| NEW
DELHI: Former American Vice President Al Gore, the film version of whose book
on global warming won two Oscars last month, is to receive the International Emmy
Founders Award at the 35th International Emmy Awards Gala later this year. The Award will be presented
on November 19 in New York City . Academy President Bruce L. Paisner said while
announcing the award in New York that the award was a recognition of the former
Vice President’s role in launching the cable and satellite channel Current
TV and his efforts to alert the world to global warming. “The Academy presents
the Founders Award to an individual or organization which crosses cultural boundaries
to touch our common humanity—how perfect a definition for Al Gore,”
said Paisner. “We in the media industry are honoured that one of the world’s
leading political figures has joined our global community of broadcasters." Al
Gore, who is founder-chairman of Current TV, said he was honoured to be receiving
this award as the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences like Current
TV was striving to create a global conversation through the powerful medium of
television. The film based on his book ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
has been directed by Davis Guggenheim and produced by Lawrence Bender, Laurie
David and Scott Burns. The film not only got the best documentary feature award,
but also an Oscar for Melissa Etheridge’s original song, "I Need to
Wake Up," which she had written at the instance of Al Gore after she had
seen his slide show. Speaking at the 79th Oscar ceremony on February 25,
Al Gore had said "People all over the world - we need to solve the climate
crisis," Gore said. "It’s not a political issue. It’s a moral
issue. We have everything that we need to get started with the possible exception
of the will to act. That’s a renewable resource. Let’s renew it." According
to reports, the film had gone on to gross $24 million domestically, the third
highest for a documentary, and another $21 million overseas. However, the
film ran into controversy when critics said the Academy had violated its own guidelines
because Rule 12 says the emphasis must be on fact and not fiction while it is
permissible to employ storytelling devices such as re-enactments, stock footage,
stills and animations. The specific objection was to an animated footage of a
polar bear struggling to find stable sea ice. But Al Gore has sought to silence
critics by arguing that polar bears have to swim several miles to find stable
sea ice and this leads to many of them dying. During his tenure as Vice
President from 1993 to 2000, Al Gore had actively worked on environmental issues
and had co-founded Current TV in August 2005. | 
