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Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore's global warming movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," aims to call attention to the dangers society
faces from climate change, and suggests urgent actions that need to be taken immediately. It is based
on a slide show on climate Gore has presented to audiences worldwide over 1000 times in the past 15
years, but it is not purely a documentary. Gore's movie is an advocacy piece that is part documentary,
part biography, and part campaign ad. I'll discuss all three of these aspects below. In brief, Al Gore has
the right idea--climate change is an urgent issue that requires immediate action, and his thoughtful
movie is a welcome addition to the usual array of mindless Hollywood summer fare. However, the movie
has flaws. The presentation of the science is good, but not great--I rate it a B, which is the rating I give
the movie as a whole. The excessive details on Al Gore's life make the movie too long, and his insistence
on using the movie as something of a campaign ad detracts from its message. However, this is a very
important movie, as was recognized in the 2007 Oscars, where it won best documentary. It's a movie
everyone should see.
An Inconvenient Truth as a biography of Al Gore
The creators of the movie presumably thought that simply presenting Gore's slide show would be too
dull, so they decided to give the movie some human interest by interweaving a biography of Al Gore's
life. Al Gore has led an interesting life, but "interesting" and "Al Gore" are not words one can often put
together. Al Gore is boring, and the 20 minutes or so of biography presented in An Inconvenient Truth is
too much for a movie that is 1 hour and 36 minutes long. For example, I didn't really need to see the
road where Al Gore totaled his car when he was 14 years old, or a replay of his loss in the 2000 election.
On the other hand, some details of his past were interesting and relevant, such as the fact that he took
college courses in the late 1960s from Harvard's Dr. Roger Revelle. Revelle and Dr. Charles Keeling were
the pioneers in measurements of atmospheric CO2, and thus Gore got a very early exposure to the now
infamous "Keeling Curve" (Figure 1), showing the build-up of atmospheric CO2. This early exposure to the
significant impact humans were having on the atmosphere deeply affected Gore, and in the movie he
details efforts he made to call attention to the issue long before most people had heard of it, back in
the 1970s and 80s. Gore's slide show appropriately displays many graphs of the Keeling Curve, as it is
probably the most important and most famous finding in climate change science.
The science of An Inconvenient Truth
The science presented is mostly good, and at times compelling, but there are a few errors and one major
distortion of the truth. Gore does an excellent job focusing on the most important issues, and usually
presents them with a minimum of hype and distortion. The only exception to this comes in his treatment
of global warming and extreme weather events such as hurricanes.
Basic global warming science
Gore begins the science part of his talk with a very easy to understand presentation on the basics of
how the greenhouse effect works. His speech is clear, the graphics top notch, and he spices it up with a
hilarious two-minute cartoon depicting roughneck global warming gases preventing poor Mr. Sunbeam
from escaping Earth's atmosphere. Gore addresses the argument of skeptics who claim that the Earth is
too big for humans to affect by showing Space Shuttle photos of how thin the atmosphere really is
compared to the vast bulk of our planet. "The problem we now face is that this thin layer of atmosphere
is being thickened by huge quantities of carbon dioxide," he asserts, which is not correct. The build-up
of CO2 has virtually no effect on the density or thickness of Earth's atmosphere. The correct thing to
say would have been, "The problem we now face is that this thin layer of atmosphere is being made more
opaque to the transmission of infrared radiation (heat) by huge quantities of carbon dioxide."
Glaciers
Gore shows an impressive series of "then and now" images documenting the widespread retreat of many
glaciers over the past century. Most dramatically, he shows Kenya's Mt. Kilimanjaro, whose 11,000 year-
old glaciers are almost gone. While not all the world's glaciers have retreated in the past century,
Gore's presentation is an effective and reasonable way to show how global warming has affected the
majority of the world's glaciers. Greenhouse skeptics, including Michael Crichton in his State of
Fear book, are fond of bashing those who use Mt. Kilimanjaro as a poster child for demonstrating global
warming. They cite scientific research showing that the glacial retreat on Mt. Kilimanjaro is due to
drying of the atmosphere (PDF File), not global warming. However, as discussed at great length in
a realclimate.org post, the research which supposedly supports the skeptics' claims has been widely
misquoted and misinterpreted, and much of Kilimanjaro's melting can indeed be ascribed to warming of
the atmosphere since 1960.
Gore does an excellent job discussing the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps. Again, Gore's graphics are
superb, and he does a nice job narrating. He shows animations of what a 20-foot rise in sea level would
do to Manhattan, Florida, India, and China. A 20-foot sea level rise is what we expect if all of Greenland
or all of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to melt. Such a 20-foot rise is not expected by 2100, and it
would have been appropriate for Gore to acknowledge that the consensus of climate scientists--as
published in the most recent report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC)--is that sea level is likely to rise between 4 and 35 inches, with a central value of 19 inches, by
2100. He should have also mentioned that temperatures in Greenland in the 1930s were about as warm as
today's temperatures, so the current melting of Greenland's glaciers does have historical precedent.
Nevertheless, the risk of a catastrophic melting and break-up of the Greenland or West Antarctic ice
sheets is very real, when we consider that sea level before the most recent ice age was 15 feet higher
than it is now. Gore is right to draw attention to what might happen if sea level rose 20 feet.
