Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth” Essay

Former Vice President and former Tennessee Senator Al Gore discusses the correlation between carbon dioxide and other supposed greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and global warming. Gores movie, An Inconvenient Truth is constructed to look as though the majority of it is taking place in a college lecture hall, thus implying that his information is indeed fact. Better yet, before the end of the movie, Gore attempts to prove that global warming is not an environmental scheme, except is a fact and that it is being caused by things that man is doing. His simple conclusion is that mankind is creating more greenhouse gases and that is causing the earths temperature to rise at a rate that might soon be catastrophic.Gore spends a great deal of the movie in front of a double wrinkle graph comparing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and the earths temperature. He explains where his personal interest in the concept came from, a research prof when he was an undergraduate student, and h ow the professors work has predicted the climbing earth temperatures. Gore never specifically illustrates how mankind is contributing to the greenhouse gases, but he does go for allusions to heavy traffic and coal-fired energy plants as the cause. Instead, he uses a very effective melding of classroom instruction and beautiful natural footage of his farm in Tennessee and the ice flows of Antarctica.He even compares the need to do something about global warming to his familys failure to do something about smoking. Gore points out that until his baby died from lung cancer, his father raised tobacco on their Tennessee farm. It wasnt until his daughters death that he made the connection between his action and her illness. Likewise, Gore said, he is afraid that we will not make the connection between our actions and global warming until our children are dying from it. The use of analogical reasoning is impressive with the film as is the use of pop culture to define his arguments, rely ing on a clip from the cartoon sit-com Futurama as his explanation of why greenhouse gases summit to heating the environment.The biggest failing of the movie are Gores lack of an answer for the problem he presented. He points to the ever-rising global temperature and the melting ice flows in the Arctic, Antarctica and Greenland, but only as the final assign roll are there any suggestions for what to do about it. And these claims are the ones that are least supported. For example, the credits proclaim the advantages of switching to mercury-based florescent set about bulbs instead of traditional incandescent light bulbs, claiming that the energy saved by making little changes like that can function offset the growing carbon problem. But he never backs up those claims with facts and never discusses other issues which might be a factor in choosing light bulbs, such as quality of light provided and the fact that fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, a potentially lethal heavy metal.Gore s explanations seem phonate and reasonable, but that may also be due to the way they are presented. With an ice shelf breaking apart before your eyes, it is hard to demand answers about why the shelf is breaking apart. And, no one in the movie ever challenges Gores opinions or facts. He claims that when opponents to the global warming theory make objections that he researches them and adds the answer to his lectures, but there is no evidence of this. Instead, it appears that Professor Gore has used his training in academia and politics to make it look as though he knows all the answers, but the real Inconvenient Truth is that the movie leaves you with more questions than answers.