Al Gore was born on March 31, 1948 in Washington DC. His parents are Albert Gore, Sr. and Pauline LaFone Gore. His father was then serving as a Democrat in the House of Tennessee and later on served as U.S Senate (1953-71) and was considered a potential vice presidential nominee (1956 and 1960). His mother was one of the first few women to graduate from Vanderbilt University Law School. He also has an older sister, Nancy Gore.

A young Al Gore walking with his family from the Capitol Building in 1957
Image from: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2007/oct/12/nobelprizes?picture=330946195

Chip off the old block

His parents were a source of inspiration for him in taking this route of environmentalism. His father, then a young men in the 1930s witnessed how drought and misapplied farming techniques combined together to destroy the top plain of America’s great plains and thus resulted in forcing ten of thousands of families to abandon their farms. The travesty that Albert Gore, Sr witnessed during his youth made him to have a cause for the environment and he understood the need for it. Gore says that his father later passed on to him an understanding for the need to protect the environment.

Al Gore also remembered seeing his mother reading the book, Silent Springs by Rachel Carson when he was young. He also mentioned that she later on insisted that he read the book and they even discussed about it around the dinner table

“For me, personally, Silent Spring had a profound impact. It was one of the books we read at home at my mother’s insistence and then discussed around the dinner table. . . . Rachel Carson was one of the reasons why I became so conscious of the environment and so involved with environmental issues. Her example inspired me to write Earth in the Balance. . . . Her picture hangs on my office wall among those of political leaders. . . . Carson has had as much or more effect on me than any of them, and perhaps than all of them together.”

—Vice President Al Gore, “Introduction,” Silent Spring (1994 ed.), xii

Al Gore Jr is shown with his parents, US representative Al Gore Sr and Pauline
Image from: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2007/oct/12/nobelprizes?picture=330946195