Gore says he has no plans to run for president
“I’m enjoying what I’m doing,” Gore told an audience at Middle Tennessee State University, where he gave a lecture on global warming.
“I’m not planning to be a candidate again. I haven’t reached a stage in my life where I’m willing to say I will never consider something like this. But I’m not saying that to be coy; I’m just saying that to be honest — that I haven’t reached that point.”
Gore, a Democrat, in 2000 lost to President Bush in one of the closest presidential elections in history.
Some Democrats still keep him in mind for another presidential run, according to several early polls on potential candidates.
“He won the popular vote in 2000, and I think he’s even stronger and more committed,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia said last week on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. “But you know, he’s got his own life and it’s his decision to make.”
Since his loss, Gore has occasionally delivered speeches on global warming other political issues, often criticizing Bush administration policies.
He also co-founded a new television network, Current TV, that started in August and mostly features documentaries by young filmmakers.
“An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary on the former vice president’s global warming awareness campaign, premiered earlier this year.
Gore told the audience Monday that the world faces a “planetary emergency” caused by global warming and must take immediate steps to reverse the atmospheric changes.
The combination of a worldwide population explosion, ever-changing technology and the public’s general way of thinking currently impede efforts to fight global warming, he said.
Rising carbon dioxide levels, increasing temperatures, the melting of the Earth’s ice caps and more intense storms are all direct results of global warming and will lead to flooding and destruction in some areas of the world, Gore said.
One example, he said, is the higher frequency, intensity and destruction of hurricanes.
“There’s still bodies under the rubble,” said Gore, referring to a recent visit to New Orleans. “Refrigerators in yards. Cars in trees. The devastation is so vast. It makes your heart feel heavy.
“We need to act,” he said. “It is the most serious crisis we have ever faced. We have within our grasp everything we need save political will. But in America political will is a renewable resource.”