Hi Elaine,
I am sure you are a good person, doing what you think is right. In Europe, we were very aware of global warming a long time ago and there are already lots of restrictions and law here that makes things a little bit better.
But let me tell you from what perspective I see “An Inconvenient Truth”. Its a pure political propaganda move. Using a story that everybody share, mix it with up some truth, then mix up with some bias and then blow it up and make it looks scary,… just to reach a certain goal. I am a business man, I see this kinda methods in other forms all the time. I have to say, it works great.
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The movie is essentially a slick propaganda piece, with vivid images of glaciers falling into the sea, pictures of big waves, hurricanes, the spectre of millions of refugees, and a poor CGI polar bear swimming in a vast ocean.
So yes, the earth is getting warmer. Of course, the earth’s weather has never been static and it was always changing. Mr. Gore notes in his presentation that North America used to be covered with glaciers. That the American midwest is now entirely glacier-free is seen by most to be a good thing, but it was a result of climate change. Why climate change is only bad when it happens today is not addressed in the film.
But beyond those niggling details, the film is most frustrating because while it is excellent explanation, it does not address a solution, at least not within the realm of reality. The film’s bumper-sticker slogan is “People not cars!” Yes, the sum of the film’s solutions honestly can’t even muster a complete sentence.
I’d encourage all readers to take energy saving measures to protect themselves and conserve energy resources, not abstractly “protect the environment” (which these methods will not do). These habits are great for the reasons I give. But anyone who thinks that it will put even the smallest dent in climate change has got to be kidding.
Not that personal responsibility isn’t important. But the hypocrisy and hubris of this man is galling beyond words. He gripes that the earth’s population is too big, exploding from two billion people to when Gore was born to more than six billion today. Since Gore is going on about how “you can make a difference,” perhaps he’d like to explain why he decided to have four children if he knew/believes the population explosion to be such a threat?
For macro-solutions, Gore grumpily notes that every developed country but America and Australia have signed the Kyoto Protocol, ignoring the two solid reasons for rejecting it. First, the agreement imposes a vastly disproportionate burden on the United States, which the United States Senate duly noted in its rejection of the treaty by a whopping 97-0 votes. Not John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer or any other liberal Democratic Senator voted to approve it. (Would Senator Gore have voted differently? If so, let him say it.) Second, it calls CO2 “pollution,” which is about as retarded as environmental policy can be. Nature produces the vast, vast majority of the CO2 in the atmosphere, anywhere from 80-97%. Why we need to speed trillions of dollars to reduce the anthropogenic CO2 is absurd when we consider that CO2 is the same whether it comes from SUV, Al Gore’s lungs, or a swamp in the Amazon. That the causes of climate change are more complicated than just CO2 is not a discussion that could be had with the feverish environmental evangelical crowd.
Gore finishes the speech with a passionate plea for action (with no answers) by vaguely asserting that we can “defeat” global warming (how this would happen he does not say). He invokes previous progressive accomplishments as evidence that we have the power to cool the earth:
Women earned the right to vote, first in New Zealand, then in Scandanavia, and it spread from there. The entire world defeated fascism in both Europe and the Pacific simultaneously!
Actually, Mr. Vice President, women first “earned” the right to vote in Wyoming in 1869, a solid quarter-century before New Zealand, from where it spread to Colorado and Utah. You’ll have to explain to me your views of geography and 19th century transit if you want to make me believe that women’s suffrage started in New Zealand only to spread to northern Europe. Indeed, if you know anything about the Women’s Suffrage Movement you know it built its momentum for decades in several separate regions across the Western world, and the actual right to vote didn’t really “spread” from anywhere, although the US played an enormous role in spreading the franchise in the modern era, such as Japan, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
And the world didn’t defeat fascism in Europe and the Pacific simultaneously, the US did. From a point of both historical accuracy and pride as an American I’d sort of expect Mr. Gore to emphasize these things, but this just goes to show how warped this man’s moral compass is. He’s eager to give anyone credit for achievement as long as its not the United States. If the US is involved, he’ll do as much as he can to downplay its role. So I’m not surprised that of all the things to be concerned about in the world today, Mr. Gore decides to pick a cause where the US, as the largest economy in the world, may be the greatest contributor.
One of the shortest and consequently most riveting parts of the film is the shots shown of different parts of the world several years ago compared to shots of the same locations today. It is both fascinating and frightening to see that mountains, such as Mt. Kilimanjaro, that were previously coated with snow and ice are now nearly barren and dry. The pictures also show the disappearance of lakes and rivers as a result of the warming of the atmosphere and the quickly melting glaciers, once prominent in the North Pole, Antarctica, and other parts of the world.
The effect of these images is lost as the shots are rapidly flipped from one to the next with little explanation for the extreme situation that is taking place. Though it is one thing to let pictures speak for themselves, the viewer does not have enough time between shots to take in the actual severity the pictures preach until Gore interrupts with yet another political rant.
 Despite the political and personal interference that Al Gore corrupts the movie with, it is not a total disappointment. The connection drawn between Hurricane Katrina and other tropical storms with global warming hits viewers hard as the national disaster scars the memories of U.S. citizens. One of the most shocking and effective tactics used to persuade viewers to join the fight against global warming is a graphic of what will happen to parts of the world if this destructive path is continued. This shows that in less then 100 years time, Manhattan will be underwater, as will the coast of Florida, California, and countries outside the U.S. in low elevation such as the Netherlands. Seeing that Earth, a home so constantly taken for granted, is on the brink of destruction thanks to recent human activity, is enough to make any viewer forget the politics for a second and pledge to save our world from disaster.
As the credits role, the audience stays seated, reading dispersed statements of ways that Americans can help with the problem of global warming. Upon exiting the theater, viewers forget that the movie is propaganda and feel a fleeting determination to save our planet. No thanks to Al Gore, mission partially accomplished.
 
CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck became the latest critic to compare the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, about former Vice President Al Gore’s campaign to raise awareness of global warming, to the Nazis. Beck dismissed many of the conclusions drawn from the documentary, stating, “When you take a little bit of truth and then you mix it with untruth, or your theory, that’s where you get people to believe. … It’s like Hitler. Hitler said a little bit of truth, and then he mixed in ‘and it’s the Jews’ fault.’ “
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As Media Matters for America has previously noted, Sterling Burnett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, called the film “propaganda” and added: “You don’t go see Joseph Goebbels’ films to see the truth about Nazi Germany. You don’t want to go see Al Gore’s film to see the truth about global warming.”
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From the June 7 broadcast of The Glenn Beck Program:
BECK: So, if you look at this chart, you will see the CO2, and it mirrors the temperature. Now, what I find interesting about this chart is CO2 seems to naturally go up by itself. Hmmm, I don’t remember those 200,000-year-old cars; I think Henry Ford wasn’t around yet. I don’t know if Fred Flintstone actually did have a car, but apparently, according to this chart, somebody was driving around in a car or an airplane. Maybe it was Al Gore giving the frickin speech at Stone Age colleges. I’m not sure, but it definitely correlates.
 (Copy/pasted and re-edited for easier read)
 
I like your other ideas more, about end world poverty and nepal poverty if I remember correctly. I am going to launch a huge concept end this year to raise awareness for World Hunger, something I promised myself.. I think these are better propaganda hehe.

Hi Elaine,

I found an interesting link, an addition to your xanga entry. I think it is a good ‘think about’, how people are being manipulated. The question is why..

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=ae9b984d-4a1c-45c0-af24-031a1380121a&k=0