The former Vice President, promoting his new book about the future, defends his recent sale of his independently owned Current TV cable network to Al Jazeera.

Former Vice President Al Gore January 29 used an NBC “Today” show interview with host Matt Lauer to defend his recent sale to Al Jazeera of the Current TV cable station which he had co-founded.

Pressed by Lauer on the propriety of a climate activist’s selling a media organization to another funded substantially by foreign fossil fuel interests, Gore said, “I think Al Jazeera has obviously long since established itself as a really distinguished and effective news gathering organization. And by the way, its climate coverage has been far more extensive and of high quality than any to the networks here.”

On a book tour promoting his new book The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change, Gore said Al Jazeera’s news coverage is “objective. It has won major awards around the world and its climate coverage, as I said a moment ago, has been outstanding and extensive.”

Gore’s critics have long accused him of hypocrisy for a lavish life style and for making millions of dollars, since his defeat for the presidency in 2000, while advancing his concerns over human-caused climate change. Gore’s perspective that Al Jazeera, as broadcast across America on cable, has generally done high-quality television broadcasting on climate change and in other areas is one shared by many in the media field.