An Inconvenient Truth

Global warming has quite become a household name in the past decade . But with limited information around , the layman can hardly grasp how compelling the subject matter proves to be unless he sees this movie based on a slide show given by former presidential candidate Al Gore . In An Inconvenient Truth , Al Gore has taken the reigns and is steering the world city by city ' family by family ' into a serious wake-up call for the planet with a series of lectures about the problem . The documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim breaks up

an otherwise boring lecture into three parts : one is illustrating Gore 's actual PowerPoint presentation before an audience another is with some footage featuring the Democrat exploring the globe as he examines the effects of global warming and the third are the vignettes about his personal life interspersed with the previous two

Gore 's thesis follows the familiar global warming explanation : earth is heating up because increasing industrialization and population growth have accelerated carbon dioxide emission trends . The greenhouse effect that gets carbon trapped in the atmosphere is warming up the oceans shrinking the icebergs and glaciers , and melting polar ice . To emphasize his point , Gore presents a series of "before " and "after " shots of shrinking glaciers from HYPERLINK "http /epod .usra .edu /archive /epodviewer .php3 ?oid 120832 " Mount Kilimanjaro , Patagonia , Swiss Alps and Glacier National Park , even drying up of rivers and lakes . As Gore relates these tales , he also raises awareness about the reluctance of political leaders to do something about the problem . As he lays out the evidence of an impending climate crisis , he proposes that individuals take steps to reduce their own inadvertent poisoning of the atmosphere , and to persuade others to do likewise . Overall , the film bears a powerful message that Gore is trying to mount as simply as he can onto the layman 's reasoning , an argument that is likely to remain in non-cynical minds long after the film comes to a conclusion

From a biological point of view , many film critics have given high marks for the film 's scientific accuracy . It is remarkably up to date , with reference to some of the very latest research . Discussion of recent changes in Antarctica and Greenland are expertly laid out . Gore expertly talks about the relationship between sea surface temperature and hurricane intensity . As expected , he uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society , but he doesn 't highlight the connection any more than is appropriate

One of the most alarming signs of global warming is the collapsing ice-shelf in the Antarctic Peninsula , a phenomenon attributed to the region 's warming temperature in the last 50 years . To drive the audience towards his point , Gore presents a graph of data derived from Antarctic ice cores showing temperature and carbon dioxide levels over a period of 650 ,000 years . As world temperatures rise , wind and ocean currents change , leading to a variety of unfamiliar...