Drought and heat waves
An excellent discussion of the most serious climate change issue our generation is likely to face, the
threat of increased drought and reduced water supplies, is presented. Gore makes reference to the
extreme heat wave that affected Europe during the summer of 2004, and I was glad to see that he
didn't blame the heat wave on global warming--he merely said that more events of this nature will be
likely in the future.
Hurricanes and severe weather
The biggest failure in the movie's presentation of science comes in the discussion hurricanes and severe
weather events. The devastation wrought by Katrina is used to very dramatic effect to warn of the
dangers climate change presents. We are told that Katrina grew "stronger and stronger and stronger" as
it passed over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico that were heated up by global warming. We are
told that global warming is increasing the intensity of hurricanes, but not provided information on the
great amount of uncertainty and vigorous scientific debate on this issue. Graphs showing recent record
insurance losses from natural disasters are presented, but no mention is made of how increasing
population and insistence on building in vulnerable areas are the predominant factors causing recent high
insurance claims from disasters such as Katrina. Gore points to some unprecedented events in 2004 as
evidence of increasing severe weather events worldwide--the record 10 typhoons in Japan, the most
tornadoes ever in the U.S., and the appearance of Brazil's first hurricane ever. However, examples of
this kind are meaningless. No single weather event, or unconnected series of severe weather events such
as Gore presents, are indicative of climate change. In particular, the IPCC has not found any evidence
that climate change has increased tornado frequency, or is likely to. Gore doesn't mention the unusually
quiet tornado season of 2005, when for the first time ever, no tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma in
the month of May.
Other science
Gore presents many other important aspects of climate change, including the threat of abrupt climate
change leading to a shut-off of the Gulf Stream current, the increase in damaging insect infestations
and tropical diseases, loss of coral reefs, loss of ice in the polar ice cap, and melting of permafrost in
the Arctic. All of these issues were presented with sound science.
An Inconvenient Truth as a campaign ad
Gore has repeatedly said that he currently has no plans to run for president again, and that this movie
was created as part of his life-long passion to protect the environment. Gore undoubtedly does care very
deeply about the planet, but this movie very much looks like a campaign ad. We are shown many scenes of
Gore being applauded, Gore traveling the globe to present his slide show, and Gore working to uncover
evidence of Republican shenanigans to alter or suppress climate change science. Gore is portrayed as a
humble and tireless crusader for good. If the movie is not intended to promote his political ambitions,
then it is certainly intended to benefit the Democratic Party. All this gets in the way of the movie's
central message.
Conclusion
At the end of the movie, we are presented with the same image that Gore started the movie with, that
of a beautiful river in the wilderness. Throughout the movie, Gore emphasizes how beautiful and special
our planet is, and he does an effective job conveying this. He also makes a powerful case that something
can and should be done to protect the planet, and it is worth hearing his message, even if the science is
flawed and the messenger does get in the way of the message. Overall, the movie rates 2.5 stars--
definitely worth seeing, but you might want to wait until the DVD comes out.
At the end of the movie, Gore presents some tips on how everyone can contribute, and points people to
his web site,www.climatecrisis.net. However, I would recommend that people who want to get educated
about climate change get their information from web sites not associated with a politician; perhaps the
least politicized source of information is the latest scientific summary (PDF File) of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC), a group of over 2000 scientists from 100 countries
working under a mandate from the United Nations in the largest peer-reviewed scientific collaboration
in history. It will only take you about 20 minutes to read through their conclusions, and it is something
every citizen on the globe should educate themselves on.
Should "An Inconvenient Truth" be shown in schools?
According to a recent blog posted at realclimate.org, "An Inconvenient Truth" has a become a required
part of the science curriculum in some countries. One of the producers of the film, Laurie David,
recently offered 50,000 free copies of the $19.99 DVD to National Science Teachers' Association
(NSTA) for use in U.S. classrooms. The NSTA turned down the offer on the grounds that the NSTA has
a 2001 policy against "product endorsement", and a fear that distributing the film would place
"unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters."
Realclimate.org points out that one of these targeted supporters is oil giant ExxonMobile, and questions
whether concern about losing funding from ExxonMobile influenced the decision not to take the free
movies. I don't have a problem with the NSTA rejecting the free movies on the grounds that Al Gore's
presentation is politicized. However, as pointed out in the realclimate.org post, NSTA does not offer
much content on climate change in their list of recommended materials. One of the recommended books,
"Global Warming: Understanding the Debate" has no business being on their recommended reading list.
This book is written by Kenneth Green, a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). This fossil-
fuel funded think tank recently offered $10,000 to any scientist willing to criticize the recent landmark
2007 Summary of Policy Makers (PDF File) climate change report issued by the United Nations
sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). AEI offered to award the money to
scientists who would "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs", as explained in an
article in the UK Guardian. Given the lack of quality climate change education material available to
teachers, NSTA needs to seriously rethink their recommended offerings on this important subject.

