Here's a review that I wrote for An Inconvenient Truth. It's a great movie that everyone should check out.
Animals drowning, states and countries being covered by water, tropical storms and hurricanes completely wiping out major cities. These sound like signs of the apocalypse. However, can we as a people do something to keep these calamities from occurring? This is the issue that An Inconvenient Truth tries to address. In fact, this movie says that these scenarios are completely avoidable.
An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary addressing the very serious issue of global warming. More specifically, it addresses the human impact on global warming. It shows that global warming is a very real problem and the problem is exasperated by our current emissions of greenhouse gases.
The film should never have been made. As a people, we should have been more aware of this problem, but we were not. As politicians, solutions to this problem should have been devised, but they were not. What are the reasons for our ignorance and failure to act? Former Vice President Al Gore addresses this issue, as well as the overall issue of global warming. This documentary was made so that we as people and politicians are aware of the seriousness of this issue and can act to resolve it.
The human catalysis of global warming is a real threat and is effectively demonstrated through An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore and Davis Guggenheim, the director of the film, have done this in a very straightforward manner. Their use of skillful data presentation and extraordinary visual images along with a very calm and inviting tone has taken this terrifying issue and made it very approachable.
So what is global warming? Global warming is the rise in average global temperature by the greenhouse effect, which is the trapping of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
These gases keep heat and sunlight from leaving the earth, resulting in the rise of the global temperature.
In the film, Gore uses a bright red line to show that emission of greenhouse gases have sky rocketed in the past 50 years and that there is no sign of letting up in the next 50. In fact, as the emissions increase every year, the average global temperature will continue to increase at an unprecedented rate. This bright red line produces a menacing and daunting feeling of doom. The image is chilling and all it is a red line. Yet, combined with the issue and the calm voice of Gore, the red line becomes much more. It symbolizes the gravity of the situation. It emphasizes our need to act.
Another aspect that Gore discusses is the dismissal and deception of the issue by the current administration. He acknowledges the administrations failure to raise emission standards, as well as its failure to ratify the
Finally, one of the most surprising revelations that Gore made was the fact that it is a universal fact among scientists that global warming is worsened by humans. Yet, the media seems to be split on its reports. The public gets a lot of their scientific news from the media, which explains the reason for the general public’s confusion on the issue. The documentary clears up the issue once and for all. Global warming has increased due to humans and we must act to slow it down.
As a means of communication, the film does a good job. It presents the issue as a threatening one, yet as an approachable one. We can do something about it. All we must do is act.
1 comment:
you should be careful with this; there's less "evidence" for global warming than there is for the "theory of evolution," yet it is heresy today, especially amongst academic circles, to not accept global warming (which i don't). started out not believing it on the principle of going against what hippies say, and then did some of my own research.
an equally likely and evidenced theory is that CO2 emissions are driven by climate, which in turn is driven by solar radiation.
i watched this movie a week ago, and it's has as much science and support in it as does a michael moore 'documentary.' ice shelves break up and reform, a lot.
the human impact on 'global warming' is also pretty overstated in the media and especially in this film. there are plenty of points in the movie where he relies upon emotionally involved anecdotes to get across his point.
you should check out the BBC documentary, "the great global warming swindle" it presents, finally, a contrary view to GW (global warming). of course it's not popular in america, and not well-known either; big surprise.
as a people, i think it's rather self-centered to believe that we're doing this much to 'radically' change the climate. climate models used in GW estimates exaggerate the amount of CO2 humans output (which is still a small, small fraction of the CO2 released from the ocean/vegetation/volcanoes/other natural sources). this is not to say i believe in producing as much CO2 as possible; on the contrary, i think it's important to cut back, but to use scare-tactics, and threaten people with apocalypse so they do the 'right thing'? that sounds a lot like a certain religion to me.
the government has become so concerned with GW and the clout it carries with the media, that less and less studies are even backed by the government that set out to produce evidence against it.
lastly, the scope of time in which we're measuring GW is small. minuscule. to use the cliche from every biology class, a literal 'blink of an eye' in the history of the earth.
every review of this movie i've read perpetuates what i see as a misunderstanding of the global climate, which is impossible to predict (well unless you use measurements of solar radiation [gasp]); otherwise the weatherman might be out of a job [insert ollie the weatherman].
anyhow, check out the BBC flick, it's on google video, and check out some more research on the issue; it's pretty damn hard to find any hard info on this that isn't being skewed towards GW.
in conclusion, cupcakes are better with frosting.
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