Al Gore defended his sale of Current TV to Al Jazeera in an appearance this morning on Today, saying he was forced to sell because of tough competition from conglomerates. He also denied any hypocrisy in the $500 million sale to Qatar-based Al Jazeera, which is funded in large part with oil money. Gore, a staunch advocate for addressing climate change, told Matt Lauer he understood the criticism, but said Al Jazeera’s climate coverage was far superior to that of networks in the U.S. Gore, who made a reported $100M on the deal, was appearing on the NBC morning show to tout his new book The Future but got some hardball questions from Lauer along the way. Check out the video below: