Blogprompt 2: "An Inconvenient Truth"

Al Gore (and the IPCC) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 largely for the production of the film 'An Inconvenient Truth'. The committee cited "their efforts to build up and disseminate (spread) knowledge about man-made climate change". To what extent do you think this was deserved? Having watched this film in class did you feel that your opinion (or perhaps the opinion of others) to the issue of climate change could be positively influenced? What did you think of this film? Was it effective?

Having watched the film, I believe that many people's (including my own) opinion of climate changed will have been influenced. At first, I thought that he was joking around about the rate at which ice caps are melting and how the CO2 emissions will increase so dramatically because the numbers seemed so unreal. Everyone knew that climate change was a problem, we just didn't know that it was so big. Even the skeptics will have a hard time finding something that suggests hat we (humankind) don't play any role in what is happening. I think that the movie will have spurred people into trying to think more sustainably even if their overall effect on the world's problem is miniscule.

The Nobel Peace Prize was deserved by both Al Gore and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) as they have shown Climate Change for the dangerous future that it will be unless something drastic is done about it now, even then the temperature will still rise but not as drastically. Many would believe that the IPCC deserved the Prize but not Al Gore as he didn't "really do anything", however I believe if anyone else had stood up on that stage and delivered a speech/presentation on climate change, they would be ignored because all of their ideas and data would have been heard before. However, Al Gore's data was unseen and his images showed the effect we are having right now compared to our past as well as some images that showed our most likely future and because of his political past, his theories were not just ignored, especially since he was backed by the IPCC.

"An Inconvenient Truth" was displayed in an unusual manner (based around a powerpoint), however this made it stand out more than the average documentary and Al Gore presented it in a fun way, full of small jokes with lots of emotive images and thought-sturring quotes. Overall it was a very effective way of presenting the findings in a way that made them stand out rather than in a long-winded speech.