Fake or Fiction?

Human beings have a tremendous affect on their surroundings. Everything that human beings do has impact, whether it's flicking on a light switch or driving a sport utility vehicle. Planet earth is constantly evolving and so are its inhabitants. Modern scientists are on a quest to determine whether or not these changes naturally occur, or whether or not earth's inhabitants have to do anything with it. Global Warming is at the forefront of this debate. The temperature of the earth has consistently been getting warmer. This leads to the question of what the affects will be, and what are the causes. It can be very difficult for the average person to fully understand the impact that they have on earth without the proper information and education.

Inconvenient Truth is an Academy Award winning documentary that discusses the affects of global warming. The producer of the film, former vice president Al Gore, even won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts against Global Warming. This film has won numerous accolades, and is widely acclaimed. Viewers of the documentary have to ask themselves a few questions though. The documentary's main purpose is to inform viewers and to make them environmentally aware. Question is, do they do this successfully. In order to firmly understand the film and the material covered, one has to know the contents of the film, and scientific perspectives outside of the film.

Background of the film

Inconvenient Truth followed Al Gore on his crusade to stop global warming in its tracks. When Al Gore lost the 2000 Presidential election, he began to focus on the issue. The documentary puts a different spin on global warming. In the past, it has been a political issue. It use to just be something that liberal politicians would bring up in campaigns, but wouldn't have anything to back it up with. They didn't have a plan to fix it. Al Gore takes a moral stance on global warming. If human beings have destructed an aspect of Earth, they should do their best to fix it. Al Gore provides several statistics to support his claims. It is clear that Mr Gore has a lot of passion for fighting against global warming. Hopefully he will use his power in the future to continue to fight against global warming. An Inconvenient Truth is great for sparking conversation about climate change; however a documentary can only do so much.

Al Gore is a liberal leaning politician; however this doesn't negatively affect the film. It clearly has a progressive stance, but it doesn't lean too far to the left. The main topic of the film is global warming. It doesn't turn into a political statement. The film doesn't blame anyone either. This is precisely why it is affective.

Scientific Perspective

National Geographic, a well respected science magazine, analyzed some of the claims made in the film. In the documentary, Al Gore claims that hurricanes have become stronger and deadlier over the past 30 years. He links this to the temperature of the earth rising. Eric Steig, an earth scientist at Washington University supports the claim about hurricanes, but also adds that there is no proof that hurricanes like Katrina have anything to do with global warming. Gore also argues that animal extinctions, deaths, and the melting of ice in Greenland will have a link to global warming. Steig has some problems with these claims. He doesn't deny that rises in temperature will cause harm to people and other species, but he is open to other possibilities. It appears as if Steig believes that there are other causes to these problems. Steig doesn't have a problem with the science, he mainly has issues with the numbers. All Gore makes the claim the Greenland will no longer have ice by the summer of 2050. However the exact date is uncertain. This could happen in as little as 20 years, and as much as 100 years from now.

Sources:

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.asp#4

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060524-global-warming_2.html