The Many Sides of a Very Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth was, more than anything else, a real eye-opener. Before watching the film, I did already have some degree of awareness about the negative impacts humans have traditionally had on the environment, including carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. What I really didn’t know, however, were the consequences of environmental damage, and how humans could (and do) anthropogenically harm the planet in such a drastic and deadly manner. I had always thought that a lot of the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions were exaggerated; Al Gore’s use of graphs and statistics, however, provided a more concrete and vindicated approach to explaining the results of humankind’s effects on the planet. It has been quite some time now since seeing the movie, but a great amount of information has stuck with me, perhaps justifying it as an excellent and informative film.

As a high-profile film, An Inconvenient Truth has been subject to a great deal of attention, becoming the target of both positive and negative feedback. Different representatives from the scientific community argue about details of the information presented, and others yet contest the way the facts were presented, labeling it as a “docuganda.”

One website that supports AIT is Stopglobalwarming.org, an environmental site dedicated to making sure a lot of the possible ramifications argued by Al Gore do not happen. As a result, the site heavily pushes the film, calling it, among other things, “a rallying cry for action” that “eloquently weaves the science of global warming with Al Gore’s personal story and lifelong commitment to stop global warming.” It names the film as the best hope of garnering attention about the issue of global warming; considering the media surrounding the film, they certainly aren’t wrong.

National Geographic News also praises the film, using a scientific authority to back the information given. The authority, scientist Eric Steig at University of Washington in Seattle, even claimed that he was looking for factual errors, but found that Al Gore’s presentation coincided greatly with his own knowledge of global warming. The website goes through the movie claim-by-claim. For example, Steig supports Gore’s claim that deaths from global warming will double in the next twenty-five years, citing it as a likely extrapolation of deaths from other global warming-related happenings.

However, as with all provocative films, there is a great deal of criticism dished its way. One article by Iain Murray uses the puns “Gorey Truths” to undermine AIT. One claim the author makes is that fossilized remains provide evidence claiming that, 11,000 years ago, there was just as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as there is today. Another claim is that glaciers have been disappearing over the past 100 years, which, perhaps, means that it is not necessarily an anthropogenic cause. He even cites research showing a previous glacier that already had vanished as many as thousands of years ago.

One final source that counters An Inconvenient Truth is another article by Tom Harris, which goes so far as to lampoon Al Gore’s claims, rebuking them more heatedly and personally than Ian Murray’s article. A variety of terms are used to describe Gore and the film: “weak,” “pathetic,” “an embarrassment to US science,” and “a propaganda crusade” based mostly on “junk science.” The authority in this case is Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University, the source of many of these derogatory claims. It’s clear that this writer believes that An Inconvenient Truth is nothing but cinematic garbage.

One way or another, it’s up to the individual whether he or she believes that there’s any truth in global warming. Many pundits will call An Inconvenient Truth a docuganda, and perhaps there is some truth to that. After all, as all effective propaganda does, it does not effectively show both sides of the story. However, isn’t that the point? If Al Gore is looking to create support for anti-global warming movements, why throw in theories that argue the contrary? People who wish to build their own personal opinion should check out a variety of books and movies, not just An Inconvenient Truth, to gather a conclusive understanding of the issue. Al Gore’s film only shows his perspective–and it’s one with which I agree.