First examining ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, the film introduces Al Gore’s background as a proponent in saving the environment. The presentation links his personal stories and experiences ensuring that his personal narrative would make this big issue relatable and understandable for the audience. The main point of the film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, revolves around the international and world crisis of impending climate change (An Inconvenient Truth, 2006). Though, the discourse encourages mankind to take action by first recognizing that significance of this event and taking action in mitigating the cause of the problem. The film also discusses a simple explanation about the effect of greenhouse gases as it contributes to global warming. He also introduces the main influence of his cause, Professor Roger Revelle. He has made physical studies of the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and deduct relationship with human expansion. The study shows a general increase of CO2 level in the atmosphere taken for several years. This increase is also attributed to the melting of stable glaciers and ice in some part of the world like the ice in Mount Kilimanjaro and Glacier National Park in Montana. There has been an increase of frequency for hurricanes/typhoons, flood and drought. He has expressed his concern over the warming temperature in its effect in increasing precipitation, however this are relocated and has caused drought in several areas.
Global warming also results in melting ice caps in Antarctica and Greenland. The harm of melting ice caps could also contribute to the CO2 level in the atmosphere. Melting of these ice caps would also result to increase in water level and may mean displacement and destruction of cities in the lowland. The event could mean disruption in human civilization. Destruction of the ecology has been linked to widespread diseases, as well. The discussion also presents the lack of political will of the U.S. government to mitigate and to find a solution to this problem. Those in-charge of protecting the well-being of the general public against the threat of global warming has conflict of interest with their supporters. Gore ends the discussion with a hope for mankind to take a big step in solving climate change. He proposes that this can be solved by using green power, consuming less energy, and increase in political will.
In comparison, a special television commentary was produced to contest the validity of Al Gore’s claim regarding global warming. In Glenn Beck’s show, it presented a report, "Exposed: The Climate of Fear," which showed the other side of the global warming debate. The video mostly cited Al Gore’s claims on different points relating to this event. The show, in a way, revealed that some data that were shown are often times exaggerated and manipulated (Exposed: The Climate of Fear, 2007). Even the scientists that were featured on the show attempted to refute the claims of Al Gore. It presented the flaw and eventual failure of the Kyoto Protocol. Manipulation of data results were made in order to concentrate on Al Gore’s advocacy. The discussion also involved in how media sensationalize global warming. It causes fear of millions of people as it may be compared to a catastrophe. A series of attack was also used to debunk the theory that human activity is causing global warming. Same way as the commentary is used to destroy Al Gore’s credibility. In some way the video, may be politically driven as it tries to also involve the political career of Al Gore rather than to present a scientific debate on this matter. Glenn Beck’s commentary also assumed that global warming is not the most immediate problem, unlike HIV/AIDS and malnutrition.
Personally, I find Al Gore’s exposé to be more credible compared to the counterpoints of Beck. In terms of presentation, Al Gore’s manner of delivery and intent is more serious and compelling compared to Beck. The over-all theme of Beck’s commentary is to put down the over-all goal of Gore to increase public awareness and start a good change. Beck’s manner of delivery can be categorized as mocking the testimonies and data that Gore has gathered. And though I believe in some way that Gore’s presentation has used shock value to stir up the issue and to make it more valuable. But, the content and the over-all cause of Gore are to help not his political career, but to improve the over-all quality of life for mankind. Beck’s downfall starts on his concentration on the political motives of Al Gore. I believe that there may be a political motive behind Al Gore’s discussion, but it’s the lack of political will on the topic of global warming. And after several years since these videos were released, it has been accepted by the scientific community that there are credible studies showing that global warming would affect our way of life.
Beck proposed several reports to counterpoint Al Gore’s claim. First, the data that the sea level would rise up to 20 feet. In Gore’s discussion, he presented an animated simulation on how certain cities in the world would look like in the event that the sea water would rise. This idea is rivaled with a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that sea rise would only be 23 inches in 2100. To refute Gore’s claim, Beck presented his own set of data from the IPCC. However, in this study, Beck also fails to compare both assumptions of the same situation. Gore discussed that world sea level would rise up to 20 feet given that the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica would melt. In the IPCC report it fails to include these factors. For this argument, it seems that Gore is more compelling and convincing. Although, Gore’s report fails to give a timeline on the sea level rise. Although in a supporting study, melting of ice caps can contribute to the abrupt increase in sea level. Melting glaciers and ice sheets are responsible for more than a third of the current rate of the sea-level rise. And with the melting of Greenland and Antarctica, it has the potential to be the largest contributor to the sea-level rise (Church, Nicholls, Hay & Gornitz, 2007).
Another point that Beck raised is Gore’s assumption that the CO2 level drives temperature. Beck showed some experts saying that it is actually the other way around. Temperature drives the CO2 level in the atmosphere. They claim that as temperature increase so is the increase in CO2 level in the atmosphere. However, examining this argument it can be presumed that the current situation is unlike the previous event in Earth’s history. Carbon emission by human activity is an all-time high and this could definitely induce global warming. And, it can definitely be concluded that CO2 level and temperature can be linked together. Although, there is no concrete evidence that CO2 level in the atmosphere is the sole responsible for climate change. It has been attributed to global warming due to increase emission from human activity (Florides & Christodoulides, 2009). But, it can be said that the change in CO2 level is consistent with global temperature change and long-term climate change. This has been proven with a supporting study discussing the climate change in the Cenozoic period (Hansen, Sato, Russell & Kharecha, 2013).
With my personal take about climate change, I take the side on Al Gore’s argument to call for greater attention on this alarming global crisis. Gore’s proposition that global warming can disturb the ecological balance and human lives is a convincing truth, since any changes in weather patterns can really affect vulnerable cities and human settlements. It is better to take caution and mitigate the staggering effect of CO2 level in the atmosphere. Gore proposes solutions to this crisis by resorting to cleaner sources of energy, decreasing unnecessary consumption of energy, developing efficient ways of energy use and increase of political will. Gore calls not only for the consciousness of the public on this issue, but also the government to exercise its power to take the necessary steps in reducing the CO2 level in the atmosphere. I also think that aside from the United States, other countries, even those developing ones must take part on this responsibility to help reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. By that, it can be concluded that Gore’s argument on global warming is more credible and society would be able to substantiate its cause if there is an actual plan to reduce greenhouse gases.
References
An Inconvenient Truth. (2006). California, USA.
Church, J., Nicholls, R., Hay, J., & Gornitz, V. (2007). Ice and Sea-level Change. Global Outlook for Ice and Snow, 235pp.
Exposed: The Climate of Fear. (2007). Dallas, USA.
Florides, G., & Christodoulides, P. (2009). Global warming and carbon dioxide through sciences. Environment International, 35(2), 390--401.
Hansen, J., Sato, M., Russell, G., & Kharecha, P. (2013). Climate sensitivity, sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 371(2001), 20120294.
