NYT: 'An Inconvenient Truth': Al Gore's Fight Against Global Warming

[DeepModem Mom]

'An Inconvenient Truth': Al Gore's Fight Against Global Warming
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: May 22, 2006


(Eric Lee/Paramount Classics)
Al Gore and Davis Guggenheim, director of "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary that focuses on Mr. Gore's efforts to fight global warming.

The frustrations of a man whose long-sought goal remains out of reach are vividly on display in the first few minutes of "An Inconvenient Truth," a new documentary about former Vice President Al Gore's quest to spur action against global warming.

And the scene has nothing to do with the Supreme Court vote that denied Mr. Gore a chance to win the 2000 presidential election.

He is tapping on his laptop, adding yet another tweak to the illustrated climate lecture he has given more than 1,000 times since 1989 in ever more sophisticated ways: first with flip charts, then slides, then a mix of digital imagery, animation and high-tech stagecraft, and now through this film itself, which was screened at Cannes and opens on Wednesday in New York and Los Angeles.

He laments being unable so far to awaken the public to what he calls a "planetary emergency" despite evidence that heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases are warming the earth, and even after Hurricane Katrina and Europe's deadly 2003 heat wave, which he calls a foretaste of much worse to come....

***

The question now is whether the documentary, with the potential to reach millions of people instead of a roomful of listeners at a time, can do the job....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/22/movies/22gore.html

[BrklynLiberal]

1. kicked and recommended!

[bliss_eternal]

2. ...his efforts certainly aren't helped

when our popular culture includes episodes of South Park, where characters spend much of the show running from global warming (which is seen as nothing).:eyes: I've laughed at many of SP's episodes--that wasn't one of them.

I applaud his efforts and hope this documentary does well! :)

Kicked!

[987654321]

5. I saw that one

And I thought the same thing as you.
That show cracks me up, but I was extremely disappointed in that episode as well as the one recently that had Al Gore as some sort of raging lunatic chasing after an imaginary creature. I thought that they had gone too far. Irreverent humor is one thing, but with issues that are as devastating as this one, I thought they were very irresponsible.

[bliss_eternal]

13. Yikes--I missed the Al Gore episode

that you mentioned. Probably because the show the last couple of seasons wasn't funny for me, so I've stopped watching.

I agree with you. Much of what they've done of late has been irresponsible. I would have more patience with it if I saw them "lampooning" people on both sides of the aisle, but this is not the case. They seem to take joy in taking pot shots at progressives and liberals, but have little to say about the extremism of the right--at least of late.

:hi: Welcome to DU! You've been here some time, but my first opportunity to see you!

[987654321]

15. Thanks for the welcome.

And I am glad I am not the only one who has thought that SP has gone overboard. And yes, at one time they were funnier and seemed to pick on anyone and everyone who was a public figure. I can't figure out why they are so one sided now. I guess it bothers me most because I know with that kind of medium, they really do have a lot of influence on the young people who watch that show.

[nxylas]

16. South Park

To be fair, I think they were mostly lampooning the movie The Day After Tomorrow, which showed global warming as something sudden that you can run away from, contrasting it with the gradual nature of real climate change. Then again, with the right-wing political messages that often appear in SP, it wouldn't surprise me if Trey and Matt turned out to be climate change deniers.

[greenman3610]

3. everyone on this list needs to call their multiplex

and ask for this film to be shown.

[Time for change]

4. Everytime I see something like this it brings back memories of the coup of

2000. It makes me so mad.

Thank you for posting this. I hope this gets the attention it deserves.

[jarnocan]

6. Restoring Democracy in the US is an environmentally

friendly mission. We can not make much progress on so many issues without restoring our democracy first. I can't believe how they are fighting against US democracy, by not allowing a fair vote on the HR550 (Russ Holt's bill) in congress. We had high hopes for a while. http://vvlobbydays.blogspot.com It is all such BU**SH**!

