tion, since it guarantees that "An Inconvenient Truth" will
become fodder for the cynical, ideologically facile sniping that often passes
for political discourse these days. But really, the idea that worrying about
the effect of carbon-dioxide emissions on the world's climate makes you some
kind of liberal kook is as tired as the image of Mr. Gore as a stiff, humorless
speaker, someone to make fun of rather than take seriously.
In any case, Mr. Gore has long since proven to be a deft self-satirist. (He
recently told a moderator at a Cannes Film Festival news conference to address
him as "your Adequacy.") He makes a few jokes to leaven the grim gist
of "An Inconvenient Truth," and some of them are funny, in the style
of a college lecturer's attempts to keep the attention of his captive audience.
Indeed, his onstage manner pacing back and forth, fiddling with gadgets,
gesturing for emphasis is more a professor's than a politician's. If he were
not the man who, in his own formulation "used to be the next president of
the United States of America," he might have settled down to tenure and a
Volvo (or maybe a Prius) in some leafy academic grove.
But as I said, the movie is not about him. He is, rather, the surprisingly
engaging vehicle for some very disturbing information. His
explanations of complex environmental phenomena the jet stream has always
been a particularly tough one for me to grasp are clear, and while some of
the visual aids are a little corny, most of the images are stark,
illuminating and powerful.
I can't think of another movie in which the display of a graph elicited
gasps of horror, but when the red lines showing the increasing rates of
carbon-dioxide emissions and the corresponding rise in temperatures come on
screen, the effect is jolting and chilling. Photographs of receding ice fields
and glaciers consequences of climate change that have already taken place
are as disturbing as speculative maps of submerged coastlines. The news of
increased hurricane activity and warming oceans is all the more alarming for
being delivered in Mr. Gore's matter-of-fact, scholarly tone.
He speaks of the need to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions as a "moral
imperative," and most people who see this movie will do so out of a sense
of duty, which seems to me entirely appropriate. Luckily, it happens to be a
well-made documentary, edited crisply enough to keep it from feeling like 90
minutes of C-Span and shaped to give Mr. Gore's argument a real sense of drama.
As unsettling as it can be, it is also intellectually exhilarating, and, like
any good piece of pedagogy, whets the appetite for further study. This is not
everything you need to know about global warming: that's the point. But it is a
good place to start, and to continue, a process of education that could
hardly be more urgent. "An Inconvenient Truth" is a
"An Inconvenient Truth" is rated PG (Parental guidance
suggested). Some of the subjects discussed might be upsetting.
An Inconvenient Truth
Directed by Davis Guggenheim; produced by Laurie David, Lawrence Bender and
Scott Z. Burns; released by Paramount Classics and Participant Productions.
Running time: 96 minutes.
For more information
movie website: www.climatecrisis.net
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