By Dennis O’Neil
“An Inconvenient Truth” educates its audience about the crisis of global warming and how humans can help to solve the problem before it is too late.
The 95-minute documentary features former United States Vice President Al Gore as its central figure, and centers primarily around a slide show and lecture which Gore gives about the debilitating effect that global warming is having on the environment. The film also documents much of Gore’s personal and professional struggle to make fighting global warming a top priority on our nation’s political agenda. It is a fight that Gore describes as “a moral imperative.”
Much of the information which Gore presents has a chilling effect on the viewer. He demonstrates how global warming has had an adverse effect on oceanic and weather activity, contributing to the Tsunami disaster in Asia as well as to hurricane Katrina. He also demonstrates how increases in temperature are directly proportionate to increases in carbon emissions, a problem to which he says the United States is a leading contributor.
But even though much of the film is dedicated to stating the horrible effect that global warming has had, it also reveals methods by which the viewer can help to reverse these effects, ranging from something as small as recycling to something as large as investing in alternate forms of energy that do not emit carbon.
“I think the most positive effect that the film can have is in increasing people’s awareness of the issue and really getting them talking about it as a current event,” said audience member and Indiana University Southeast student Mark Phillips. “It’s a real forward-thinking piece.”
Thus far, the response to the film has been overwhelmingly positive. Opening in limited release in early summer, “An Inconvenient Truth” has raked in more than $20 million at the box office, making it the fourth highest-grossing documentary of all time, coming in just behind filmmaker Michael Moore’s 2002 documentary “Bowling for Columbine.” The film was also a hit at the Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals, and currently boasts a 92-percent critical approval rating on movie review Web site http://www.RottenTomatoes.com.
Despite the film’s success, the issue of global warming still remains paramount in the eyes of its creators. Gore is donating all of his earnings from the film to the Alliance for Climate Protection and Paramount Classics, the studio that produced the film, has agreed to donate five percent of the gross profits to the organization as well.
The film’s success has greatly aided the crusade to make the public more aware of global warming. This fall, the Climate Project organization is expected to begin training hundreds of volunteers to perform the slide show (which Gore did alone for over two decades) all across the country.
“It has been really thrilling to see this film’s success become a grass roots phenomenon,” said John Lesher, president of Paramount Classics. “People are buying group tickets to see the film, and forming discussion groups afterwards to talk about lessons that they learned from the movie. It’s been pretty incredible.”
