Is Al Gore is doing a Chicken Little act in "An Inconvenient Truth"? I wish he were. This stunning documentary about global warming is a well-reasoned, clearly-proved, intelligent, cogent, irresistible torrent of scientific data, in a curiously warm, engaging, often funny presentation. What an entertaining horror movie this is! Unexpectedly, improbably, Gore is doing a Hitchcock act here, all affable and chummy... before scaring the hell out of the audience. And that he does, with charts, statistics, projections coming from hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, none challenged, while allowing how some 50% of mass-media treatment of global warming *is* subject to questions. There is even a cute animation segment about exaggerated global-warming claims.
There is no need to exaggerate. Unchallenged studies are showing an extraordinary rise in ocean temperatures, the disappearance of glaciers, the melting of the poles - and then Gore twists the knife with a series of graphics showing areas to be inundated by rising waters. In a flooded Manhattan of the future, Gore says, the site of the World Trade Center will be under water. "Terrorism," he says, without drama or overemphasis, "is not the only danger we must face." The threatened catastrophe is not in the distant future. The US Geological Survey predicts that by 2030, Glacier National Park will have no glaciers left. In the last 30 years, 400,00 square miles of Arctic sea ice have melted; polar bears today drown when they cannot find an ice floe to rest on. What has Congress done about global warming? Absolutely nothing.
Davis Guggenheim's documentary is based mostly on Gore's multimedia presentation on climate change, a lecture he has delivered hundreds of times in recent months. While Gore is managing the show with powerful efficiency, there is nothing dry or tired about it. The film is virtually flawless, even some of the cornier visuals fit in. Gore's personal remarks are affecting: the death of his sister from lung cancer, after lifelong smoking, forced the family - after generations of tobacco-growing in Tennessee - to quit the business. No overt statement is heard, but there is an inevitable comparison with the world's addiction to many activities directly contributing to climate change.
Political references are at a minimum. The only strong criticism of the Bush presidency is in the context of the Republican rejection of the Kyoto Treaty, making the US one of two countries in the world to do so (Australia is the other one). Following a huge list of countries paying at least lip service to the cause of climate control under the treaty, Gore shows a similarly large list of US cities where local government is taking measures not supported by Washington.
Gore is clear about the danger of being overwhelmed by the danger of what's happening, and he concludes the film by saying that going from denial to despair without pausing to see what can be done is the wrong course of action, or rather inaction. "Political will," Gore says, "is a renewable resource." Gently, but firmly, he calls for attention to a clear and present danger that cannot be ignored... even if faith-based denial of the evidence before us remains largely the order of the day, with all the comfort of darkness behind closed eyes. An alternative is at http://www.climatecrisis.net/.
There is no need to exaggerate. Unchallenged studies are showing an extraordinary rise in ocean temperatures, the disappearance of glaciers, the melting of the poles - and then Gore twists the knife with a series of graphics showing areas to be inundated by rising waters. In a flooded Manhattan of the future, Gore says, the site of the World Trade Center will be under water. "Terrorism," he says, without drama or overemphasis, "is not the only danger we must face." The threatened catastrophe is not in the distant future. The US Geological Survey predicts that by 2030, Glacier National Park will have no glaciers left. In the last 30 years, 400,00 square miles of Arctic sea ice have melted; polar bears today drown when they cannot find an ice floe to rest on. What has Congress done about global warming? Absolutely nothing.
Davis Guggenheim's documentary is based mostly on Gore's multimedia presentation on climate change, a lecture he has delivered hundreds of times in recent months. While Gore is managing the show with powerful efficiency, there is nothing dry or tired about it. The film is virtually flawless, even some of the cornier visuals fit in. Gore's personal remarks are affecting: the death of his sister from lung cancer, after lifelong smoking, forced the family - after generations of tobacco-growing in Tennessee - to quit the business. No overt statement is heard, but there is an inevitable comparison with the world's addiction to many activities directly contributing to climate change.
Political references are at a minimum. The only strong criticism of the Bush presidency is in the context of the Republican rejection of the Kyoto Treaty, making the US one of two countries in the world to do so (Australia is the other one). Following a huge list of countries paying at least lip service to the cause of climate control under the treaty, Gore shows a similarly large list of US cities where local government is taking measures not supported by Washington.
Gore is clear about the danger of being overwhelmed by the danger of what's happening, and he concludes the film by saying that going from denial to despair without pausing to see what can be done is the wrong course of action, or rather inaction. "Political will," Gore says, "is a renewable resource." Gently, but firmly, he calls for attention to a clear and present danger that cannot be ignored... even if faith-based denial of the evidence before us remains largely the order of the day, with all the comfort of darkness behind closed eyes. An alternative is at http://www.climatecrisis.net/.