Here's the thing about An Inconvenient Truth. If I had watched it at the beginning of this semester, I would have been shocked as the majority of the general population that viewed it was. The purpose of this documentary was to bring to light the true reality of climate change and made it accessible to the public. The film did a great job of this, however after being engrossed in all things climate change for the past month or so, the information provided in the film was not news to me. I can imagine it being eye opening for some, but I can also imagine it adding to their disbelief in climate change as anything inconvenient has the tendency to be disregarded. Overall I felt that the film was educational but it probably did not benefit me in the ways that it would someone who was more unaware about climate change.
That being said, I still found the documentary to be very relevant. I found it easier to connect the graphs and statistics with the real life examples and explanations that Gore provided with them. For the purpose of this blog post, I am going to focus on 3 parts that I feel coincide with what we have been talking about in class and are relevant to the effects of climate change.
The graph to the right shows the relation between carbon emissions (red) and and average global temperature (blue). Gore points out (from the top of a cherry picker fork lift) that each increase of CO2 has been accompanied by a rise in temperature that has in turn led to the last 5 ice ages. He makes a point to show how far above any previous CO2 emissions we are currently at (the yellow dot). Does this mean that once we reach a peak in temperature that we are going to experience another ice age? And if so, how long with this ice age last based on the current and increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere?
Ice Melt
Dealing with It"Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problems..."
Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow
I remember when this movie came out. My Grandpa went to see it and he believed every word. He would tell anyone who would listen about the problem, and he bought us all T-shirts that said 'save our mother'earth. I remember that my rather conservative parents didn't agree with him-and i don't blame them. It's only logical to question it when you've only seen one source and its saying something as radical as this. Add that to the unpredictability of wheather and it becomes nearly impossible to find indisputable evidence that the common people can understand. From what i've learned in this class it sounds like it is totally possible to keep temperature rise at or below 2 degrees. It just requires that everyone accnowledges the problem and does everything they can to stop it.
ReplyDeleteWow, I like the line "the maps of the world would have to be redrawn" from the short clip. For me this really made the effects of sea rise hit home. Watching the simulations was important, but I think that line sums it up really well.
ReplyDeleteAs far as wondering why we don't mandate fuel efficient appliances in our houses, it is because of the capitalist system we have. It all depends on growth. Fuel efficient appliances are usually more expensive, and if a company can make a product cheaper and therefore sell it for less, then they will do that because they know the customer is always in favor of the cheaper product. Until something changes with our economic system, growth is always going to stand in the way of making the necessary changes in order to save our planet.
ReplyDeleteIt's unfortunate that a film of this magnitude would give someone who knew little to nothing about the topic of climate change reason to doubt it. This film was the first ever climate change documentary that I had ever heard of, and, although I never saw it, I knew it had a very polarizing effect on its audience. Hopefully as new information emerges, and filmmakers continue to work on the subject, we will be able to get this message through to those that still have doubts.
ReplyDeleteI think it's pretty awesome that you included some detailed descriptions of your visuals in this post. This is actually one of the few glimpses that I have had into what climate change is, because I remember watching this documentary in the sixth grade.
ReplyDeleteI have also watched this documentary before and I think it is one of the first times that I truly realized how concerning climate change is. The melting ice and increased sea levels are a threat to everything and everyone at this point, something must be done. Hopefully this video as well as others start popping up in the news more, the education of people on climate change is so important to finding a solution and carrying it through to the end.
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