rough draft

Just as humans breathe in oxygen and out carbon dioxide every moment of the day, essentially the earth does the same, one year it breathes in oxygen and the next it breathes out carbon dioxide. In Davis Guggenheim’s eye-opening documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore educates us about his personal history and issues about global warming, but never gives us any real solutions. I expected more from the documentary than what I got out of it. Throughout the documentary, Gore focuses on the different aspects of global warming that continues to be an issue for our future. While giving his life story, Gore emphasizes the issues at stake such as: carbon dioxide levels and their relationship to high temperatures, ice caps and glaciers that are melting away, storms such as Hurricane Katrina, and finally what is not being done by the government to reduce the factors that contribute to global warming. He creates this chain of events that begins with carbon dioxide levels, and ends with destruction, explaining that there needs to be something done to fix the problem and stop the chain, but no solution is given.
The documentary starts off with a strong introduction, you are pumped up and excited to see what exactly what you can learn from this film about a serious problem some accept and some do not consider reality. Gore begins by explaining his interest in global warming and how he became interested. He explains that his interest began when he took a course taught by Professor Roger Revelle, which was the first person to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That’s where it all began and his interest was sparked. After graduating college and entering congress Gore believed he was in a spot to inspire other politicians and congressmen to believe in global warming just as he does, he took his issue to a congressional hearing and despite all of the scientists and facts he presented, little was done to impact global warming. He ran for president in 1988, but when that failed he continued in his research in global warming putting together the “slideshow” the entire documentary is based on. After losing the race for president in 2000, Gore decided to focus completely on his war against global warming; he completed his “slideshow” of facts and graphs and traveled the world showing the “slideshow” in different cities and countries.
His “slideshow” begins with graphs showing the levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and the amount of carbon dioxide that will be in our atmosphere in the future. He then relates the high amounts of carbon dioxide with the higher temperatures we are seeing and the record high temperatures we are breaking. His charts show records of temperature and carbon dioxide 650,000 years back and the recent numbers are alarming. The high levels of carbon dioxide create a chain of events like knocking over a chain of dominoes once one thing happens the rest follows. But I already knew this. It obvious, any educated person should know that there is some connection between the pollution and carbon dioxide we give off and the changes to our planet and the increase in temperature. He never tells us what to do to lower the carbon dioxide levels just that it needs to be done or our planet risks being ruined.
He moves on but links carbon dioxide and the high temperatures to the melting of ice caps and glaciers across the world. He shows different pictures of glaciers 20 years ago and today and how they have drastically decreased in size. The high temperatures are causing the glaciers to melt away. If our glaciers melt away, then our sea levels will rise and a significant portion of our land will be under water. He states that since the glaciers and tundra melt, animals such as polar bears are drowning because they are forced to swim too far without any land to walk on. These issues are disturbing and eye-opening but once again it was something that in the back of my head I always knew was an issue. What can be done to stop the glaciers from melting? What can I do?
From the melting glaciers, he points out that if the glaciers melt, the waters will become cooler and it will make storms like Hurricane Katrina much more likely due to the warmer waters. He points out that Katrina was a category one when it hit Florida, but after hitting the warm waters of the Gulf, it strengthened and became what it was when it hit New Orleans. In 2005, records were broken and natural phenomenon’s happened all over the globe. It was believed that a hurricane could never form in the South Atlantic due to the cool waters and the rotation of the globe, but for the first time ever, one hit Brazil in 2005. India reached 122 degrees Fahrenheit, 35,000 people died in Europe due to the heat and drought.
Gore links the hurricanes and natural disasters to the government not doing enough to reduce these phenomenon’s and subtly blames the government for not being prepared for events like Hurricane Katrina. He shows the automobile emission regulations for many different countries and shows that the US has the lowest standards of all the major countries. Gore bragged that when he was vice-president during the Clinton administration that carbon dioxide levels were lower, temperatures were lower and the global warming made a slight change for the better, however soon after he left his position, and the carbon dioxide tax was not passed as law the effects turned back for the worse.
Overall, I thought the documentary was good, it kept me interested and asking questions. I did not get what I hoped for out of this, I expected to find answers and solutions, not just be educated on the issue. If you are going to watch something on global warming, nine times out of ten you believe that it’s an issue and want some ways to fix the problem. I thought that the way linked everything together was powerful and persuading. It was amazing to learn that carbon dioxide can cause temperatures to increase which can cause glaciers to melt, and ocean waters to rise as well as get warmer, this causes storms and natural disasters, all so we can blame the government for not doing enough to prevent these events. We shouldn’t blame the government, really we should blame ourselves. Everyone needs to wake up and realize that global warming is an issue and the steps and precautions that need to be done should be to prevent the destruction of our home, there is only one Earth and once it is gone we have nothing left.