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- AuthorAmanda Knapp
Amanda Knapp has taught and tutoredEnglish at the college level for overten years. She taught English to Chinese children for over two years. She has aMaster of Arts degree in English from Northern Illinois University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in advertising from Marquette University where she also minored in marketing and psychology. She has numerous articles and essays published.
View bio - InstructorDella McGuire
Della has been teaching secondary and adult education for over 20 years. She holds a BS in Sociology, MEd in Reading, and is ABD on the MComm in Storytelling.
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Explore the main points in the movie An Inconvenient Truth. Learn about the background of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and read a summary of the documentary.Updated: 11/21/2023
Table of Contents
- What is An Inconvenient Truth Movie About?
- An Inconvenient Truth Summary
- An Inconvenient Truth Main Points
- Impact of An Inconvenient Truth
- Lesson Summary
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Al Gore have an Oscar?
Yes, Al Gore won two Academy Awards for An Inconvenient Truth. He was also a co-recipient for the Nobel Peace Prize.
What is the movie An Inconvenient Truth about?
The movie An Inconvenient Truth is about global warming. It was released in 2006 and explains the climate situation of the time and makes predictions about the future.
Table of Contents
- What is An Inconvenient Truth Movie About?
- An Inconvenient Truth Summary
- An Inconvenient Truth Main Points
- Impact of An Inconvenient Truth
- Lesson Summary
An Inconvenient Truth is a climate change documentary by ex-vice president Al Gore. It was publicly released on May 24, 2006. Throughout the documentary, Gore shares a slideshow he had given at least 1,000 times in an attempt to awaken people to the truth about global warming. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the Inconvenient Truth movie made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival.
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Background on Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth
In Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, he tells the story of his older sister who died of lung cancer. What makes this anecdote particularly poignant is that his family owned a tobacco farm. They had learned about the link between cancer and smoking along with the rest of the world when the surgeon general released reports drawing the link; but it took the personal experience of their own family member’s death for the Gore family to shut down their tobacco production.
In the film, Gore also tells the story of a live frog being boiled to death. He tells the now familiar tale of how a frog dropped into a pot of boiling water will instantly jump out, knowing the danger. But if a person puts a frog in room temperature water and then slowly raises the heat, the frog will never notice the change and will either die or be rescued, as it is in the film.
These two stories explain the main reason for Gore’s presentation of this information around the world. He believes people will allow things to slowly get worse with the environment until it is too late. He attempts, through his lectures and this film, to awaken people to the realities and spur them on to action before it is too late.
Released in 2006, the film was a public and critical success. It won the award for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards and it helped Al Gore win the Nobel Peace Prize. The film had detractors, however. Among these were climate change deniers and others who believed Gore just made the film to advance his political career. Overall, however, the film is considered a success.
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An Inconvenient Truth starts out with Al Gore’s summary of the relationship between global warming and carbon emissions. He uses graphs to show how temperatures have risen over the past few decades and shows where they will be in the future, should the rise continue. He shows how carbon emissions have increased in the same proportion that the temperature has.
Gore then goes on to explain how the polar ice caps are melting. He explains how this does not just affect what is happening at the poles of the Earth. He shows how this affects locations all over the globe and how the melting of the ice caps themselves actually helps speed up global warming, as the heat of the sun is no longer bouncing off of the caps, but rather is being absorbed into the oceans.
He shows how one clear affect of global warming will be the flooding and the eventual loss of certain landmasses to water. Because the ice on top of the oceans is melting, it will eventually lead the oceans to overflow on to land.
Gore ends his presentation with a call to action. He calls for a bettering of automotive standards to help offset carbon emissions; and he shows charts to show just how much the United States falls below the rest of the world in this area. He encourages all people to make the individual choices they can to help stop the rise in global warming. He is critical about the United States’s refusal to sign the Kyoto Agreement that attempts to mitigate climate change.
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Al Gore backs up his claims in An Inconvenient Truth with a few main points. He makes the claim that climate change is a moral problem and that up to that point, there was little political will to make any necessary changes. Because of this, he calls his audience to action with specific changes they can make.
An Inconvenient Truth Global Warming Facts
Al Gore presents some global warming facts in An Inconvenient Truth. Well over a decade has passed since the release of this film and many of these statements, facts, and predictions he presented have proven true and are reflected in the environmental issues being faced today.
One of the claims Al Gore makes is that there would be an increase in major weather events. While some of this is due to cyclical weather patterns, this has come to pass.
He also makes the claim that within 25 years of the date of the film, many more people will die due to climate issues and the Earth will lose many species. He claims that global warming is just as much of a threat to species as the loss of their lands is. He claims the Earth will lose more than one million species. He also predicts that new and potentially dangerous species will emerge.
Finally, he says that the sea level will rise by over 20 feet because of melting sea shelves. Scientists agree that ice sheets are melting. There is disagreement, however, as to the degree to which this is happening.
Quotes From An Inconvenient Truth
Multiple notable quotes exist in the film. Some of these come from Gore himself, while others are people he quotes in his presentations.
- ''What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.'' Gore shares this quote from Mark Twain to explain that we misunderstood the climate in the past, and this misunderstanding has been part of what has led us to where we are today in regards to climate change.
- ''This guy is so far out in the environmental extreme, we’ll be up to our neck in owls and outta work for every American. He is way out, far out, man.'' Gore shared this quote about himself by former president George H.W. Bush. He uses this quote to show the political obstacles to mitigating climate change.
