An Inconvenient Truth: The Argument of an environmentalist

From auditorium to auditorium, country to country, Al Gore, former U.S. vice president and presidential candidate runner up, strives to raise awareness towards global warming. His presentation and documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, encourages all listeners to treat the Earth and environment with care by becoming more green and being aware of the effects of global warming. Having traveled to countries all over the world to spread his message, Gore reached out to a large audience: the human race. His message to his audience was that global warming has resulted from careless acts of humans, and humans are the only ones who can solve the problem. That being the case, Gore needed to reach as many humans as humanly possible.



Al Gore’s thesis of An Inconvenient Truth discussed “our ability to live on planet Earth.” He emphasized to his audience that, “That is what is at stake . . . to have a future as a civilization,” gore said, “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.” With such a bold statement, persuading an extremely diverse audience to take action would not be easy, but I believe Gore appealed to his audience in an efficient manner. Gore appeals to his audience in a way that provokes action by using a PowerPoint presentation consisting of graphs, quotes, and digital animations. He also uses environmental footage taken all over the world and personal life experiences throughout the documentary to catch the viewers’ eyes.

In his PowerPoint, Gore uses graphs that provide data of past yearly temperatures and CO2 levels and estimates of future yearly temperatures and CO2 levels. Because he uses visuals, it makes it a lot easier for the audience to remember the information and actually realize how severe of an issue the temperature and CO2 rises are. One extremely affective action Gore does when demonstrating these graphs, is emphasizing the great rise in temperature and Co2 emissions that is currently taking place and how extreme the change will become in the future. Showing the graphs alone makes the change evident, but Gore takes it a step further by actually demonstrating how great the change is. When showing a graph that demonstrates the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, Gore uses a cherry picker to more accurately show how big the jump is in the atmosphere’s current carbon dioxide concentration is.

The presentation Agency posted an article on their website called “How Do You Step Out of Your Slides?” and featured Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. According to the article, “These types of moments, where presenters step beyond the border of the slides and truly engage the audience, make a presentation great. They also help the audience understand and remember the point the speaker is making.”

I couldn’t agree more with what The Presentation Agency had to say about Gore’s documentary. When Gore stepped onto that cherry picker, it really stood out to me. As he inclined himself higher and higher to meet the levels of the graph, he became significantly involved in his presentation, which in turn led the audience to become more involved as well. It’s the little efforts like these that allow images and ideas to stay with someone after a presentation is over. This is just one of the aspects that made Gore’s presentation so efficient.

Gore also uses digital animations in his PowerPoint presentation. Once again, Gore is able to provide great information to support his argument, but these digital animations take his argument to the next level. In one slide, Gore explains that if Greenland, or part of Antarctica were to melt, sea levels would rise twenty feet. Gore uses a computerized simulation of what would happen to the Earth if such a huge icecap were to melt. The simulation demonstrates oceans flooding states in the U.S such as California, Florida, and New York. It also shows what would happen to countries such as India and the Netherlands. Just by showing how much land would be lost shocks the audience, but Gore took it even further and directed a claim right to citizens of the United States.

September 11th is now a huge part of American history and being such a recent event, it is still an emotional issue for Americans. In his simulation, Gore points out the 9/11 memorial in Manhattan. He then clicks a button to begin the simulation and water floods all of Manhattan, including the World Trade Center memorial. This particular scene in the documentary is a perfect example of how Gore uses pathos to support his argument. The whole simulation caught my eye and astonished me, but when Gore demonstrated what would happen to such an important memorial, it was devastating. While this would be a tragic loss for Americans, we are not the only ones who would be affected. Humans everywhere around the world would suffer from loss of land, homes, and important cultural features that exist in their costal environments. In a National Geographic article named “Warming to Cause Catastrophic Rise in Sea Level,” reporter, Stefan Lovgren quotes Jonathan Overpeck, the director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona.

When speaking of the possible melting of the Greenland ice sheet, Overpeck says, "The consequences would be catastrophic. Even with a small sea level rise, we're going to destroy whole nations and their cultures that have existed for thousands of years."

Its one thing to change the maps because nations such as the Soviet Union collapse and split into separate countries, but I cannot imagine the world map being changed because rising sea levels have washed away the coats of countries all over the world. Gore points this out as a plea to the human race to understand the consequences of their actions. His particular demonstration reaches out to his entire audience because the majority of countries all over the world would be affected by the sea level rise.

