Gore's Movie

Global Warming has been one of the most talked about issues of the past few years. There are people on the far left who scream “Armageddon”, saying humanity is single handedly facilitating the destruction of Planet Earth as we know it, and there are people on the far right who say its nothing more than a fairy tale and nothing we do affects our planet whatsoever. Then there are people who I like to refer to as “rationalists”, who try to take every fact and idea into account (even ideas from the extreme ends of the spectrum), analyze it and make logically and educated decisions. I don’t think I need to say which is the most desirable group of the three. I know that An Inconvenient Truth presents a lot of material that cannot be argued, and I agree that global warming is a problem, and I want to say first that I do agree with the overall message of this movie. I agree that to some degree we are helping to facilitate global warming, what I am skeptical about is how large of a role we actually play, and on top of that I think we are dealing with the problem in the wrong way.
I will be the first to admit that I am a skeptical and cynical person by nature. So when I see movies like this, especially ones made by politicians, I am VERY skeptical about its true intent. The facts are all there, and you cant argue with facts, however you need to keep in mind that Al Gore has a purpose, a goal in mind. He wants to scare people into action, he wants the shock value, and rightfully so. He is an intelligent man, he knows that unless someone lights a fire under our asses nobody is going to take action. So to me it was funny how all the different graphs he used had different timelines, some went back only 50 years, others went back 650,000 years. I’m not saying he was hiding something, but I can tell that some of his graphs and facts were tailored to have the hardest and most surprising impact on the viewers. For instance, he has a graph showing the fluctuation of CO2 and Temperature dating back 650,000 years. Along this graph you can see that temperature and CO2 levels rise and fall almost identically. At the end of this graph is a projection of the CO2 levels in 50 years, it is almost double of what it is today. Now, knowing that the temperature is going to follow the CO2 levels, this means he is insinuating that the average temperature of the earth will nearly double…in 50 years. Maybe this fact is true, but I just find it hard to believe that we are capable of doubling the average planet temperature in only 50 years, that means that in 2055 the average temperature of the earth will be 116 degrees. The graph proves a valid point, but something about just did not seem right.
Now all my skepticism aside, it certainly is an extremely important movie. His tactics on simplifying everything so everyone can understand it is phenomenal. And the way he uses his own life to really drive points home on a personal level is equally as admirable. Global warming is a huge problem and we are making it much worse. I do not deny the fact that our current practices are hurting our planet and that change is MUCH needed. There are loads of undeniable evidence in this movie that shows us we are in big trouble, Mt. Kilimanjaro’s snowcaps are receding and almost gone, and glaciers around the world are receding rapidly. This glacier problem is especially serious because so many people worldwide rely on glacier run-off as there drinking water. Another dangerous effect of global warming is the warming of the oceans. It is the ocean and wind currents which circulate heat around the globe, and for the ocean to do its part it relies on a balance between hot and cold currents. If the ocean is heated up too much these currents will shift in unpredictable ways. On top of that, warmer oceans give way to stronger storms, warm water is what feeds hurricanes, and not only have hurricanes become stronger, but they also are showing up in places around the globe where we thought it wasn’t possible (Coast of Brazil). According to the film we have set a tornado record in 2005, and Japan set a typhoon record in the same year. These are only a few of the side effects of global warming, so any argument against it’s presence at this point is pretty much moot. However, in the introduction I stated that I thought we were dealing with the problem the wrong way, and what I mean by that is I think its high time we start funneling funds and attention in to ways of COPING with this problem rather then preventing it.