Film Review: An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a provocative documentary on global warming by director Davis Guggenheim.
The film, based on the multi-media presentation given by former Vice President Al Gore in over 1,000
cities around the world in recent years, presents a disturbing picture of the destruction that global
warming is doing to the earth and the horrific future that we are facing if global warming is not
addressed. Despite some serious weaknesses, anyone who is concerned about the future must see this
film and join in discussion, debate, and action over what is needed to save the planet.
At a time when believing in scientific truth is under attack, and when the Bush administration is gagging
government scientists from telling the truth, censoring official reports, and sabotaging international
treaties, An Inconvenient Truth defends, popularizes and makes accessible to millions the basic science
of global warming. Because of this, the film has come under attack. Right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck
compared An Inconvenient Truth, to Nazi propaganda. Holman Jenkins wrote in the Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Gores narrative isnt science, but science fiction.
The movie presents scientific concepts and evidence about global warming in a clear, concise and often
entertaining way. It features great nature photography, graphs, and animation to visually express
complex evidence. It even has a clip from Futurama.
Effects of Global Warming
I cant think of another movie in which the display of a graph elicited gasps of horror, but when the red
lines showing the increasing rates of carbon-dioxide emissions and the corresponding rise in
temperatures come on screen, the effect is jolting and chilling, A. O. Scott writes in the New York
Times review of the movie. In the movie Gore shows a graph that demonstrates a link between
CO2 levels and temperature over the last 600,000 years as revealed by samples from polar ice
cores.1 During this entire period CO2 levels have varied between 180 and 280 parts per million (ppm).
The level today is nearly 400 ppm, well above anything that has been seen in over a half million years.
And Gore points out that the CO2 levels will rise to 600 ppm if something isnt done quickly.
Gore describes the dramatic changes taking place in the world as a result of global warming. He shows
pictures taken 15 to 30 years ago of glaciers that have existed for the last 10,000 years or more and
compares them to pictures taken in the last year or two. It is shocking to see the rate at which the
glaciers are disappearing! The film shows the famous snows of Kilimanjaro in 1970. A picture from
2005 shows only a tiny sliver of ice remaining.
The movie describes how many new scientific studies are confirming that warmer water in the top layer
of the ocean caused by global warming is producing more powerful hurricanes. While it is not possible to
attribute any specific storm, like Katrina, to the effects of global warming, an MIT study indicated that
as a whole major storms spinning in both the Atlantic and the Pacific since the 1970s have increased in
duration and intensity about 50%.2 And all of this means hardship and suffering for the people.
While in the world as a whole it appears that global warming has contributed to a 20 percent increase in
rain over the last 100 years. However this increase in precipitation is not uniform, and some areas of the
world have suffered from drought.
It was striking to see the role this drought plays in the horrors now going on in Africa, which are
generally written off in the imperialist press as the inevitable nightmares of uncivilized people that
the West has no responsibility for. Famine is killing many children and putting millions of lives at risk in
the Niger area. In Darfur, a horrific genocide is being carried out. While the causes leading to the
genocide and famine are complex, a contributing factor to these nightmare situations is changes brought
on by global warming. Lake Chad, once the sixth largest lake in the world, which has shrunk to one-
twentieth of its former size, with sand dunes covering its bed. The disappearance of the lake has led to
collapsed fisheries, lack of irrigation and crop failures, and millions displaced by hunger.
While the climate changes produced by global warming are beginning to show themselves today in
shocking ways, these are just a glimmer of the changes that scientists predict may come about due to
global warming: mass extinction of species, flooding in coastal areas due to melting polar ice, spread of
infectious diseases, and the destruction of coral reefs caused by rising CO2 in the oceans water.
The destruction of glaciers due to global warming does not mean only that our children may never be able
to see a glacier. The Himalayan glaciers, which provide more than half of the drinking water for over
40% of the worlds population, are among the most affected by global warming. Within the next 50 years
these people may face a massive drinking water shortage as well as food shortages due to lack of
irrigation.
This is a one scary movie, made all the more so because the threats it depicts are real. And, unlike so
many summer blockbusters, no superhero is going to come to save the day.
A Profound Disconnect
There is a profound disconnect between the analysis Al Gore has of the problem of global warming and
the political program that he advocates for dealing with it. One minute Gore is talking about the
magnitude of the crisisof the possibility of large coastal sections of countries being floodedand the
next he is saying that the problem of global warming can be solved fairly easily by producing more
energy-efficient cars and by individuals conserving energy by turning down their thermostats and
turning off the lights.
While an analysis of Gores motives in making this film and how it may fit into the strategy of the
Democratic Party in 2006 or 2008 are beyond the scope of this review, we do need to be clear that Al
Gore himself is a representative of the capitalist/imperialist class in the United States and approaches
the issue of global warming from that perspective. It is not fundamentally a question of whether Gore
really cares about global warming or is using the issue for political purposes. The central point is that
