Al Gore, early in his documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, typifies the man.
A message we should all hear
By Richard W Bruner
“There are good people in politics who hold this at arm’s length because, if they acknowledge it and recognize it, the moral imperatives would require action.” That remark by Al Gore, early in his documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, typifies the man.
Gore does not rant, whine, or insult his opponents. Instead, he makes a very reasoned, persuasive case for the imminence of a world-wide collapse because of global warming. Despite his obvious passion, Gore is a perfect gentleman, a world-class nice guy.
The film is didactic, necessarily so. Yet, Gore manages to avoid preachiness and dullness. He astonishes us with a litany of environmental losses: photos of the nearly bare Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa (“Within a decade, there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro”); the melting glacier in Glacier National Park; the dissolving Columbia glacier; the dwindling ice of the Himalayas; the melting snow of the Italian Alps; the loss of glaciers in Peru and Argentina; the shrinking ice in Patagonia on South America’s tip. “There’s a message in this,” said Gore. “It is world-wide.” And it is a disaster.
Even so, Gore’s demeanor is polite, almost soft-spoken. He refers to those who oppose his view simply as “skeptics,” men like Republican Senator James M Inhofe of Oklahoma, who called global warming a “hoax.”
In fact, his predominant mood is bewilderment. “When I went to Congress in the middle of the 1970s, I helped organize the first hearings on global warming…. I thought it would have such a big impact we’d be on our way to solving this problem. But,” he says almost plaintively, “it didn’t work that way. Ultimately, this is not so much a political issue as it is a moral issue.”
Only one very brief segment of the film deals with politics – his loss of the presidential election in 2000.
“Well, it was a hard blow,” he says, “but what do you do? You make the best of it.”
Apparently, that loss became a catalyst for his “mission” to save the environment. “I started giving these slide-show lectures.” The film is structured as an account of Gore’s appearances before audiences (“Hello, I’m Al Gore; I used to be the next president of the United States,”) with his message of doomsday.
He walks back and forth on a big stage in front of a screen showing striking graphics and stunning photography that illustrate his lecture.
Then, abruptly, the scene will cut away to motion picture footage of a catastrophe. (Having once been a writer of “industrial” films, I very much admired the techniques used to present the message.) As a teacher, Gore is superb. For those of us who don’t understand the science of global warming (and, I confess, I did not), he was succinct in his explanation, accompanied by a graphic depiction.
“The sun’s radiation,” he tells us, “comes in the form of light waves. And that heats up the earth. And some of the radiation that is absorbed and warms the earth is re-radiated back into space in the form of infrared radiation.
“And some of the outgoing infrared radiation is trapped in the atmosphere, a good thing because it keeps the earth’s temperature within certain boundaries, keeps it relatively constant and livable.
“But the problem is the thin layer [of atmosphere] is being thickened by all the global-warming pollution that is being put up there. That thickens the layer of atmosphere, so more of the outgoing infrared is trapped. That’s global warming.”
And global warming today is real. A chart of average American temperatures since the Civil War shows an upward trend. “…the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred in the last 14 years. The hottest of all was 2005…. In the American West there were a number of cities that broke all-time records for high temperatures and the number of days with 100-degree [38sC] temperatures or more. Two hundred cities in the west set all-time records.”
Just two weeks ago [Nov 29], the US Supreme Court heard arguments from 12 states and 13 environmental groups suing the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to regulate greenhouse gases.
The Bush administration defended its lack of action, alleging it lacks the power to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.
If only the Court justices could see Gore’s film, they might be persuaded.
INFORMATION
An Inconvenient Truth
100 minutes
http://www.budapestsun.com/full_story.asp?ArticleId=%7b9AA9AEAF4AD84DD684E02EC2A21BBF7B%7d&From=Style
By Richard W Bruner
“There are good people in politics who hold this at arm’s length because, if they acknowledge it and recognize it, the moral imperatives would require action.” That remark by Al Gore, early in his documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, typifies the man.
Gore does not rant, whine, or insult his opponents. Instead, he makes a very reasoned, persuasive case for the imminence of a world-wide collapse because of global warming. Despite his obvious passion, Gore is a perfect gentleman, a world-class nice guy.
The film is didactic, necessarily so. Yet, Gore manages to avoid preachiness and dullness. He astonishes us with a litany of environmental losses: photos of the nearly bare Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa (“Within a decade, there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro”); the melting glacier in Glacier National Park; the dissolving Columbia glacier; the dwindling ice of the Himalayas; the melting snow of the Italian Alps; the loss of glaciers in Peru and Argentina; the shrinking ice in Patagonia on South America’s tip. “There’s a message in this,” said Gore. “It is world-wide.” And it is a disaster.
Even so, Gore’s demeanor is polite, almost soft-spoken. He refers to those who oppose his view simply as “skeptics,” men like Republican Senator James M Inhofe of Oklahoma, who called global warming a “hoax.”
In fact, his predominant mood is bewilderment. “When I went to Congress in the middle of the 1970s, I helped organize the first hearings on global warming…. I thought it would have such a big impact we’d be on our way to solving this problem. But,” he says almost plaintively, “it didn’t work that way. Ultimately, this is not so much a political issue as it is a moral issue.”
Only one very brief segment of the film deals with politics – his loss of the presidential election in 2000.
“Well, it was a hard blow,” he says, “but what do you do? You make the best of it.”
Apparently, that loss became a catalyst for his “mission” to save the environment. “I started giving these slide-show lectures.” The film is structured as an account of Gore’s appearances before audiences (“Hello, I’m Al Gore; I used to be the next president of the United States,”) with his message of doomsday.
He walks back and forth on a big stage in front of a screen showing striking graphics and stunning photography that illustrate his lecture.
Then, abruptly, the scene will cut away to motion picture footage of a catastrophe. (Having once been a writer of “industrial” films, I very much admired the techniques used to present the message.) As a teacher, Gore is superb. For those of us who don’t understand the science of global warming (and, I confess, I did not), he was succinct in his explanation, accompanied by a graphic depiction.
“The sun’s radiation,” he tells us, “comes in the form of light waves. And that heats up the earth. And some of the radiation that is absorbed and warms the earth is re-radiated back into space in the form of infrared radiation.
“And some of the outgoing infrared radiation is trapped in the atmosphere, a good thing because it keeps the earth’s temperature within certain boundaries, keeps it relatively constant and livable.
“But the problem is the thin layer [of atmosphere] is being thickened by all the global-warming pollution that is being put up there. That thickens the layer of atmosphere, so more of the outgoing infrared is trapped. That’s global warming.”
And global warming today is real. A chart of average American temperatures since the Civil War shows an upward trend. “…the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred in the last 14 years. The hottest of all was 2005…. In the American West there were a number of cities that broke all-time records for high temperatures and the number of days with 100-degree [38sC] temperatures or more. Two hundred cities in the west set all-time records.”
Just two weeks ago [Nov 29], the US Supreme Court heard arguments from 12 states and 13 environmental groups suing the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to regulate greenhouse gases.
The Bush administration defended its lack of action, alleging it lacks the power to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.
If only the Court justices could see Gore’s film, they might be persuaded.
INFORMATION
An Inconvenient Truth
100 minutes
http://www.budapestsun.com/full_story.asp?ArticleId=%7b9AA9AEAF4AD84DD684E02EC2A21BBF7B%7d&From=Style
posted by presgore19 at 6:11 PM
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