An Inconvenient Truth is an Oscar-winning documentary directed by Davis Guggenheim. Focusing on the effects of global warming, the documentary follows Al Gore, former Vice President, as he gives a presentation on the affects of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. He explains about many different things but there is one overlying point:  If we don’t do something about the environment soon, things will get very bad, very quickly.   There is one thing that is also stressed in this film more than once — it isn’t just the major corporations doing the pollution, although they are the biggest contributors, we can also make a difference by lowering our own CO2, carbon dioxide, emissions.  (Please note that all information given in this post regarding the future is just projections.  None of this information is fact, but it is very likely to become so if nothing is done about it soon.) 

One of the problems we are having with all of the carbon dioxide we are releasing is that the global temperature of the earth is starting to rise.  This is causing the weather patterns to shift all over the world as well as a few other things.  One of the major weather changes we are already starting to experience is that certain places are getting too much water, and others are having droughts.  This is due to something called land evaporation which is caused when temperatures rise to abnormal amounts.  This is where instead of the large water bodies being evaporated and turned into rain, all of the land is being sucked dry of its water instead.  Then, the rain clouds get pushed over to other areas before releasing that water again.  This is having particularly severe affects on the southern countries in Africa.  In other places this same problem is causing major flooding.  For example, in 2005 in India, rainfall reached up to thirty seven inches in a day at one point and caused a whole different set of problems for those having to live through it.  These weather changes are devastating but they really aren’t the main thing we are worrying about.  The biggest problem is what is happening at the bottom and top of Earth, in the polar ice caps.  If we keep polluting at the same rate we are today, in only 60 years all of the polar ice will be completely melted during the summer.  This doesn’t just mean that polar bears and seals will die, it has the potential to make our oceans very hot, and other places very cold.  Ice reflects 90% of the sun’s heat that hits it where as water absorbs 90% of it.  If these ice caps melt, the golf stream and the North Atlantic Drift (Two of the most powerful currents bringing water from the coast of America and Europe to the North Pole to cool, and then bringing it back down again) will have no place to cool off and it could change the way that all of our currents flow around the world.  The bottom line is; we need to do something about these issues and we need to do it fast.

Questions I would like to ask the director of this film:

1. Why did you chose to include so much about Al Gore’s life that didn’t involve environmental change?

2. The movie took place mainly at a presentation Al Gore gave.  Was the movie built around the presentation, or was the presentation given specifically for the purpose movie?  If so, why did you chose to have it in a presentation format rather than a normal documentary?

3. What main message were you trying to convey in this film?  Do you feel that you conveyed that message successfully?