Gores class position and perspective blind him from being able to really get to the truth of the causes
and solutions to the global warming crisis.
In his analysis of the root causes behind the climate crisis, Gore cites three issues: rapid population
growth, increased technology, and peoples thinking about the environment. While these factors are part
of the picture, what Gore leaves out is actually the central point: that global warming and the
destruction of the environment is rooted in a global system of capitalism and imperialism, where
production is determined not by social needs or environmental sustainability but by profitability and
where a few countries dominate the world economy.
For example, Gore talks about how almost 30% of the CO2 released into the atmosphere each year is
the result of burning brushland for subsistence agriculture and wood fires for cooking. But the burning
of forests is not being done by peasants in the third world for no reason. It is happening because
imperialist globalization is forcing people off of lands where their families have farmed for centuries
and, in order to survive, people are driven by necessity to burn down forests for farmland.
While Gore cites statistics that show that the U.S. is responsible for over 30 percent of global warming,
he does not question the division of the world where the United States, with four and a half percent of
the worlds population, account for such a huge percentage of the worlds energy consumption and
greenhouse gas emissions. Besides the morality of such a small percentage of the worlds population
consuming such a large amount of the worlds resources, it is doubtful that such a lopsidedness in the
world is sustainable from an ecological standpoint.
Gore does not situate the problem within the current necessity facing U.S. imperialism. These are not
times where imperialism is likely to pump large amounts of resources into retooling industry with a green
orientation! The strategic goals of the U.S. today are centered around restructuring the world, with U.S.
control of the Middle East and, in particular, the large oil reserves there, central to their plans. And the
Bush regime is willing to wage unbounded war in the pursuit of this goal.
Urgently Needed: Real Resistance to Stop Global Warming
Gore begins the movie by saying that dealing with global warming is a moral imperative. He asks us to
think about what we will tell our children who have inherited an earth that has been ravaged and
destroyed. While An Inconvenient Truth is valuable in sounding the alarm about global warming, the
solutions that it poses do not meet the moral imperative of what is really necessary to deal with the
problem. If things are left on the level of the political program put forward by Gore in the movie, it will
be very bad for the environment and for the people.
Much more is demanded of us than conserving energy or voting for Democratic Party politicians. It is
necessary to break out of the stifling confines of voting and protest-as-usual and to go up against and
reverse the current trajectory of U.S. society. To do this will require millions of people in the streets
saying that we will not accept a government that is destroying the future of the planet in pursuit of
profit and global domination and that is suppressing scientific evidence when it conflicts with their
political agenda.
As the call from The World Cant Wait Drive Out the Bush Regime says, The point is this: history is
full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were
victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed
up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined. The future is unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP
TO US.
Only Revolution Can Save the Planet
From the standpoint of higher economic forms of society [socialism and communism], private ownership
of the globe by single individuals will appear quite as absurd as private ownership of one man by another.
Even a whole society, a nation, or even all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not
owners of the globe. They are only its possessorsthey must hand it down to succeeding generations in
an improved condition.
Karl Marx, Capital
About the time when capitalism was first putting humanity on the road to the risk of global warming we
face today, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto, Modern bourgeois
society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up
such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like a sorcerer who is no longer able to control the
powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.
Over 150 years later the truth of this statement still stands out sharply when confronting the issue of
global warming.
While we need to fight every possible battle to force companies and especially governments to
implement measures that can make a big difference, nothing short of making revolution in every country
when the opportunity arises and overthrowing the global imperialist system can fully unleash the powers
of humanity to face this problem. The magnitude of global warming crosses all geographic, national,
cultural and social boundaries, and the solution lies in a radical political and social rupture with the world
as it is now organized.
1. CO2 or carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas that traps heat from the sun in the atmosphere
contributing to global warming. Levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are increased when fossil fuels, oil and
natural gas are burned, when forests are burned or cut down and when cement is produced.
2. This is similar to the relationship between lung cancer and smoking. Someone may have lung cancer and
may have smoked for 20 years but you cannot say with certainty that the smoking caused the cancer,
because some people who never smoked and get lung cancer, while others may smoke for many years and
never get cancer. But you can say that overall the more someone smokes the more likely they are to get
cancer and that the smoking rate in the population as a whole directly effects the rate of lung cancer.
For more on the relation between global warming and hurricanes see the series of articles, Hurricanes,
Climate Change, and Global Warming, by AWTW News Service reprinted in Revolution.

