AL GORE AND AN INCONVIENT TRUTH
By Ella Tyler
Al Gore, former US vice president and candidate for US president in 2000, will be in Houston June 7 to publicize global warming. Since 2005, Gore has delivered a multi-media presentation concerned with global warming to more than 1,000 mostly college-age audiences. A documentary film about Gore and his presentation, “An Inconvenient Truth,” was screened for the press last week and will open here next month.
The film is compelling. It is full of illustrations that move the issue of global warming from an esoteric scientific discussion to a personal threat we must do something about.
Three scenes in the film did it for me. Gore showed post cards of a snow-topped Mount Kilimanjaro from 50 years ago contrasted with photos of a nearly naked mountain today. These were shocking. My grandfather was a friend of Ernest Hemingway, so I have seen books with a picture of that mountain with snow on it for most of my life.
Another picture from the film that grabbed me was one of a very long ice core from the Arctic that had a somewhat darker line across it. Gore said that the scientist showing him the core told him the line was dirty air from just before the United States passed the Environmental Protection Act. I’ve been to excellent lectures by Christopher Rapley and Richard B. Alley about the evidence for global warming found in these ice cores. I understood and believed that information about historical temperature changes and carbon dioxide levels comes from ice cores, but the film made the facts real.
At Rapley’s lecture, I had heard about the 2002 collapse of a massive Antarctic glacial shelf the size of Rhode Island, but my automatic reaction to any mention of Rhode Island is, “But that’s an itty, bitty state.” So what if an ice shelf that is smaller than Harris County collapses? However, Gore said that polar bears have drowned in the Arctic because they could not find ice floes that did not collapse under their weight. He illustrated this with an animated polar bear swimming away from a broken piece of ice into an endless ocean. When a polar bear needs it, an ice shelf the size of my car is important.
Something in the film will resonate with you. It may be images of a New York City under 20 feet of water, or a picture of a dried-up lake, or scenes from Hurricane Katrina.
Gore is personable and engaging in this movie. One startling scene, on several counts, is Gore ascending above the stage on a cherry picker in order to reach the place on his chart that represents CO2 levels over the next few decades.
Gore will be speaking at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, June 7, at the Hobby Center, Sarofim Hall. After his talk, he will sign his book, also called “An Inconvenient Truth.” For tickets, telephone (713) 315-2525 or go to the Progressive Forum website. The movie opens in Houston on Friday, June 9, at the Landmark River Oaks Theater.