Al Gore
After 50 years in politics, Al Gore has no qualms facing the media — much less three young reporters peppering him with conversational questions sympathetic to his post-White House rallying cry against widespread environmental degradation. But backstage at The Pinnacle in Nashville, Gore still lost his cool, leaning forward in his chair and bracing his hand flat on the table.
“ This president campaigned on no more ‘forever wars,’ no more wars in the Middle East, no more rising prices, ‘we're gonna bring inflation down,’” said Gore on Friday, raising his voice as his face tightened into a grimace. “All the things he promised, he's doing the exact opposite. I’m sorry, you triggered me there.”
His message on May 1 — as the Climate Reality Project’s weekend-long Nashville training ramped up with presentations and information sessions — shifted more to the current state of democracy than smokestacks or polar bears.
“ Increasingly, we have situations emerging in the U.S. where those who are being governed do not give their consent to actions taken that affect them, and affect the places where they live," Gore explained. “ There's a long list of issues where people feel strongly one way, but the decisions go the opposite way, partly because we have seen a capture of governmental processes in many areas with money playing way too big a role in the political process.”
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Gore’s watershed documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which won numerous awards and pushed the climate crisis to the forefront of the American public. The movie — and its Democratic frontman — also coincided with the increased politicization of environmentalism that has stalled bipartisan action in America, home to the world’s highest per capita carbon dioxide emissions.
The son of U.S. Sen. Albert Gore Sr. — also a Tennessee Democrat — Gore held seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate before his two terms as vice president under Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. Since leaving office, Gore has refashioned his life’s work toward raising awareness of and spurring action against humans’ destabilizing impact on the earth’s climate. He launched the nonprofit forerunners to the Climate Reality Project soon after An Inconvenient Truth premiered and chairs the international NGO’s board of directors. Still a Middle Tennessee resident, he traveled downtown over the weekend to push forward the group's message of climate change education and advocacy.
“ In order to solve the climate crisis, we're gonna have to address the democracy crisis,” said Gore. “ The underlying problem is not just Trump — it is the deterioration in the democratic process and the degradation of the democratic discourse.”
Trump-approved board to reconsider coal power plants despite previous TVA plan for 2027 retirement
After winning a second term in 2024, Trump began a rapid pivot away from carbon reduction goals set by the Biden administration. Trump has since remade the Tennessee Valley Authority board, which will likely reverse a planned phase-out of coal power and keep aging units online.
The president’s crusade toward oil, gas and coal — a move that has opened the fossil fuel industry’s political checkbook — has also damaged American credibility on the world stage. China, both the world’s biggest polluter and a juggernaut of clean energy production, now steers the global climate change conversation as stronger storms, drought, flooding and temperature fluctuation become more apparent across the globe.
As humans’ best-case scenarios for avoiding climate disaster have diminished in recent decades, the worst-case climate outcomes seem less likely too. Gore’s focus remains reducing harmful emissions to net-zero via a clean energy transition.
“ We have the ability right now to create a very bright, prosperous, egalitarian, clean future,” Gore said Friday, always working to leave his audience with an optimistic note. “ If we get to net-zero, which we can do — it's not pie-in-the-sky — temperature will stop going up immediately. If we stay at net-zero, half of the human-caused CO2 will have fallen out of the atmosphere in as little as 30 years. I would love to be able to tell that to my grandchildren.”
