Former US presidential candidate Al Gore is now touring the
world trying to spread the word about climate change, with the above
being just one of many points he makes in his seminar. It also includes
manifold alarming graphs demonstrating the accelerated heating of the
earth, predicting rises in sea levels and forecasting an increase in
the sort of weather patterns that created the devastating Hurricane
Katrina.
An Inconvenient Truth
is nominally a documentary about Gore's crusade to spread his message,
but in fact it's not much more than a couple of cameras positioned
around his seminar, punctated by some pensive voice-overs from Gore and
a bit of autobiography from the ex-politician. Clearly, it's just a way
to spread his talk to audiences who might not otherwise see it.
Is
it fascinating? Of course it is. Imagine a Michael Moore film with the
constant editorialising and shameless emotionalism ratcheted down a few
notches, and you'll have An Inconvenient Truth.
Is it convincing? Not really. Those who walk in with a preconceived
idea about global warming will find little to change their minds either
way. I went in wanting to be convinced - I'm what you might call a
practical conservationist - but Gore's speech leaves out too many
details. (This might be the filmmakers' fault, but it adds up to the
same thing.)
An example is when Gore asserts that global warming
is science fact, not a theory, but biased media outlets distort this
perception. To do so, he cites a sample of 900+ academic articles out
of about 2,000, not one of which expressed any doubt that global
warming was a real phenomenon. He then contrasts this with a similar
number of articles in the media - nearly half of which portray it as an
unproved theory.
Sounds convincing, superficially. But those
with an analytical mind will immediately ask, yes, but who chose those
900 articles? Did they have an agenda? What was the content of the
other 1,000 studies?
Probably 50 per cent of the points Gore
makes throw up such questions and none of them are ever answered. For a
documentary devoted to exposing the lies and half-truths of
environmental politics, An Inconvenient Truth isn't very transparent.
So
what, you say, at least it's getting the message out there. Maybe, but
its selective delivery of 'the facts' leaves it wide open to
conservative assassination. An Inconvenient Truth could have been to stick-in-the-mud politicians and greedy energy providers what Super Size Me
was to the junk food industry, but instead it's destined to be a
two-week curiosity easily carved up by right-wing commentators and
spin-doctors.
DVD
Extras The DVD - which, by the way, came to us in just a paper sleeve -
assumingly because it's better for the environment for it not to be in
a plastic case? - includes such supplementary materials as an interview
with Gore, commentary by the director, and a making-of. Conclusion:
Movie 70% Extras: 60% 
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