An Inconvenient Truth

I've just been to a screening of An Inconvenient Truth, the new film about climate change featuring Al Gore. Gore, it turns out, has spent the past few years perfecting a new stump speech, this one solely dedicated to the issue that he still calls "global warming". This movie is essentially the film of the speech. It's a powerful speech, so it makes a powerful movie.

Gore doesn't go into all the complexities of global climate change – that would be impossible. Rather, he hammers home a simple point: global warming, caused by unprecedentedly high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, could well end up devastating the world as we know it – and sooner rather than later. He spends quite a lot of time emphasizing the importance of the poles, which of course are a region that the Salmon siblings care a lot about, and he might well be able to help educate the world on the importance of the upcoming International Polar Year.

The movie is aimed at Americans, the biggest polluters on the planet, and all Americans should see it – although I'm sure very few will.

I do, however, have two small issues with the film. Firstly, it spends too much time talking about how Al Gore has been pushing this issue for decades while being obstructed by other politicians in Washington. The movie was funded by Hollywood liberals, and all the politicians it bashes are Republicans: Reagan, Bush Sr, Bush Jr, James Inhofe. It will be far too easy for Republicans to dismiss this film as liberal propaganda.

Secondly, the film's official website is woefully inadequate. I was expecting not only the whole ~~Powerpoint~~ Keynote presentation, but also links to all the science backing it up, and a lot of links to related research as well. In fact, there are only nine pages, including the home page, the presentation isn't there at all, and there's no science nor any links to science. Anybody who doesn't take Gore fully at face value, who wants to check up on what he's saying, will get no help from this website.

As an introduction to the importance of the issue, however, this film is wonderful: tell anybody who wants to know about climate change to go see it. They'll probably be convinced.

Posted by Felix at 20:01 EST

Comments

I look forward to seeing the film. Does Gore discuss at all the relatively pitiful amount the Clinton administration did on climate change?

The US negotiators at the Kyoto talks dragged their feet for ages. By the time they finally agreed a compromise, at a last-ditch meeting in the Hague, it was far too late for the administration to have a hope in hell of getting it through Congress (which may have always been impossible anyway, of course).

Given Gore's history on the issue, this always struck me as one of the examples where the Clinton administration did far, far less than it might have done.

Posted by: Lance Knobel at 13:05 EST, April 17, 2006

i was wondering if you were able to catch the website adress that was given at the end of the movie?

Posted by: jaspreet at 16:35 EST, July 30, 2006