An Inconvenient Truth
Directed by Davis Guggenheim
Paramount Classics
2006
Rating:


At a time when political documentaries like "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Why We Fight" can't make their point without ironic music cues and general muckraking, "An Inconvenient Truth" enters the cinematic political area softly, allowing its facts about the reality (yes, reality) of global warming to stand for themselves and devastate those who are willing to listen.

That "An Inconvenient Truth" makes its case so mellifluously isn't surprising given who's delivering the sermon on the melting mount: Al Gore. Painted by the media as an emotionless bore, Gore naturally fills the roll of professor as he unveils a hi-tech Power Point presentation about the risk the world faces if industrialized nations don't change their ways. The closest to partisan "An Inconvenient Truth" ever comes is in Gore's assertion that "we should guard against other threats besides terrorism." That may seem inflammatory to some, but after Gore shows scientific projections of what would happen to Lower Manhattan by 2050 if Greenland's ice sheet melts (and "The Power of Nightmares" is taken into account), it's a claim that seems more like common sense than partisan politics.

Many will roll their eyes about a 100-minute lecture on something that President George W. Bush insists is just a theory. After all, environmentalism is a cause only for the Bill Mahers and left-wing green radicals of the world. Right?

Mock if you must (even the libertarian "South Park" turned Gore's vigilance into a joke in the episode "Manbearpig"), but this may be the first "slide show" that could literally save the world. Gore's detached demeanor gives way to real passion here as he tours the planet in an attempt to save it through his proof of manmade climate change.

"Deadwood" director Davis Guggenheim skillfully transforms Gore's presentation into something more than just a lecture and reveals the personal history that put Gore on his crusade. As a student at Harvard, Gore studied under Roger Revelle, the first scientist to discover the increase of carbon dioxide emissions and its implications on the planet. Gore, the son of a cattle rancher and tobacco farmer, learned what happens when one ignores evidence out of convenience when his sister died of lung cancer, and the near-death of his son at the age of 6 taught him not to take anything for granted.

Freed of political shackles that arguably prevented him from being a full-fledged environmental activist, Gore has turned his full attention to matters of global warming. His presentation of graphs charting the parallels between the increase in carbon dioxide and the increase in temperature and photographs of the near-snow-less Mt. Kilimanjaro and the collapsing polar ice caps are damning evidence that global warming is no mere theory.

Gore blames the so-called liberal media for the perception that global warming is still considered a hypothesis from green-biased scientists: 53% of major media articles challenge the veracity of global warming, while out of 960 peer-reviewed studies in science journals, none consider global warming to be anything but fact.

Even a bottom-line appeal is made to those who are more concerned about what acknowledging the reality of global warming will do to the economy: insurance companies are being forced to pay for the damage wrought by hurricanes created by overheated waters and a disrupted Gulfstream, while auto makers are seeing a decline in sales at least partially because their cars don't meet the fuel efficiency standards set by the rest of the world.

This argument might even interest President Bush, except that, when asked if he would see "An Inconvenient Truth," he tersely replied, "Doubt it," before insisting that "we need to set aside whether or not greenhouse gases have been caused by mankind or because of natural effects." (Admittedly, the president would probably take Gore's clip from the "Futurama" episode "Crimes of the Hot" more seriously and start dropping ice cubes the size of houses in the ocean to cool it down.)

For President Bush and other global warming detractors, Gore offers this Mark Twain quote: "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

Posted Friday, June 16, 2006

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