A spokesman for Al Gore has issued a questionable response to the news that in October 2007 the High
Court in London had identified nine errors in his movie An Inconvenient Truth. The judge had stated
that, if the UK Government had not agreed to send to every secondary school in England a corrected
guidance note making clear the mainstream scientific position on these nine errors, he would have made
a finding that the Governments distribution of the film and the first draft of the guidance note earlier
in 2007 to all English secondary schools had been an unlawful contravention of an Act of Parliament
prohibiting the political indoctrination of children.

Al Gores spokesman and environment advisor, Ms. Kalee Kreider, begins by saying that the film
presented thousands and thousands of facts. It did not: just 2,000 facts in 93 minutes would have
been one fact every three seconds. The film contained only a few dozen points, most of which will be
seen to have been substantially inaccurate. The judge concentrated only on nine points which even the
UK Government, to which Gore is a climate-change advisor, had to admit did not represent mainstream
scientific opinion.

Ms. Kreider then states, incorrectly, that the judge himself had never used the term errors. In fact,
the judge used the term errors, in inverted commas, throughout his judgment.

Next, Ms. Kreider makes some unjustifiable ad hominem attacks on Mr. Stewart Dimmock, the lorry
driver, school governor and father of two school-age children who was the plaintiff in the case. This
memorandum, however, will eschew any ad hominem response, and will concentrate exclusively on the 35
scientific inaccuracies and exaggerations in Gores movie.

