An Inconvenient Truth
2006: Davis Guggenheim
Rated PG – 100 min.
VAULT RATING: 8
We must first remind ourselves that Al Gore is not running for president. After taking in today’s film, the obvious question arises: “Why not?”
“An Inconvenient Truth” is a kind of documentary that does a number of things well, not the least of which is the resurrection of a political career. More importantly, it is a mind-bomb for skeptics of the science of global warming.
If you don’t know what to think about the proposition that earth’s climate is being harmed, possibly catastrophically, by human activity, then you need to see this film. If you know better, or are a member of Al Gore’s choir, then you also need to see this film.
The film is more like an eloquent college lecture with snappy production values and even a hydraulic lift. It is, at its heart, a slide show that Gore has given hundreds of times in cities around the world while he walked the political wilderness since he lost the 2000 presidential election.
Vault will let the bravura lecture speak for itself on all counts except one; that there is scientific disagreement where global warming is concerned. “An Inconvenient Truth” points out that there is no peer reviewed science in the thousands of papers done on the topic that disputes the science of global warming. None.
The only science that disputes this issue is that science paid for by the oil, gas and coal industries who want to continue polluting the air and water as they have always done to obscene profit and at the expense of the public health.
Don’t get me started, Vaultkateers, on the fact that we live in the shadow of the Shawville Power Plant, one of the dirtiest in the country. Or maybe let’s not talk about the public servants who want very much to put giant dump sites in Rush and Boggs townships. But there I go blowing my cover and exposing myself as an environmentalist. We were talking about a movie.
“An Inconvenient Truth” singles out one such particularly egregious evil man: Philip A. Cooney. Cooney was an oil industry lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute who was in charge of global warming disinformation. Imagine API’s glee when, in January 2001, Cooney was appointed chief of staff of the White House Environmental office. When government-sponsored science came across his desk warning of the dangers of global warning, Cooney, who has no background in science or the environment, simply edited the science to fit administration talking points. Cooney resigned in the ensuing scandal but was back to work within days for Exxon/Mobil.
The point of all this is that very powerful, very rich people want very much for the public to doubt that global warming exists and, that if it exists, that it is no danger at all. I mean, the current administration hired an oil lobbyist to run the White House Environmental office. Cripes! Is it any wonder that, while zero science exists to refute global warming, more than half of the articles in the popular press express doubt as to the cause of global warming? Not this one, brother.
Government scientists have been silenced in the past and will likely be silenced again where big money is at stake versus the public good.
Why, just this week past, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken up a case where states are suing the federal government to force the Environmental Protection Agency (There’s an oxymoron, if I ever saw one.) to do its job in regulating emissions.
“When is the predicted cataclysm?” asked Justice Antonin Scalia. Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that China’s growing economy would offset any “marginal benefit” states hope to win by regulating emissions. (Vault strongly suspects these judges may also turn out to be evil. You see what we’re up against here.)
The auto industry has sued many states that have enacted higher emissions standards without the federal blessing. The auto industry cries out that more efficient cars will hurt business. Never mind that Toyota and Honda’s profits are up while Ford and GM’s are down. Please remember that these are the same clowns who fought for years against seat belts.
To this, Gore points out that Chinese emissions standards are substantially higher than those in the U.S. Gore claims in the film that U.S. auto makers can’t sell cars in China because our cars don’t meet China’s environmental standards. Now THAT is sad. But it DOES help defeat the straw man that one must choose between the environment and the economy. Gore makes the case that leading edge environmental technology can be the source of a large, new, very profitable economy.
The United States is by far the single-largest contributor to global warming, and as such, it would be fitting that the U.S. also take the lead in solving the problem, but currently only two developed nations have not entered the ring: the United States and Australia.
There is much information here to consider. And those who discount the film because it is a former politician’s pet project miss the point almost as much as some Supreme Court justices do. I showed the film to some skeptics recently, and at first they struggled against the wall of evidence. But at least they were open enough to consider another viewpoint. I’m sure “An Inconvenient Truth” gave my friends something to think about. I like a movie that forces you to think.
If we continue to do nothing but think about global warming, then our planet will look very different in 50 years’ time. Millions could die. Economies will be shaken if not utterly razed within our children’s lifetimes. British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently said as much when he described the issue as a danger “so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence.” That’s Tony Blair talking there.
Al Gore’s movie (We’ll call it Al Gore’s movie.) rounds off with the very hopeful message that the means to defeat global warming is at hand. We have all the science and technology we need right now to basically save the planet for future generations. All we need is the political will.
“An Inconvenient Truth” is less a great film than it is an important document, an important discussion that we all need to have about the way we live today. The film represents big ideas in a thoughtful and entertaining light that might otherwise horrify us.
I remember the 2000 presidential campaign where Gore’s braininess was used against him like a cudgel. Given current conditions, I’d say a little braininess would have gone a long way, wouldn’t you?
Still, we must remind ourselves that Al Gore is not running for president. Yet. And remember that Video Vault called it first.