- ''I don’t really consider this a political issue, I consider it to be a moral issue.'' These are Gore’s words, and they underlie his purpose in creating the film. He believes all people of the Earth have a moral obligation to protect the Earth. He shows the impact the United States alone has on climate change; and he also shows the people who will ultimately be hurt the most by it.
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As mentioned above, this climate change documentary had a large influence in the early 2000s. Al Gore won two Academy Awards for this global warming movie. It increased awareness about global warming in both the United States and around the world.
There is a sequel to this film. It is titled An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. This film was released in 2017. This film analyzes how close the world is to an energy revolution.
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An Inconvenient Truth is Al Gore’s 2006 documentary about global warming. In the film, he explains the changes that had occurred over the past few decades leading up to 2006; and then he makes predictions about the future. He predicts further increase in temperatures, loss of life from climate change, a reduction in over one million species, and a rising of the sea level. Al Gore believes climate change is a moral issue. He ends the documentary with a persuasive call to action and encourages the audience to make changes in their personal lives to mitigate their effects on global warming. He encourages people to make more mindful purchasing choices and to take a more active role in politics. He encourages the government to ratify the Kyoto Treaty.
The film stemmed from a traveling slide show Gore gave to live audiences about climate change. He gave this lecture over 1,000 times. The movie has a documentary structure, with several scenes filmed over time and cut together. Al Gore won two Academy Awards for the film, and it was a commercial and critical success. There were detractors, however, and Gore quotes George H.W. Bush when he attributes extremism to the environmental movement. Many of Gore’s points have proven to be true; but there is some disagreement between scientists on the speed and extent to which melting polar ice caps will flood the globe.
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Video Transcript
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary in which Al Gore describes the problems of climate change against the backdrop of the political climate of the time, including the hotly-debated 2000 election that cost him the presidency. The film won several awards including two Oscars and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
Summary
The film is a collection of clips of Al Gore's environmental speeches that he gave multiple times all over the world. Gore also provides some autobiographical information about his life on a farm as well as his experience in the presidential race.
He begins by explaining the overlap between increases in carbon emissions and increases in global temperature. He provides a brief explanation of the basic foundational theories on how climate change works.
He then goes into the impact of these temperature changes on the weather and increases in major storms, like Hurricane Katrina. Other natural catastrophes worldwide are depicted with powerful, often graphic, photos in a slideshow with several live audiences.
To avoid leaving audiences feeling hopelessly doomed, Gore rounds out the end of the movie with a call to action, with specific things people can do to slow the rate of carbon increases and climate change. He suggests ratifying the environmental treaty Kyoto, taking a more active role in politics, and making more mindful purchasing choices as ways to mitigate these negative impacts.
Facts
An Inconvenient Truth provides several factual statements that have proven true over the time since the movie came out a decade ago. The extent of the catastrophic climate situation has made itself more evident, as confirmed by science. Let's take a look at the main claims in the film and what science says to support these facts.
- The increase in major storms and high category hurricanes has been substantiated, though some of the increase is attributed to differences in the severity rating systems and the cyclical increase in storms.
- The doubling of the death toll of global warming in the next 25 years is an extrapolation of data including numbers during deadly heat waves, the likes of which are expected to occur with greater frequency.
- Over one million species will become extinct as a result of climate change. Scientists identify global warming as becoming as dangerous to animal species as habitat destruction and land clearing.
- New species that are more dangerous and invasive will proliferate as a result of global warming. Scientists are more concerned about the human influence of moving species around. Even campers cannot bring their own wood to national parks because of these invasive migrations.
- Melting ice shelves will rise sea levels over 20 feet. Scientists agree that the ice caps are melting, including Greenland's ice sheet, but they disagree on the extent and speed at which it will occur.
Quotes
There are a few notable quotes in An Inconvenient Truth that help create an impact for the audience. Let's look at a few Al Gore quotes and some moments when he quotes others.
You see that pale, blue dot? That's us. Everything that has ever happened in all of human history, has happened on that pixel. All the triumphs and all the tragedies, all the wars all the famines, all the major advances. . . it's our only home. And that is what is at stake, our ability to live on planet Earth, to have a future as a civilization. I believe this is a moral issue, it is your time to seize this issue, it is our time to rise again to secure our future.
Quoting Mark Twain, Gore said, What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so.
You know, more than 100 years ago, Upton Sinclair wrote this, that 'It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon his not understanding it.'
Future generations may well have occasion to ask themselves, 'What were our parents thinking? Why didn't they wake up when they had a chance?' We have to hear that question from them, now.
I don't really consider this a political issue, I consider it to be a moral issue.
We have everything, save perhaps political will. But in America, I believe political will is a renewable resource.
A quote was also made by George H.W. Bush, speaking about Al Gore during the 2000 campaign: This guy is so far out in the environmental extreme, we'll be up to our neck in owls and outta work for every American. He is way out, far out, man.
Lesson Summary
In this lesson, we looked at An Inconvenient Truth, and it's claims on climate change and global warming. The structure of the film is a documentary with a few narrative elements to include some of Gore's childhood and political work. There are several important scientific facts Gore explains for those without much background in environmental science. Some of the quotes from the film are especially touching and inspiring, and it encourages the audience to take action.
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