Inconvenient Truth Emotional Impacts and Personal commitment
The film, Inconvenient Truth, shows a documentary of Al Gore, the global campaigner against global warming. In documentary, the director covered the global travels by Al Gore in his struggle to create awareness on the need for fast action on climate change and the imminent dangers. The great efforts and global journeys made by Al Gore and the facts about the severity of the global warming triggered strong reactions from me. The reaction evoked a shocking feeling. Based on the appalling scientific evidences, the negative impacts of climate change are severe and can wipe human population in the region. The drought that occurs due to climate change increases the vulnerability and exposure of the world to the negative climate change outcomes. The high frequencies of climate events such as the drought also increase more disaster risks such as famine, crop failure and animal deaths. Worryingly, the Al Gore observes that global ecosystem changes arising from global warming have a profound effect on public health, food production and global peace. Particularly, the global warming trend accounts for increased mortality and morbidity of communicable and non-communicable diseases. It is shocking that global warming causes change in the lifecycles of certain microbial species and disease vectors. I, therefore, seek to promote the development of strategies designed to focus on the long term and short term mitigation strategies. I commit to creating awareness on the subject and promote personal responsibilityThe scienceQuestion 4:
I learned some new science information from the documentary. Before watching the film, I had vague ideas about the effects of climate change and the causes of global warming. I had no idea about the severity of the vulnerabilities of humanity to climate change and the contributions towards disaster risks. I realized that climate change is not a natural phenomenon. Human society contributes greatly towards disaster risk and development of climate change through increase of greenhouse gas emissions. I also learned the science of global warming how the climate change occurs and the relationship between climate change and drought. According to Al Gore, the current ecological strains increase the vulnerability to drought in the world, resulting in high temperatures. Increase in temperature has an effect in climate change. From the film, climate change is attributed to the presence of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases occur due to natural variability and anthropogenic climate change.
The film also explained the processes involved in the climate change that lead to global warming. The director attributes the problem of global warming to increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, what is popularly termed as the greenhouse gas effect. The documentary shows that the level of greenhouse gases has increased steadily over the last three decades due to depletion of natural CO2 sinks and excessive burning of fossil fuels. Global warming is reflected in observable environmental changes such as atmospheric temperatures, shrinking of polar icecaps, and the rising sea levels among others.Moral and Ethical ConsiderationsQuestion 7:
The documentary is timely and informative because the authors present compelling evidence to demonstrate the effects of global warming in our daily lives, socially and politically. While political and technical issues are outlined in the film, taking a moral angle in the debate would make some difference. The most reflective part of the film is that the effects of global warming threaten the future of human existence. If the fight of climate change takes a moral angle, people will make personal choices that are morally upright, ethical and more sustainable. Moral principles require that the major contributors of the greenhouse effect take personal and institutional responsibilities and reduce pollution and consumerism. According to Al Gore, other than the science and politics, “each one of us is a cause of global warming”. At person level, we can act morally to make a difference since “we can make choices to change that with the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive [and bring down the] individual carbon emissions to zero” (Al Gore). Similarly, the major corporate polluters need to develop ethical and moral businesses where carbon footprints are deliberately managed, and energy saving approaches as well as clean/renewable energy sources used in the production.
Work Cited
Davis, Guggenheim, dir. Inconvenient Truth. Lawrence Bender Productions, 2006. Film.