Gore not only reaches out to his audience through his PowerPoint presentation, but he appeals to the human race through environmental footage taken all over the world as well. He opens his documentary with footage of a calm, peaceful river and almost immediately appeals to his audience’s emotions through their love for nature. While this serene clip of a river bend draws in his audience, Gore’s voice fills the silence of the footage.

You look at that river gently flowing by. You notice the leaves rustling with the wind. You hear the birds; you hear the tree frogs. In the distance you hear a cow. You feel the grass. The mud gives a little bit on the riverbank. It's quiet; it's peaceful. And all of a sudden, it's a gearshift inside you. And it's like taking a deep breath and going, "Oh yeah, I forgot about this” (Gore).

From the very first words of his documentary, Gore has set the tone; he speaks calmly and soothingly, mimicking the gentle flow of the water. Viewers can’t help but to feel a subtle happiness overtake them as they realize they have forgotten about such beautiful places in nature. And from that point on, Gore has got them determined to preserve such divine wonders in the world. Throughout the entire documentary, Gore builds on this friendly, understanding tone and the audience can’t help but to feel regard towards him.

Tony Fletcher, music journalist, and creator of fanzine, Jamming, commented on Gore’s likability in an article published on www.ijamming.net. Fletcher said, “Throughout An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore comes as personable, likeable, funny, sentimental, and intensely intelligent . . . Watching him deliver this vital message, one instinctively wishes that he had been given his four years to run the world.”

While watching this documentary, I found myself thinking exactly what Fletcher points out. I had reoccurring thoughts throughout the entire film about how my life, as an American, would be different if Al Gore had served as my president. I think this was an intentional theme in his documentary. His character throughout the entire piece was greatly charismatic and I think his attitude was an extremely effective form of rhetoric. His amiable character allowed people to trust what he was saying, raising his credibility further than his political career could ever do. I personally found myself wanting to become more green because of Gore’s passion towards saving the environment. Seeing someone act so enthusiastic can really encourage a large number of people to put faith and trust into someone and I believe this is just what Gores audience did.

Al Gore took on a hard challenge when he decided to raise awareness about global warming and encourage the human population to take action towards the issue, but he did not back down. Instead, he rose to the occasion and created a powerful piece of rhetoric that appealed to his audiences’ emotions, established his own credibility, and emphasized logical reasoning and information about the subject. Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has been proven as an effective piece of rhetoric by a 47- country Internet survey conducted by The Nielsen Company and Oxford University. The survey concluded:
Sixty-six percent of viewers who claimed to have seen An Inconvenient Truth said the film had “changed their mind” about global warming and eighty-nine percent said watching the movie made them more aware of the problem. More importantly, three out of four (74%) viewers said they changed some of their habits as a result of seeing the film (The Nielsen Company).

Gore reached out to countries all over the world to get his message across to the entire human race about global warming. Through a strong PowerPoint presentation, live environmental footage, and anecdotes of his personal life, Gore achieved the ultimate by sparking awareness and action in a large percent of his audience: the human race.

Project 4 part 1

An Inconvenient Truth was Al Gore’s documentary on global warming. The documentary was a mixture of footage taken during Gore’s presentations on global warming, and footage of Al Gore’s personal life. Gore’s documentary begins with footage from his presentation on climate change. He addresses the audience by joking about almost becoming president, and then begins his claim on global warming. Throughout his presentation, he flips through a slide show with pictures, graphs, and digital animations showing what global warming is and some of the affects it has in the world. Many of Gore’s personal anecdotes are incorporated throughout the movie. Some anecdotes he focuses on are his presidential campaign in 2000, and his childhood. Gore ends his presentation with a call to action; this is where he states his main thesis.

Al Gore’s whole presentation is about how humans have caused global warming and how as a race, we are not doing anything to fix the problem we are responsible for. In his call to action, Gore states his thesis: every single human being is, in some way, responsible for global warming and that each and every person needs to address this problem and then act to fix it. Gore’s slide show provides all the evidence that supports his thesis. Some subjects he uses as evidence are rising carbon dioxide emissions on the planet, melting glaciers and ice caps, and green house gasses blocking heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. Because Gore ended with a call to action and incorporated his thesis within that plea, it only makes sense that he would build all of his evidence before stating his thesis. With a thesis that asks for something to be done, it is more effective when viewers and listeners know why they should take action before they are asked to do so and that is why Gore’s thesis and call to action are efficient.