[Time for change]

7. Exactly

We are very much on the verge of becoming a dictatorship, if we aren't there already.

[Canuckistanian]

8. This is going to be a must-see movie

Just like Fahrenheit 9/11. An excellent counterpoint to the daily propaganda.

I hope to God it makes a difference and even if it doesn't motivate people to ACT at least it'll get them THINKING.

[NastyDiaper]

9. Nothing local yet, but locations are being added.

http://www.climatecrisis.net/findatheater

[tinrobot]

10. Go see it.

I saw Gore's presentation last fall, and it is very eye opening.

[Pirate Smile]

11. Here is another article on Gore.

http://newyorkmetro.com/news/politics/17065/

[Felinity]

12. Isn't it precisely that Al Gore no longer wants to be President

that makes him a great candidate? He has been to the show, faced a crushing disappointment, and found a way to turn anthracite into Gold. Six years of being a DC outsider, of living out the searing pain of a Noble Being's flight into the sun, of having to resurrect himself from the ashes of a defeat not earned and not deserved, are what make this man strong enough, humble enough, and reticent enough, to try to save our damaged nation.

Just a thought.

[bonemachine]

14. To be honest

Al Gore has always talked a good walk about global warming, but his walk has seemed pretty weak to me...

[Divernan]

19. Cynical, ideologically facile sniping doesn't pass 4 political discourse

Who, pray tell, in this country or elsewhere has been a stronger advocate for dealing with global warming than Al Gore? In other words, upon exactly what facts are you basing your claim that "his walk has seemed pretty weak"? And would you describe W's stance on the environment and global warming as a manly stride?

Here are some excerpts from the New York Times review, and I note that the reviewer, A. O. Scott, is known to be an extremely tough critic.
(from the article)

Appearances to the contrary, Mr. Guggenheim's movie is not really about Al Gore. It consists mainly of a multimedia presentation on climate change that Mr. Gore has given many times over the last few years, interspersed with interviews and Mr. Gore's voice-over reflections on his life in and out of politics. His presence is, in some ways, a distraction, since it guarantees that "An Inconvenient Truth" will become fodder for the cynical, ideologically facile sniping that often passes for political discourse these days. But really, the idea that worrying about the effect of carbon-dioxide emissions on the world's climate makes you some kind of liberal kook is as tired as the image of Mr. Gore as a stiff, humorless speaker, someone to make fun of rather than take seriously.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
I can't think of another movie in which the display of a graph elicited gasps of horror, but when the red lines showing the increasing rates of carbon-dioxide emissions and the corresponding rise in temperatures come on screen, the effect is jolting and chilling. Photographs of receding ice fields and glaciers — consequences of climate change that have already taken place — are as disturbing as speculative maps of submerged coastlines. The news of increased hurricane activity and warming oceans is all the more alarming for being delivered in Mr. Gore's matter-of-fact, scholarly tone.

He speaks of the need to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions as a "moral imperative," and most people who see this movie will do so out of a sense of duty, which seems to me entirely appropriate. Luckily, it happens to be a well-made documentary, edited crisply enough to keep it from feeling like 90 minutes of C-Span and shaped to give Mr. Gore's argument a real sense of drama. As unsettling as it can be, it is also intellectually exhilarating, and, like any good piece of pedagogy, whets the appetite for further study. This is not everything you need to know about global warming: that's the point. But it is a good place to start, and to continue, a process of education that could hardly be more urgent. "An Inconvenient Truth" is a necessary film.

[Looper]

17. Al Gore provides unprecidented leadership

GLOBAL WARMING ALERT: GORE BURNS 439,500 LBS OF FUEL TO ATTEND SUMMIT

"The most vulnerable part of the Earth's environment is the very thin layer
of air clinging near to the surface of the planet, that we are now so
carelessly filling with gaseous wastes that we are actually altering the
relationship between the Earth and the Sun - by trapping more solar
radiation under this growing blanket of pollution that envelops the entire
world," Vice President Gore told the U.N. Global Warming conference of 159
nations this morning in Koyto, Japan.