Ms. Kreider then says, The process of creating a 90-minute documentary from the original peer-
reviewed science for an audience of moviegoers in the U.S. and around the world is complex. However,
the single web-page entitled The Science on the movies official website contains only two references
to articles in the peer-reviewed scientific journals. There is also a reference to a document of the IPCC,
but its documents are not independently peer-reviewed in the usual understanding of the term.

Ms. Kreider then says, The judge stated clearly that he was not attempting to perform an analysis of
the scientific questions in his ruling. He did not need to. Each of the nine errors which he identified
had been admitted by the UK Government to be inconsistent with the mainstream of scientific opinion.

Ms. Kreider says the IPCCs results are sometimes conservative, and continues: Vice President Gore
tried to convey in good faith those threats that he views as the most serious. Readers of the long list
of errors described in this memorandum will decide for themselves whether Mr. Gore was acting in good
faith. However, in this connection it is significant that each of the 35 errors listed below misstates the
conclusions of the scientific literature or states that there is a threat where there is none or
exaggerates the threat where there may be one. All of the errors point in one direction towards undue
alarmism. Not one of the errors falls in the direction of underestimating the degree of concern in the
scientific community. The likelihood that all 35 of the errors listed below could have fallen in one
direction purely by inadvertence is less than 1 in 34 billion.

We now itemize 35 of the scientific errors and exaggerations in Al Gores movie. The first nine were
listed by the judge in the High Court in London in October 2007 as being errors. The remaining 26
errors are just as inaccurate or exaggerated as the nine spelt out by the judge, who made it plain during
the proceedings that the Court had not had time to consider more than these few errors. The judge
found these errors serious enough to require the UK Government to pay substantial costs to the
plaintiff.


SUMMARY
Director Davis Guggenheim eloquently weaves the science of global warming with Mr. Gore's personal
history and lifelong commitment to reversing the effects of global climate change. A longtime advocate
for the environment, Gore presents a wide array of facts and information in a thoughtful and compelling
way. "Al Gore strips his presentations of politics, laying out the facts for the audience to draw their
own conclusions in a charming, funny and engaging style, and by the end has everyone on the edge of
their seats, gripped by his haunting message," said Guggenheim. An Inconvenient Truth is not a story of
despair but rather a rallying cry to protect the one earth we all share. "It is now clear that we face a
deepening global climate crisis that requires us to act boldly, quickly, and wisely," said Gore.

Al Gore, the one who was going to be the next president of the United States of America has dedicated
his life to let the people around the world to be aware of the problem which threat life on the earth. In
the next lines Im going to outline a brief summary about his movie An inconvenient truth.
Global warming is the catastrophe which threats life on earth. Al Gore explained how the atmosphere
works; sun ray comes from the sun everyday then some of the rays stay inside the earth with the help of
ozone layer to keep it warm. The crazy increase of carbon dioxide ratio has made the layer thicker so
more rays are trapped more than we normally need. As a result, a lot of temperature changing can be
seen around the world such as heat wave. Another problem the global warming is causing is that the ice is
melting which is a very serious danger. The level of the sea, constructions and the weather itself all can
be affected if the ice or permafrost starts to melt down because of the increasing of heat. At the end
of his discussion, Al Gore confirmed that most of the scientists around the world agree that we are the
main reason for the global warming. What will the future generation think of their parents if this
problem gets more and more serious?


