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.