Gore’s presentation was also efficient because of all the graphs and animations he used. One graph that really stuck out to me was the graph Robert Revell created to show the rise of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. Not only did this graph shock me, but Gore did a really good job of explaining why the CO2 emissions consistently went up and down each year. One of the most effective animations, in my opinion, was the animation that predicted what would happen to the world if Greenland or a piece of Antarctica were to melt. In this animation, Gore showed that the ocean level would raise 20 feet, causing many costal landmasses all over the world to be overtaken by water. This stuck out to me because the world is already over populated and I cannot imagine what would happen if humans had less land to live on than we already do.

Another aspect of An Inconvenient Truth is how Gore appealed to his audiences’ emotions. One way Gore did this was by making viewers take pity on him. Throughout his presentation, many anecdotes featuring his personal life were played. A good amount of these anecdotes featured Gore’s upsetting loss of Florida votes in the 2000 election. He also began his documentary by saying, “I used to be the next president of the United States.” The election of 2000 is now an historical event because of the recount in Florida and Gore used his misfortune in the election to appeal to his viewers’ sympathy. While this is a way to establish pathos, I personally think it was a cheap shot on Al Gore’s part. If he so strongly believes in global warming and making a change, his message will get through to readers. Instead of being confident that his viewers would listen to what he had to say about global warming, Gore felt the need to create a fallacy to attract his audience’s emotions. And he didn’t attract emotions to the subject; he attracted emotions to himself, showing a sign of weakness. While this was a very bad attempt at establishing pathos, Gore did appeal to his viewers’ emotions in some effective ways as well.

Gore established pathos in an effective way by using inspirational, heart-warming music. Subtle music played in the background of many scenes when showing how global warming has effected the planet. The music was effective because it was played during emotional footage, causing a more emotional reaction from the audience. This appeal to emotion worked better than Gore’s attempt to gain pity from his personal life because the music is less intense, more hidden, and a smaller aspect of the film. Viewers are less likely to address that Gore was trying to persuade them when listening to the music than watching anecdotes on his personal life.

Gore established ethos by using his personal character to prove he was a credible source. Some ways Gore established a name for himself were by using his political credibility, educational credibility, and personal interest of the subject. Gore showed a lot of footage about his political life and just like a campaign, he can gain a lot of support because people like him as a politician. He also created credibility by referring to his education throughout his presentation. He often mentions his college education and even refers to one of his former professors when speaking of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. I think another characteristic that helps establish Gore’s credibility is his concern for global warming. It is very evident throughout his presentation, just how much Gore cares about our planet and awareness about global warming. I think Gore established his credibility very well; his best way of doing so was by showing how much he has personally dedicated to awareness and the prevention of global warming,

I personally gained a lot while watching An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore attempted to use ethos, logos and pathos throughout his presentation to persuade his audience to take action and be more aware of global warming. I think I can more easily recognize causes of global warming and avoid contributing to them now. A lot of the footage was shocking to me and has given me a new perspective on the planet Earth and how I will treat it from now on.

The History of Peden Stadium

At Ohio University, many students define themselves as athletes – I being one of them. Here at Ohio, I am on the varsity Track and Field team and I love it. I have to say, one reason why I love it so much is because of the great facilities available to all Ohio varsity athletes. I am in Peden Stadium almost every day of the week and not once do I think to myself, “Man, I wish I could work out somewhere else.” This is why I chose to feature Peden Stadium in my promotional piece. I believe Peden has a great history that OU students should know about - especially Ohio athletes – and Ohio’s football history is a big part of the stadium as well! While designing of my promotional piece, I had to make many decisions on how to promote the history of Peden Stadium. Some of the main decisions I had to make, when promoting Peden Stadium, were advertising the stadium through a series of flyers, including information and history I felt was most important, and how to catch my audience’s attention.

My first decision, making a series of flyers to promote Peden Stadium, was a fairly easy one. I am a journalism major and I have a background in design from high school and now through the Ohio University magazine, Backdrop. This being the case, I love working with Adobe InDesign and felt this project was a perfect project to use my design skills for. After doing research on the history of Peden, I knew there was no way I would be able to fit all the information on one flyer; that is when I decided to do a series of flyers. I realized that Peden had important improvements every couple of decades so I chose to base each flyer on a different decade of Peden’s life.