Criticisms of Al Gores An Inconvenient Truth
Al Gores An Inconvenient Truth became a big part of the British secondary educational landscape when
it was made part of the official curriculum. This was big victory for those who feel the world is in
imminent danger because of anthropogenic global warming. However, the High Court of London recently
said not so fast. Steward Dimmock sued under Section 406(1)(b) of the Education Act 1996, claiming
that the movie is a form or political indoctrination. That law says that school governing bodies and head
teachers shall forbid the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in the
school.
The court ruled that 1.) in order to show this movie to the children teachers must make clear that the
film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the film
without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of
political indoctrination. 3.) Nine inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school
children.
I will use these nine cited inaccuracies as a jumping off point for my criticisms of An Inconvenient
Truth, both the book and film. These nine inaccuracies are:
The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Governments
expert was forced to concede that this is not correct. more
The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases
over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2
lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years. more
The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global
warming. The Governments expert had to accept that it was not possible to attribute one-off events
to global warming. more
The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The
Governments expert had to accept that this was not the case. more
The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It
turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because
of a particularly violent storm. more
The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the
Claimants evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility. more
The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could
not find any evidence to support this claim.
The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact
the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that
there is no such threat of massive migration.
The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New
Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be
a false claim.
Global warming is real.
It is caused by human activity.
Mankind and its governments must begin immediate action to halt and reverse it.
If we do nothing, in about 10 years the planet may reach a "tipping point" and begin a slide toward
destruction of our civilization and most of the other species on this planet.
After that point is reached, it would be too late for any action.
These facts are stated by Al Gore in the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Forget he ever ran for
office. Consider him a concerned man speaking out on the approaching crisis. "There is no controversy
about these facts," he says in the film. "Out of 925 recent articles in peer-review scientific journals
about global warming, there was no disagreement. Zero."
He stands on a stage before a vast screen, in front of an audience. The documentary is based on a
speech he has been developing for six years, and is supported by dramatic visuals. He shows the famous
photograph "Earthrise," taken from space by the first American astronauts. Then he shows a series of
later space photographs, clearly indicating that glaciers and lakes are shrinking, snows are melting,
shorelines are retreating.
He provides statistics: The 10 warmest years in history were in the last 14 years. Last year South
America experienced its first hurricane. Japan and the Pacific are setting records for typhoons.
Hurricane Katrina passed over Florida, doubled back over the Gulf, picked up strength from unusually
warm Gulf waters, and went from Category 3 to Category 5. There are changes in the Gulf Stream and
the jet stream. Cores of polar ice show that carbon dioxide is much, much higher than ever before in a
quarter of a million years. It was once thought that such things went in cycles. Gore stands in front of a
graph showing the ups and downs of carbon dioxide over the centuries. Yes, there is a cyclical pattern.
Then, in recent years, the graph turns up and keeps going up, higher and higher, off the chart.
The primary man-made cause of global warming is the burning of fossil fuels. We are taking energy
stored over hundreds of millions of years in the form of coal, gas and oil, and releasing it suddenly. This
causes global warming, and there is a pass-along effect. Since glaciers and snow reflect sunlight but sea
water absorbs it, the more the ice melts, the more of the sun's energy is retained by the sea.
Gore says that although there is "100 percent agreement" among scientists, a database search of
newspaper and magazine articles shows that 57 percent question the fact of global warming, while 43
percent support it. These figures are the result, he says, of a disinformation campaign started in the
1990s by the energy industries to "reposition global warming as a debate." It is the same strategy used
for years by the defenders of tobacco. My father was a Luckys smoker who died of lung cancer in 1960,
and 20 years later it was still "debatable" that there was a link between smoking and lung cancer. Now
we are talking about the death of the future, starting in the lives of those now living.
"The world won't 'end' overnight in 10 years," Gore says. "But a point will have been passed, and there
will be an irreversible slide into destruction."
In England, Sir James Lovelock, the scientist who proposed the Gaia hypothesis (that the planet
functions like a living organism), has published a new book saying that in 100 years mankind will be
reduced to "a few breeding couples at the Poles." Gore thinks "that's too pessimistic. We can turn this
around just as we reversed the hole in the ozone layer. But it takes action right now, and politicians in
every nation must have the courage to do what is necessary. It is not a political issue. It is a moral
issue."
When I said I was going to a press screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," a friend said, "Al Gore talking
about the environment! Bor...ing!" This is not a boring film. The director, Davis Guggenheim, uses words,
images and Gore's concise litany of facts to build a film that is fascinating and relentless. In 39 years, I
have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this
film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.
Am I acting as an advocate in this review? Yes, I am. I believe that to be "impartial" and "balanced" on
global warming means one must take a position like Gore's. There is no other view that can be defended.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment Committee, has said, "Global warming
is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." I hope he takes his job seriously enough
to see this film. I think he has a responsibility to do that.
What can we do? Switch to and encourage the development of alternative energy sources: Solar, wind,
tidal, and, yes, nuclear. Move quickly toward hybrid and electric cars. Pour money into public transit, and
subsidize the fares. Save energy in our houses. I did a funny thing when I came home after seeing "An
Inconvenient Truth." I went around the house turning off the lights.

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