In what was one the most dramatic speeches in recent memory, Gore announced
to world leaders: "Whether we recognize it or not, we are now engaged in an
epic battle to right the balance of our Earth, and the tide of this battle
will turn on when the majority of people in the world become sufficiently
aroused by shared sense of urgent danger to join an all-out effort."

Applause filed the halls of the Kyoto International Conference Center. "We
must achieve a safe overall concentration level for greenhouse gases in the
Earth's atmosphere."

The message is serious. So serious in fact, that Vice President Al Gore burned more than 439,500 pounds of fuel, or 65,600 gallons, at a cost of more than $131,000 on his 16,000 mile daytrip, just to deliver the warning.

Now that's commitment.

Air Force II's Global Warming Express features an itinerary that takes the
vice president from Washington to Florida to Washington to Alaska to Japan
and back -- all in just 72-hours.

Saturday, December 6, 1997
9:45 a.m. Air Force II departs Andrews AFB enroute Fort Myers, Fla.
12:05 p.m. Air Force II arrives Southwest Florida Regional Airport. Gate 69-A.
2 p.m. Vice President Gore addresses the 50th Anniversary/Rededication,
Everglades Municipal Airport, Everglades National Park.
6:40 p.m. Air Force II departs Florida en route AFB.
8:35 p.m. Air Force II arrives at Andrews Air Force Base.
9:45 p.m. -- Air Force II departs Andrews Air Force Base en route Elmendorf
Air Force Base

Sunday, Dec. 7
1:15 a.m. -- Air Force II arrives Elmendorf Air Force Base, Anchorage, Alaska
2:45 a.m. -- Air Force II departs Elmendorf Air Force Base en route Osaka, Japan

Monday, Dec. 8
5 a.m. -- Air Force II arrives Osaka International Airport, Osaka Japan
11:15 p.m. -- Air Force II departs Osaka, Japan en route Elmendorf Air Force
Base
12:35 p.m. -- Air Force II arrives Elmendorf Air Force Base, Anchorage, Alaska
2:05 p.m. -- Air Force II departs Elmendorf Air Force Base en route Andrews
Air Force Base

Tuesday, Dec. 9
12:45 a.m. -- Air Force II arrives Andrews Air Force Base

----

"The extra heat which cannot escape is beginning to change the global
patterns of climate to which we are accustomed. Our fundamental challenge
now is to find out whether and how we can change the behaviors that are
causing the problem."

Gore's plane, a Boeing 707 gas guzzler burns on average 4.1 gallons a mile.
The complete Washington to Florida to Washington to Alaska to Japan and
return to Washington trip calculated from commercial air mileage tables is
just over 16,000 miles total. Gas gallons needed for AIR FORCE II to go
16,000 miles: 65,600. Applying the average price of $2.01 per gallon of
Jet A to the 16,000 mile r/t -- the fuel cost alone passes $131,000.00.
There are 6.7 pounds per gallon of jet fuel. Total pounds of fuel burned on
Gore's Global Warming Express -- 439,500.

Unprecedented Leadership.

[Divernan]

18. Now give us stats on fuel W/Cheney burn on campaign trips

You know - all their trips on Air Force One or Two where they spend 1/2 an hour in a photo op with a gold star mother and then off to an elite enclave of the local fatcats for $1,000 or $10,000 a plate dinner fundraisers for themselves or other neocon Repub. candidates. How many times has Ms. Rice flown equal distances or greater distances on Air Force One or Two for photo ops of her w/the troops, and then its off to insult international leaders? And when's the last time, if ever, that a U.N. conference gave a standing ovation to W or any of his minions?

Gore was officially representing the country at a major UN conference.

Answer quickly, please. I don't think you'll be around long.