has been an important figure in the global warming debate since the late 1980s. From his role in the Clinton Presidency, through to his 2006 documentary and his subsequent Nobel Prize, he has been a major force in raising awareness of climate change and its consequences and paving the way for meaningful action. We must continue to take direct action to protect our environment, while being mindful to sustain long-term support and engagement to ensure that the issue of global warming remains at the forefront of global conversation and is addressed acceptably and effectively.
