Well, the movie wasn’t what I expected. I think I was hasher on it initially because of that. What I had expected was a scientific documentary, perhaps something like an episode of Nova, considering the case for global warming.
Walking out the theatre in that mindset, I had a general sense of disappointment. There was wide mix of evidence offered. Some I really liked, including how the movie starts off showing a graph of CO2 levels & temperatures for the last 650,000 years. But it also dips into anecdotal — nobody remembers polar bears drowning before. Remembers? And I’m still not sure how global warning caused ebola?
However, if you dismiss how the movie is marketed, take a step back, and think about what the movie is and the motivations for creating it — i.e., an attempt to rebuild Gore’s political career and rally like minded people to a cause it makes sense & a lot of my criticisms fade away.
In fact, to that end it does a good job. Al Gore certainly comes across better than he did in his prior political runs. We learn about how he was a simple farmboy, we see pictures of him w/ his first cow, the bitter irony of growing tobacco that would later claims his mom’s life, how the loss of the 2000 election hurt him, but from where he decided to give his slide show again. I could see a lot of people on the left walking out of the movie really liking Al Gore.
Still, I have three major complaints: his heavy usage of emotional transference, the vilification of those with dissenting views, and his coverage of solutions.
If you watch, you see a lot of pleasant images & sounds accompanied or followed by positive assertions and negative imagines mixed in or followed by causes of global warming or those who disagree. E.g., see the evil tobacco lobby? Remember how we hate them? Now project those feelings onto those against global warming. The feeling you get of standing on a riverbank & looking at lush green trees? Associate that with Al Gore.
This also fits with the vilification of those unconvinced of global warming. Again, I personally believe it happens, but it’s a far cry from being absolute certain and there’s still the open question of what it means. In general, challenges to an idea are good. If it either strengthens the theory (if it’s true) or it helps us understand where we might have gotten things wrong. It furthers our understanding.
Painting doubt & debate as evil is distasteful. I’m not particularly found of when religions do it, so I’m not going to embrace it here either. It taints the conversation & debate. Put another way, what would you make of someone painting the dissenters in the asteroid/dinosaur debate as evil?
Past the various montages of Al Gore’s life, my interested piqued again at the end of the film, as he starts to discuss solutions. However, much like a Little Jon “What!”, it doesn’t really go anywhere. In just a few seconds, a few solutions are mentioned with a percent, and told that if we add them up, we’ve solved the problem by getting back to 1970s level & that’s about it. No discussion about them or their impacts. How feasible is each? What’s the economic impact? How could they be realistically implemented? None of that’s discussed. The whole bit is probably less than a minute — he spent more time talking about the 2000 election than that!
(And does getting to the 1970s really solve the problem? That seems to be the implication, but if I recall correctly, even by 1970 CO2 levels where way too high?)
So all in all, was it a good film? It depends. If it was to rebuild Al Gore’s image, then yes. If it was to further the cause of global warming, then no. The science in was surprisingly lacking. I remember recently an AP article where several climatologist said the science was accurate, but then it would be like saying the science in Twister or Star Trek was accurate too. There just isn’t much in any.
Given the test “would it change anyone’s mind on global warming after seeing it?”, I’d answer probably not. It didn’t really change mine . Some people clapped at the end and one guy yelled “fuck yeah!”, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t already have a strong belief in global warming.
In a lot of ways, it would be like watching a highlight film of the Chicago Bears — I’d walk out having seen proof that they’re the greatest team on the planet, and think you’re an idiot if you didn’t draw the same conclusion for not having seen the same thing. (Which you are if you’re a Packer’s fan.)
So, at the end of the movie I’m still left where I started, with a lukewarm belief in an idea and not much supporting evidence that I personally know of & have strong faith in. At the very least, I’m motivated to learn more. If attributable to the movie, that’s certainly a positive.
For next steps, I think I’m going to try to find more information about a few things. First, the ice core samples & past cycles of the earth cooling warming. That data seemed interesting & it’s really the only thing that seems to have an adequate data set to make anything logical out of.
Second, falsible hypotheses. That is, theories that can cut either way — showing global warming does & doesn’t occur. E.g., you can’t point the record high temperatures as evidence of global warming if you refuse to go the other way should they not occur. Third, I’m curious about climinatology as a whole. Al Gore mentioned the sample of peer-reviewed articles — I’d be curious the accuracy of forecasts & predictions.
Again, what I find I’ll try to post.