Through my design knowledge, contrast and repetition are the most important design aspects; therefore, I incorporated these aspects into my promotional piece. I used contrast with the colors of the flyers and the text’s colors. I outlined dark-colored text in white to make it “pop” and catch the reader’s attention. I used colored backgrounds on every flyer for that same reason: so passersby would be interested and stop to read what Peden is all about. The colors I used on each flyer were also thoroughly thought out. Each flyer’s background color had to do with OU colors. For instance, the tan flyer is the same color as our mascot: Rufus the bobcat. I also made a point to incorporate green into every single flyer since it is OU’s color. I used repetition in the flyers because it lets the audience know that the whole set of flyers go together to promote the full history of the stadium. I did this throughout the flyers by using the same font, same phrase (“Did you know?”), and similar pictures placed in the same general area. Speaking of pictures, I believed it was very important to feature pictures in each flyer so my audience could see how Peden has changed physically over the years. While a good design will make readers stop to look at a flyer, I know interesting information will make them stick around to find out what the flyer has to say. That is why I carefully chose what to incorporate into the information of the flyers.

When researching the history of Peden Stadium, I found a lot of information, but I believe the best source was Ohio University Outlook. I read an article called A Saturday Standard by Corinne Colbert, and this article not only featured the history of Peden stadium, but it also featured the history of Ohio’s football team. In my opinion, I believe Ohio’s football history is an important aspect of Peden’s history because without our football team, the stadium would not be here today. Through this article, I learned that before the stadium was built in 1929, the football players played on the baseball fields. I think that is crazy and it personally interested me, so I assumed it would interest other athletes and football fans as well. Another thing that interested me about the early history of Peden was that it was originally named Ohio Stadium. It wasn’t until 1960, when the stadium was named after the head coach from the years 1924 to 1947. I think it was very important to include information and history on the head coach, Don Peden because he was a phenomenal coach and that is why our stadium is named after him today. Another important fact that jumped out at me, was that Peden wasn’t renovated for 57 years! That is such a long time to go without any improvements and I feel that even the stadium’s state of despair is an important part of its history. Another important aspect of the stadium’s history is the football field and seating itself: how many fans the stadium can seat, and what features are a part of the stadium such as the scoreboard and FeildTurf. While this information reaches out to football fans I also thought it important to reach out to the athletes themselves. That is why I decided to incorporate a picture and information about Carin Strength and Conditioning Center. This facility featured in Peden is very important to all varsity athletes because this allows them to lift as a team and stay separated from all the people who work out at Ping. I personally enjoy being able to lift in a facility dedicated to all varsity athletes and I believe the rest of Ohio’s athletes do too. As mentions in previous explanations, catching my audience’s attention was a very important aspect in creating my promotional piece.

Audience plays a huge role when creating informational flyers. I knew I had to incorporate information and design aspects my audience - Ohio University athletes and football fans – wanted. I reached out to my audience by using ethos, logos, and pathos. Because I am an Ohio athlete and football fan, I believe this makes me a credible source to evaluate what my audience wants. I have experienced Ohio football games first hand, as well as worked out in the conditioning center, ran both on the field and in the stadium, and studied in Peden Tower. I used logos by incorporating all of the facts into the five flyers. Right away, the phrase, “Did you know?” sticks out to the readers and, following this advertisement, are many facts on the history of Peden Stadium over the course of its lifetime. I appealed to my audience’s emotions through pathos by incorporating important pictures and information that all football fans and athletes want to know and see. I believe my intended audience would be very interested in the flyers I have created to promote the history of Peden Stadium.

Peden Stadium has a very important role here at Ohio University. It hosts football games every fall, has great facilities for athletes, and an interesting history behind it. These are just some of the reasons why I chose to feature Ohio University’s football stadium in my promotional piece. I made many decisions in the process of creating my promotional piece and I am confident that every decision I made helped to make my flyers attract an audience. Along the way, I made decisions to help promote Peden Stadium’s history by advertising the stadium through a series of flyers, including information and history I felt was most important, and appealing to my audience through ethos, logos, and pathos. I know students would be interested in the history of Peden Stadium because it is a huge part of Ohio University’s history as a whole.

P.S. I wrote this paper in Peden Stadium.

Potomac, Maryland

It is three o’clock on a Monday afternoon in Potomac, Maryland and traffic has come to a complete stop. Although one would assume most of the residents in this upper-middle class suburb would be busy working in their offices at a time like this, traffic never dies in this town. Cars screech to a halt while other frantic drivers lay on their horns and curse to themselves in their confined vehicles, but the traffic still remains unmoved.

