Critical Analysis Essay On \"An Inconvenient Truth\" PDF

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An Inconvenient Truth: Critical Analysis An Inconvenient Truth centralizes around the phenomenon known as global warming and the critical state we’re in. Al Gore talks about humanity’s various impacts on the world, namely global warming, and the responsibility we have to put a stop to it. In Al Gore’s speech, he puts together different pieces of information and attempts to use different statistics to his advantage. In general he had great factual points working on his side however; some argue the validity of this documentary due to several reasons, such as political agenda and greed. There are lots of political figures who typically deny scientific claims that global warming is due to human activity and that there would be any large future repercussions because of it. The general consensus among scientists is that global warming is being caused by humans worldwide, but there is still debate on whether or not this statement is true. This film addresses the skeptical audience in particular and assures us that global warming is a growing problem and that we are the main cause. Whether it’s to point out different inconsistencies in his speech, or mistakes he’s made, or hypocritical statements he’s said in the past, most allegations that the film is incorrect seem to stem from those with a political agenda. Despite giving scientific evidence on a global crisis, people still refuse to believe him and choose to demean and insult him. This refusal to believe even scientific evidence begs the question; do people refuse to believe global warming’s negative effect for their own convenience, or do they truly have evidence to declare global warming as non-threatening, non-artificial and even non-existent? When he first introduced global warming, he was basically talking about the science behind the greenhouse effect. This presented an error in the presentation of which we know now, when he says that “The problem we now face is that this thin layer of atmosphere is being thickened by huge quantities of carbon dioxide,” when in

actuality increasing quantities of carbon dioxide is actually causing a blockage to the path for infrared radiation to come in and out rather than thickening the atmosphere itself. Errors like these further impose the belief that this film isn’t worth noting (1) People on this side of the debate argue that Climate change is nothing new and neither are greenhouse gas emissions. Humans have literally been around for a small fraction of the Earth's existence and the fact that we are just now starting to emit more gas doesn't prove that we are the primary cause for global warming. In fact, 500 million years ago CO2 emissions were up to 10 times greater than what is being emitted in today's age, yet there was a huge flourish of life despite this gas emission. This fact counters the belief that we are the primary cause of climate change. According to them, there might be some correlation between human gas emission and climate change, but no causation. To diminish artificial gas emissions on earth would be essentially pointless, because the world doesn't revolve exclusively to our will. (5) Others argue that these so called unnatural events are completely natural, and as long as people maintain the ignorance of basic science there will always be people like Al Gore who pressure politicians into even more damaging energy and environmental practices. (6) In the beginning of the film, Al Gore implies that bush’s role in censorship of government scientists and their research on global warming caused a problem in which we elongated our ignorance and waited longer to do something about climate change. He also talks about his experiences in Harvard University taking courses from two famous pioneers of global warming research which proves to us that he’s had early exposure to some of the most advanced scientific minds on this particular subject, and that he knows what he’s talking about (1) Al Gore explains in his thorough presentation that the frequencies of these extreme anomalies are increasing and are occurring a lot more often than in the past and then goes on to blame global warming. There

are plenty of other aspects of the Earth that we are inflicting damage upon such as needs for agriculture, deforestation, and decreasing biodiversity; So why is it so hard to believe that we are one of the primary causes for global warming? We aren't visibly seeing huge undeniable evidence of global warming due to the immense time scale that it takes for climate change to occur but Al Gore says that the fact that we are actually starting to see slight changes is scary because of this immense time scale, and as we continue to neglect these facts, we can sooner see these effects, which isn't anything we should desire. People often neglect the notion that global warming is artificial because of the fact that they are so self centralized and focus on the present time rather than the future. As companies grow in numbers and profit further from fossil fuels it becomes evident that the opposing side can be a biased side for monetary gain. Some people believe that there are many ways to disprove global warming, but the science presented in this documentary despite being somewhat flawed, presents a very long and informative list as to why we should put a stop to climate change. It’s affected many aspects of life on Earth, including biodiversity, energy source depletion, and weather patterns. After watching this documentary, it gives you a sense that we should play an active role in solving this problem. The different errors that are presented throughout the film don’t take away from all the facts that were told, and the film in fact is very important in further informing people about global warming and its dangers. Overall we have to come up with a solution to our differing opinions on the matter, but it all comes down to stopping global warming from negatively affecting the Earth any further. We’re currently in an age where no one does anything until it's too late. We need to change this historic pattern of forsaking and come up with solutions to avoid any further conflict.

Work Cited: 1. (Steig, Eric J.. Another Look at ‘an Inconvenient Truth’. GeoJournal 70.1 (2007): 5–9. Web) 2. (Scott, A.O. Warning of Calamities and Hoping for a Change in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/movies/24trut.html?_r=0)

3. (Masters, Jeffrey Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth Weather Underground Inc. http://www.wunderground.com/resources/education/gore.asp?MR=1) 4. (Procon.org Is Human Activity Primarily Responsible for Global Climate Change? http://climatechange.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001445 5. (Moore, Patrick Natural Resource Adaptation: Protecting Ecosystems and Economies epw.senate.gov) 6. (Ball, Tim, Alarmists Use Weather to Promote Global Warming Hoax canadafreepress.com)...