The movie “An Inconvenient Truth”
by Al Gore is truly inspirational. Former presidential candidate Al Gore tries
to inform the public of the ever- growing concern of climate change. The
biggest challenge he faces is getting people to see this as a real problem and
not a politically driven movement. For many years the Republican Party has
tried denying the existence of global warming despite the massive amounts of
scientific data proving it as a real issue.
Al explains many of the points in
the film in a presentation which he has given over 1000 times in various
locations across the globe. He hopes to give people an understanding of what’s
going on by presenting them with real data. Al was first introduced to the
concept of global warming when he was a young college student; long before it
had been brought to the attention of the general public. He had been shown by
his professor the recent discoveries made. His professor had recorded Co2
levels in our atmosphere and had discovered that levels were rising rapidly.
The connection was then made that this would, and has since caused global
warming. Even though it is now known that greenhouse gases like Co2 cause the
temperature of the planet to rise it was not accepted then, and many people
denied the data, and the implications of global catastrophe. Al along with
other scientist and activists struggled for many years to get politicians and
the public to accept the facts and take action to change. Unfortunately many
people still deny the existence of global warming and continue to see it as a
political debate rather than the ecological concern that it really is. Many
people even saw this film as a campaign ploy by Gore, which is funny because he
never even ran for president again.
The effects of global warming are
real and they can be seen worldwide. In the film real data of ice core samples
show the rapid change in Co2 levels and the direct correlation between Global
temperature and rising Co2 levels. The melting of the polar ice caps is one
effect that is shown in the film and Al Gore states that predictions of a 20
foot rise in sea levels in the next life time is very possible. This point has
brought with it much controversy and skeptics. However within the 10 years that
have passed since the film was released we have seen rising sea levels; the
effects of which have caused unpredictable weather changes across the globe.
The Hurricane Katrina incident in Louisiana which broke the levees was
mentioned as an example of this in the film and many more strange weather
events have happened since, causing alarm for people everywhere. This is ironic
because the panic that Gore was criticized for creating when the film was
released was later proven with even more bizarre weather changes and events.
Gore doesn’t want people to give up, in fact he shows how we can change this
with the very way that we live. Many changes have taken place since the film
that have proven effective; like the increased use of high efficiency cars and
appliances and a reduction in dependency on fossil fuels. These positive
predictions that he made have shown dramatic environmental impact, and can be
seen with a recent decline in the rate of global warming.
