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.