Steven Kirby
Sam Mudd
English 151
19 October 2010
You Can’t Argue with Facts
“An Inconvenient Truth” is Al Gore’s attempt to describe the world’s current environmental state to anyone willing to listen. After watching the documentary I was left with feelings of intrigue, astonishment, and most of all confusion. The statistics and the eye opening graphs Gore shows throughout the presentation were all very alarming, and it was because of this I kept asking myself the question: “Are we as humans really this destructive?” I have done extensive research on the climate change predicament, and I believe that my knowledge on the subject will ultimately prove that we as humans are the main cause of the climate crisis we are currently undergoing.
My research showed that Gore’s information matches the data of most scientists and climatologists that have done work in the field. In 2001, a group called the intergovernmental panel on climate change released a scientific assessment for climate change that gave strong evidence toward the fact that humans are causing climate change. According to the report, there is more than a ninety percent chance humans are the cause (Bailey). It would be foolish for anyone to believe that humans aren’t doing anything harmful to our planet on a regular basis. Everyone is guilty of this. Gore himself used twenty times more energy than the average American household (Easterbrook). While he does donate ridiculous amounts of money to “green” organizations, he can’t hope to achieve his goals by continuing to be so wasteful in his energy usage. This definitely didn’t help Gore gain any support in his fight against harmful fossil fuels. Even though this information didn’t come out until a year after the release of his movie, it still deeply hurts his ethos.
During the movie, Gore did a spectacular job naming off facts and using prestigious organization names to boost his credibility. He brought up the extreme weather patterns we have been experiencing more frequently. How the hurricanes and droughts that keep popping up around the globe should be flashing red lights to everyone because climate change isn’t coming, it is already here. The flashy graphs were another great tool he used to broadcast his message. Rises in carbon dioxide emissions rises almost perfectly in line with the increase in global temperature, and by showing this in the form of a line graph Gore was able to make the correlation between the two without a doubt. The combination of these two things gave Al Gore’s presentation maybe too much credibility if that’s possible. As I watched the movie I was completely blown away by most of the statistics he used to the point where it was almost unbelievable. It is a lot like when one of your good friends tells you a story, and you know they have embellished parts of the story to get a bigger reaction out of you. With that said, I still haven’t found anything in my research that differentiates from the material he used in the movie. From that standpoint, it is relatively safe to conclude that ethos is very apparent in the film.
I also thought Gore did a good job incorporating pathos into his work. He used a lot of slow music and close ups on his aloof facial expressions that create the serious, depressive mood he wanted. Often, he would begin talking about how afraid he was of Global Warming’s numerous threats, and the camera would cut from the presentation to the very distant minded Al Gore, hard at work on his presentation. Gore was also able to better control emotion through his stories; the first one about his son getting hit by a car, and the second about his sister dying from cancer. The second story in particular was effective for the overall message of the film. Not only did it create the depressing mood he wanted, but it also showed that he has experienced something similar in makeup to the global warming problem. He was trying to say that even though his family was well aware of the health problems associated with tobacco, it took the death of his sister, by lung cancer, for them to shut down the family farm. Much in the same way, people seem to be aware of what climate change is and will do to our planet, but they are in a state of denial when it comes to taking action. The conclusion I drew from this was that one of Al Gore’s goals of the presentation was to not make the same mistake twice. I think this is important because Gore brings up a valid point, and more importantly he opens up to his audience and gains trust through his past experiences.
I found some of the Anti-Gore articles posted in response to the movie, and the majority of them were very ineffective pieces of rhetoric. They rely heavily on generalities and names rather than facts. The best argument I found was from an article entitled “Scientists respond to Gore’s warnings of climate catastrophe” by Tom Harris. Harris had numerous professors and doctors backing his view up, but he didn’t actually give any statistics anywhere in the article that went against Gore’s information. At one point, Harris points to the opinion of Dr. Dick Morgan, a former advisor for the World Meteorological Organization. Morgan at one point said that “There has been some decrease in the Canadian arctic over the last thirty years, but no melt down” (Harris). These experts have said things that bash Gore’s message, but there has been no hard evidence to back them up. They could have given the statements years ago for all I know. Maybe they have been paid to say the given quotes, or maybe this is there actual viewpoint. I obviously can’t be sure, but what I do know is that Gore’s facts check out and I was skeptical of the names used in this article.
It turns out Tom Harris was the executive director of an NPO called Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NSRP). The article in question was written in March of 2006, and as of 2008 the organization website was taken down. The NSRP was actually being controlled by energy lobbyists (sourcewatch.org). Once this information was disclosed to the public the organization lost all its credibility, and was forced to basically shut down. These politically backed organizations are very good at creating doubt in the public, and because of this Gore’s main message continues to be refuted.
If we as humans are going to reverse Climate Change, we are going to need a unified public effort globally to cut our carbon emissions and get our planet back to a reasonable state. That is the message Gore has projected to us through, “An Inconvenient Truth”. The scientists back him up, the facts back him up, and I agree with him now. Humans are the main cause of Global Warming. Some of us are more responsible than others, but Gore does a good job of not pointing fingers. He focuses more on inspiring viewers to take action because he knows that is the best way to win this fight. He held the interest of his viewers, and like the puppeteer controls the puppet, Gore controlled the emotions of his audience. All in all, this film was a great piece of rhetoric.
Bibliography
Bailey, Ronald. "Global Warming — Not Worse Than We Thought, But Bad Enough." Reason Magazine. (2 Feb. 2007) (http://reason.com)
Easterbrook, Gregg. "Al Gore's Outsourcing Solution." The New York Times - Breaking News,
World News & Multimedia (9 Mar. 2007) (http://www.nytimes.com)
Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth: the Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do
about It. New York: Rodale, 2006. Print.
Harris, Tom. “Scientists respond to Gore’s warnings of climate catastrophe.” Natural Resources
Stewardship Project (12 June 2006) (http://www.Canadafreepress.com)
Various authors. "Natural Resources Stewardship Project." SourceWatch. 26 Dec. 2009.
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