An Inconvenient Truth

Hopefully, Al Gore's compelling lecture/documentary An Inconvenient Truth can finally end the debate about the existence of global warming and move our national discussion to a more productive phase. That's the one where we figure out what, if anything, can actually be done about climate change before it's too late. (More sober and realistic countries than mine have been in this phase for years now.)

Practically guaranteed an Oscar nomination by virtue of its box office gross alone, Truth mainly consists of Gore's traveling slideshow, in segments filmed all over the world. In between sequences of Gore lecturing various crowds about the nature of the coming climate crisis (alliteration!), we get little interstitial bits about his political and family background and the teacher who first inspired him to study global warming back in his collegiate days.

It's all well-directed by David Guggenheim and surprisingly entertaining. Despite the media's incessant, juvenile focus on Gore's stiffness and monotone style of speech, he's actually kind of a funny, self-effacing guy. It's interesting how professional politicians like Bob Dole and Al Gore hide their real personalities on the campaign trail, because most Americans who aren't blind partisans choose their candidate based on likability, confidence and charisma. If Gore had spoken with the dynamism, passion and confidence he exhibits here back in 2000, he'd have been elected. By an even wider margin, I mean.

But despite Gore's best efforts to keep things positive and optimistic, this is a bleak horrorshow for those of us who already believe in the reality of global warming. Back in the '90s, before there was a lot of real-world evidence to clearly demonstrate the effects of greenhouse gases, I already believed in global warming. You see, I read news articles in which scientists predicted it based on studies and calculations. And, though they're not omniscient, those guys tend to know what they're talking about.

In 1996, almost exactly midway through Gore's tenure as Vice President, I was a freshman at UCLA. First-year undergrads at UCLA always have to take two "paired" science classes in the same discipline. I chose "atmospheric science." Ugh. The lectures and reading were, to me, hugely boring, save for the one particular session when the guy sitting in the row in front of me asked the professor if your face would really explode on the surface of Mars "like in Total Recall." That was awesome.

Anyway, this Atmo. Sci. 2 lecturer convinced this layman that the greenhouse effect and global warming were real. I believed him then and still do. The difference is, now it's 2006 and we can already see the empirical changes on a worldwide scale.

And I don't just mean Hurricane Katrina. I mean inexplicable heat waves in Europe, Asia and North America. I mean a record number of tornados recorded in the U.S. last year. I mean increased levels of species extinction, floods, tsunamis and glacial destruction. We are emitting gases that are destroying our habitat, and rather than getting down to the business of solving the problem (as we did years ago with that hole in the Ozone layer), we have to spend our time debunking right-wing assholes who insist that there's no problem. Becausethey'd prefer to be rich today, even if it means their progeny die off in 50 years.

But, hey, SUV's are the bomb! Tony Soprano drives one! You get to be all high up on the road, so you can feel momentarily bigger and more important than everyone else! And buying a hybrid car just makes you a smug goody-goody...Boo!



Appropriately, Gore doesn't spend too much time either explaining or proving global warming. It's real, okay? It's real...He points out the overwhelming scientific consensus about its reality, despite the overhyped, fictional "argument" presented by the media, and then focuses his presentation on the likely effects of increased global temperatures. ( never believed the hype because of my Atmo. Sci. 2 professor, who was very smart and an expert on this particular subject and who presented global warming as confirmed factual information.)

The remaining hour of film makes you want to lock yourself in a leak-proof basement with 100 years supply of rations. Obviously, as we saw in New Orleans, warmer oceans can contribute to larger and more turbulent storm systems, but this is only the beginning of our troubles.

I had, previous to watching the film, considered the coming famines and refugee crises to be the most dire environmental threats to our success as a species. A change in temperature can put crops and fresh water supplies at risk. Coastal flooding in areas like Florida, the Netherlands, China and India could create hundreds of millions of homeless people. Hundreds of millions!

Unbelievably, Gore sees the stakes as even more extreme. He's direct in his conclusions - this is a threat to human life on Earth. If we cannot solve this problem very soon, we may not live out the century. I mean...wow, that's heavy.

Delicate ecosystems cannot maintain stability if the climate is thrown off, even a minute amount. Already, we're seeing some species being threatened by the disappearance of glaciers and the change in seasons, both of which are directly attributable to human pollution and industry. I had not even considered the idea that global warming may lead to more exotic viral diseases, but the connection is clear enough. Warmer temperatures allow carriers like mosquitos to thrive, so naturally more viruses are spread. And more viruses means more mutations.

Rich or poor, First World or Third, tis kind of tumult in our living space may not be survivable at all. If Greenland melts, a process that has already begun and can be measured, global ocean levels will rise 20 feet. I'm pretty sure Palms, CA would be completely submerged, but I'd at least be getting my feet wet. Gore, in a clever bit of oratorical showmanship, points out that Ground Zero in Manhattan would be underwater. The implication is clear - this is a much more significant threat than that of terrorism, but it has been criminally ignored.

Despite this overwhelming pile of dramatic footage and harsh, gloomy charts and graphs, Gore tries his best to end An Inconvenient Truth with some hope for the future. His purpose is not to fill the viewer with suicidal despair so much as shock him or her into action. He confronts this problem directly at the close of the slideshow, urging his audience not to move directly from "denial to despair," but to pause for a moment and consider the possibility that our generation can save the entire human race.

Gore notes that we already possess the tools and technology needed to hold off and potentially even reverse global warming's effects. New energy-conservating technologies, more old-fashioned conservation efforts like recycling and heightened fuel emissions standards all play into Gore's "solution," but I can't say I was sold on our chances of evading tragedy here. Yes, of course, we know potentially how to save ourselves.

But will we actually do anything about it?

Gore says that the only thing America lacks is political will, as if that's something easy to come by. It's not. The American people have wanted out of Iraq for years now and still no one seems to have the political will to bring our troops home. (Nancy Pelosi, we're all fucking counting on you. Don't let us down.) We were arguing the pros and cons of universal health care in high school debate tournaments in the early 1990's and we can't even get a workable heath and prescription drug program going for senior citizens! Do I think that, in less than a decade, we can start really working towards staving off carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere? Um...can I get back to you on that? I've got to go load up on canned food and ammunition.