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Al Gore serves as narrator and presentor in the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.
The danger a documentary about something so technical and scientific as global warming is that it can easily become convoluted and dry. Data and numbers thrown at you at a dizzying pace that you just can’t process it. An Inconvenient Truth, regardless of how you may feel about the subject, does a brilliant job of boiling down an unemotional, cold series of fact and presenting them in a visual, easy to grasp and entertaining method.
Al Gore, the former Vice-President of the United States and almost President, serves as the film’s sometimes emotional narrator. The majority of the film follows him as he gives a presentation to a group of people. This presentation is intercut with personal revelations by Gore about how he developed his interest in environmental science and global warming. And I’m sure I’m not the first person to say this, but if he showed this side while running for President, the last six years would have been much different.
During the personal reflections, Gore discusses the accident that nearly killed his young son, two teachers that affected his life, and how he began lecturing around the world regarding global warming.
The rest of the film has Gore standing before a giant screen presenting graphs and charts that show how CO2 levels resulting from pollutants are causing global temperatures to rise. He also addresses ways of fighting this trend, as well as the chief obstacle to why it has become so difficult to stop pollution — mainly, the lack of political will to make it happen.
An Inconvenient Truth presents a bleak assessment of where the earth’s climate is heading. Things are going to hell and a hand basket, the film says, and will get seriously worse within fifty years. Is this alarmist? Perhaps. That doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t true.
Personally, I’m reluctant to discuss the science, since I’m not a scientist. As Gore explains, the science community is largely in support of the idea that there is global warming. That things are bad, and that we as a nation need to make serious changes if we want to preserve the planet. And for the most part, I think Inconvenient Truth remains fairly honest it is presentation. It doesn’t answer criticism point-by-point, but presents its case rather simply and leaves the viewer to take the next step. After watching this, you need to read more and determine for yourself if you feel the film is being sincere.
The only time I felt An Inconvenient Truth was being unfair is when it shows the after effects of Hurricane Katrina, which occurred while the documentary was filming. It’s unfair because it shows the aftermath of that terrible storm as a means of showing what can happen as global warming creates more and more powerful storms. And while there’s truth to it, the damage caused in New Orleans wasn’t so much about the storm but about poor government response and weak levees. Had the levees been built properly, chances are the damage the city suffered would never have taken place. So, while the storm’s strength was an issue, the film over simplifies that particular event to make a point that isn’t really accurate.
I will make a note to defend An Inconvenient Truth in that the campaigns against the film are largely organized by special interest groups hired or backed by the oil or automotive industries that want to discredit the film for their own reasons. The facts presented in the film are fairly simple and are not disputed. The issue is really about interpretation.
As for this DVD, which is distributed in a non-plastic paper case, it includes a few special features. There’s an audio commentary by director Davis Guggenheim; a second commentary with producers Laurie David, Lawrence Bender, Scott Z. Burns and Lesley Chilcott; and an update about certain facts mentioned in the film by Gore. There’s also a making-of featurette.
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