An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

Al Gore is my hero

I'll bet that all the one star votes are from Republicans in the mid west who can't read. September 30, 2008

The Warning About Global Summer

Documentaries lie on the continuum between fact and fiction. They show recreated reality as the producer sees it. Will the paying audience agree? Al Gore's anecdote about South America and Africa demonstrates the changing styles of science. Will today's beliefs become as obsolete as 18th century science? Gore says pollution causes global warming by trapping heat that would escape into space. Is carbon dioxide the sole cause? What if the output from the sun is increasing? What if the orbit of the earth is nearer to the sun? Gore explains his arguments. There was global warming during Medieval times. One difference is the higher level of CO2 compared to the estimates from the past. Gore predicts skyrocketing levels in 50 years. [If true, people will die off as during the Global Cooling of the 14th century and solve the problem until the next cycle.]

Gore said the ten hottest years of the past 2 centuries were in the past decades; the earth is warming up since the last Ice Age. The warmer oceans create bigger hurricanes. Was the New Orleans disaster of 2005 due in part to faulty engineering or politics? Gore lost the 2000 Presidential election because he didn't carry his home state of Tennessee. Was that due to his advocacy of NAFTA or the Gun Ban? Did people distrust Gore's judgment? Global warming causes both floods and droughts. Ocean and wind currents redistribute tropic heat. This film also advertises Al Gore as if he was running for office again. Gore explains the effects of earlier springs on increasing insects that adversely affect human life. Gore says the melting glaciers of Greenland can cause ocean levels to rise by 20 feet. This would devastate Florida, San Francisco, and other places because of the rise of the oceans.

Could the world's population have tripled in 40 years? Wouldn't that require massive increases in food? Carbon emissions correlate to relative wealth of the countries. An urban legend (?) Of a frg in hot water is used as a warning. Gore's older sister smoked cigarettes and died of lung cancer. [Gore didn't explain this as caused by big corporations and their advertising.] The lack of articles questioning global warming could demonstrate censorship. Big corporations funded universities and direct research, its not just the White House that manipulates statistics. Gore failed to point out how Big Oil has rigged the laws to create high gasoline consumption. Just look at America before the 1950s when people shopped and worked at local small businesses and most did not own automobiles or air conditioners. "Are you ready to change the way you live?" [Are you, Senator Gore?] The film gives a number of suggestions to reduce energy consumption voluntarily. [Gore does not recommend nationalizing Big Oil to prevent further damage to the people and environment, as has happened since the 1940s. Countries like Mexico and Venezuela that nationalized their oil industries have low gas prices and energy independence.]
September 24, 2008

The Earth is warming. Period.

Wake up, people! While there may be disagreement about the exact consequences of global warming, there is no doubt in scientific circles that the Earth's climate is changing and that we have something to do with it.

[...] September 22, 2008

Al Gore is awesome

This film gives excellent information that an untrained person can relate to in an everyday way. Al Gore is wonderful. He tells a story that gives one pause and then he gives you hope and an energized look at what can be done.
It's not all fire and brimstone, but this film gets serious on what matters most. The film is a wonderful example of how one person can use their power and influence to do the right thing. It also makes you wonder, deeply and sadly, what our world would look like right now had we gotten President Gore in office, as those of us who voted for him, the majority of America, wanted.
Woe is me. The folly of the American people and their so called representation. September 9, 2008

Ugh

Let me state, up front, I have never been a fan of former Vice President Al Gore. He was a right of center Democrat who worked in an administration whose environmental record was considered, by most ecological groups, worse than the two Republican administrations that preceded his, and held that office at a time when the earliest stages of global warming, which he now decries, were first becoming known. As the second most visible politician in the country, did he sound the alarums then? Well, no. He wrote a book or two, but did nothing of any real consequence with the power he had. However, his Johnny Come lately status as an environmentalist, which led to his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as an Oscar for the 94 minute 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has nothing to do why it's a bad film. That's due solely to the film's director Davis Guggenheim, most noted as a network television director.... The film is basically two thirds of Gore preaching to the public about global warming by giving a slide show with some neat graphics. Again, the vast majority of what he states is incontrovertible, and the few areas where he exaggerates are minor disagreements between the scientific community where he chooses the worst scenario for dramatic effect. This is forgivable on Gore's part, and even the filmmaker's. It is also quite effective. But, where the film tanks, and also goes way beyond any reasonable standard for calling itself a documentary, is in the interspersed other third of the film, where we get the fetishistic close-ups of Gore as saint aborning, and in the hamhanded voiceovers. Putting aside the fact that the writing of the voiceovers is cringe-inducing (see above), Guggenheim could have at least put on a patina of objectivity by having the voiceovers done by someone else- perhaps another Left Winger like Tim Robbins. Instead, we are left with the unseemly deification of Al Gore....by Al Gore!
Even worse we get a parade of Oprah Winfrey-level sob stories about how tough a life Al Gore has- being born with a silver spoon, political power, and the disappointment of being out-scioned by George W. Bush for the Presidency. There are some genuine bad things that the film inexplicably digresses to, such as his sister's death from lung cancer and his son's near-fatal car crash. So? I mean, what is the point of the film- to act as a documentary about the global warming crisis, or about Al Gore's `indomitable courage'? Such courage which propels him to `walk alone' in airports- as if he's just a `regular person.' Or to spend hours on his laptop computer monkeying with graphs. Ooh, he's deep. Yup. Yes he is. Yessirreebob! But, if Guggenheim could only stop with the up the nostrils viewpoint so many of his shots have. I mean, even if Al Gore is the greatest man in the history of our species, do we really need to be able to count his nose hairs?....Overall, An Inconvenient Truth has important ideas, but is a bad film precisely because those ideas are made secondary to the ego of Al Gore. That is not Gore's fault, but Guggenheim's, yet is precisely why An Inconvenient Truth is a bad film, and not even remotely a `documentary.'
September 7, 2008

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