Steven Kirby

Sam Mudd

English 151

14 October 2010

Formal response to “An Inconvenient Truth”

For the past few years we have been repeatedly reminded of a problem known as Global Warming. Al Gore’s documentary: “An Inconvenient Truth” is an attempt to inform his audience of the present and future effects that Global Warming causes, and persuade this audience to take some sort of action toward rectifying this problem. Throughout the video he touches on most every single argument the opposition has put forth with the hope that this strategy will prove to everyone once and for all Global Warming is much more than just a theory, and we as humans cannot sit back and let it destroy us. Using pathos, and a massive arsenal of astounding statistics he makes it very hard to disagree with his wisdom on this particular subject.

This documentary was very effective rhetoric. One of the ways that helped it to be so effective was its use of pathos. This was possible because of the use of slow emotional instrumentals, and a few sad stories pertaining to Al Gore’s personal life. In class we discussed his story about his sister and the tobacco farm the Gore’s owned. A couple of my classmates were confused by the relevance of this story, and how it affected pathos. I have come to the conclusion that it was a message. More specifically, I think that he’s saying that people had no idea that they were harming themselves and others from using and producing tobacco. But once research came out proving that Tobacco was extremely harmful people like the Gore’s were in a state of denial because it was an inconvenient truth. It took the death of his sister for the family to have reality finally set in. Much in the same way the Global Warming Theory has received an incredible amount of research to back it up, but the reality still of how serious this problem has become isn’t setting in to millions of people who should be worried about its consequences.

Al Gore had a seemingly endless amount of high tech bar graphs and statistics that he used to really drive his message home to the audience. His evidence dated as much as thirty years into the past, and it made the opposition to his argument look feeble. He also did a great job of delivering these statistics. You could tell that he slowed his talking speed down considerably when he delivered statistics to the audience because he was trying to really let the information sink into each individual.

One thing I would like to see from Gore in the future would be a debate. He was so confident in his argument and as a result very convincing, but the opposition had no chance to defend themselves. Personally, I am of the opinion that if this massive debate could prove once and for all whether or not humans are the cause of Global Warming. Gore’s stats are very convincing, but shouldn’t the leaders of this opposition to Global Warming be able to challenge his argument? We’re not experts on climate change or even close, so I think it would be foolish to make a decision on this subject without hearing both sides.