Amy Rubin, an eighteen-year-old girl who has lived in Potomac her whole life, hates the traffic in her hometown. She often finds herself sitting in her car yelling at the drivers in front of her. It does seem peculiar that a suburban town would be swamped with traffic day by day but I didn’t mention that the trip to the nation’s capital is only a thirty-minute drive from Potomac. (Oh, now it makes sense!) Whether residents are traveling to the city for daily jobs or visiting for a professional sports game, they still enjoy living in their safe, beautiful suburban town, just like Amy does.

Potomac, located in Montgomery County Maryland, holds almost 50,000 residents. Amy is just one of the residents living in Potomac and she feels lucky to live in such a great community. The majority of the adults, such as Amy’s parents, have well-paying jobs and are able to support their families with ease. Neighborhoods in Potomac focus on safety, cleanliness and an overall upper-class image. Most houses are three stories high with plenty of room for big families, including big back yards.

Amy’s neighborhood, Copenhaver is a community that focuses on these key elements and consists of two public parks, a public swimming pool, and an elementary school. Although this may seem like a luxury, many neighborhoods in Potomac are gated communities featuring country clubs and special treatment for those who live in them. Although some houses may be nicer than hers, Amy is content in the neighborhood she lives in, and is even thankful that she was able to attend such a great high school.

Montgomery County has high standards for their education and spends a lot of money on their public school systems in order to produce well-educated students. Amy’s school system is nationally ranked for its education system and parents and students feel confident that they are earning a great education. Amy went to Wootton high school and was one of 2,500 students; her graduating class was a whopping 600 students and most continued on to study at a collegiate level!

The city of Potomac also holds many sports fans! Amy’s hometown is conveniently located between two major sports cities – Baltimore and Washington D.C. – she loves to root for her favorite professional teams: the Washington Redskins, Washington Nationals, Washington Wizards, Washington Capitals, Baltimore Ravens, and the Baltimore Orioles. It is evident that Amy and her family are huge sports fans and they make trips to cheer on their favorite players all the time. Amy’s family has season tickets to the Washington Redskins and Washington Capitals games so they never miss an exciting moment. Her family also takes occasional trips to cheer on their other favorite professional teams, but if they aren’t at the games, rest assured, they are always watching from home.

Although the upper-middle class town of Potomac, Maryland may be swamped with traffic, hour after hour, Amy loves the suburb in which she calls home. The safe and beautiful communities, great school systems, passionate sports fans, and perfect location from the city make Potomac a great place to live.

Works Cited

www.maps.google.com

www.city-data.com

Wolf Lake Ranch

My family and I used to go to a ranch in Michigan when I was younger. We would go the same week every summer and so did the other vacationers. This allowed my whole family to become really close with everyone else that went to Wolf Lake Ranch. Wolf Lake was an outdoorsman's dream; there was a big lake, plenty of horses, a huge dining hall and thousands of outdoor games to play. I starting riding horses very early in life because of this vacation spot and I wish I got to ride them more often today. My family stopped going on vacation to Wolf Lake when I was 12 because the cost was very high, but when I think of my childhood, I often think of Wolf Lake. I created a lot of memories there and it was a perfect place to spend time with my family. There was no television so I was forced to stay active and my cousins and I always found ways to have fun. We would go canoeing in the lake or play king of the hill on the dock. When we weren't in the water, we took long rides through the woods on our horses, singing songs and playing games all while galloping on the trails. When the horses were too tired to ride, we would play games with all the wranglers such as capture the flag or keep away. At meals, the whole Ranch would eat together and play games as we fought for the delicious food. There was never a minute at Wolf Lake when you weren't having fun and I miss it dearly. I imagine one day I will go back, and maybe the faces won't be the same, but I know the entertainment will be endless.

About me

My name is Miranda Richardson and I am from Dublin, Ohio. I am currently 18 years old and am starting my first year of college at Ohio University. I am a part of the E.W Scripps School of Journalism and I am majoring in Magazine Journalism with a minor in Popular Culture. My dream job would be to work for Rolling Stone Magazine. While I am studying at Ohio University, I plan to write for The Post and Backdrop Magazine. I would also like to participate in intramural volleyball, club gymnastics, and hopefully varsity track. I love sports, reading, and writing!