Inconvenient Truth: The Science Behind

¶ … Inconvenient Truth: The Science behind it

Director Davis Guggenheim's (2006) documentary featuring former Vice President, Al Gore, an Inconvenient Truth, documents the former vice president's campaign against global warming. The documentary is, according to the film's producer, based on a Power Point presentation that Al Gore has been giving for years, and, together, they decided that they could reach many more people by creating a documentary film based on the Power Point presentation. Any number of big name actors and Hollywood elite endorsed the documentary, in which Al Gore claims "puts the science front and center."

Gore claims that, "Scientific consensus is that we are causing global warming." We watch the documentary eagerly, looking for the science that confirms those very strong opening statements, and the science that the former vice president claims is at the center of the evidence that global warming is occurring, and that we, people of the world, are causing it. The immediate thought is that there is good science in this documentary, because there must be to make such bold, out front declarations such as science is front and center, and that a scientific consensus reveals a response to mankind is global warming. Right away we suspect that there is good chemistry to support these strong contentions; right away, no less than 30 minutes into this 100 minute documentary, and it becomes clear as to the science that is driving this documentary that has engaged the names of big celebrities like Tom Hanks, and Leonardo Di Caprio.

The science, unfortunately, is less chemistry and more psychology as the documentary has very little chemistry - rather, no chemistry - and is replete with emotional appeals to animal lovers, and environmentalists without a clue as to scientific hypothesis, testing, or conclusions, but with a lot of good intentions. There is no scientific proof of anything in this documentary; even though a handful of scientists concur with Gore that mankind must be the source of global warming.

The soft voice of Al Gore opens the film with the words, "You look at that river," which is gently flowing, and then, "you remember" that those quiet and beautiful contemplative moments are perhaps what life is most about. It is certainly what we have learned to take for granted about our planet. "I am Al Gore, I used to be the next president of the United States," and there is laughter in the audience. So far, no science, but emotional and political emotions are played upon. The scene goes to the view of the planet Earth from the moon, "Earth Rise." Now Gore has appealed to the Apollo space generation - but there remains no science. Time lapsed images of the rotation of the Earth, but no science.