Former Vice President Al Gore, who has spent 30 years making the world aware of the dangers of global warming, will receive the Sierra Club's top award this year, the environmental group announced today.
Between his earliest political career in 1976 as a representative of Tennessee's Fourth District, and his two-term vice presidency beginning in 1993, Gore helped set the political and popular stages for prime-time environmentalism, the Sierra Club said today.
He was one of the first politicians to grasp the seriousness of climate change and to call for a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. He held the first congressional hearings on the subject in the late 1970s.
Since then, he has presented the science behind global warming and its predicted catastrophic effects more than 1,000 times. His message reached the general public with the 2006 documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." The film has won numerous awards, including two Academy Awards. His paperback book of the same name reached number one on the New York Times Best Seller list.
On July 7, 2007, Gore reached a global audience with his Live Earth Concerts, when he orchestrated 24 hours of concerts on seven continents asking for each person watching to make a pledge to take action for the environment. He has been nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change.
The award Gore will receive, the John Muir Award, commemmorates Sierra Club founder John Muir, who lived from 1838 to 1914. His letters, essays, and books about the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California are still read today. His direct actions helped to save the Yosemite Valley and other wilderness areas.
"Al Gore is the embodiment of the principles for which John Muir passionately devoted his life: to protect a place for its own sake, for our sake, and even in spite of us; a place we call Earth," said Sierra Club President Dr. Robbie Cox.
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