An Inconvenient Truth (U)

David Guggenheim's well structured documentary is presented by Al Gore, Bill Clinton's former vice president and the defeated Democratic presidential candidate in 2000. Its main meat is an illustrated lecture on the threat to the environment, which Gore has given more than a thousand times all over America since retiring from party politics. The inconvenient truth of the title - inconvenient because of the implications it has for our economy and way of life - is the disastrous effect that global warming is wreaking already on our planet and the even more disastrous effects there will be if we don't do something to stop it soon. It is a subject which is obviously close to the man's heart.

Gore is a very charismatic and lively lecturer, who puts his sometimes complicated arguments across clearly and powerfully, with the help of effective use of visual aids - still and moving images such as film footage illustrating the erosion of the world's glaciers, from which it appears 40% of the global population gets its water supply, and graphs, which dramatically demonstrate the increasing rates of carbon‑dioxide emissions into our atmosphere. Had he not gone into politics, he would have made a good teacher or university lecturer. Gore himself comes over very strongly as a man with a message, a message he delivers with an almost evangelical zeal, which is mitigated by his reassuringly warm tones, Mr Nice Guy personality and self deprecating humour. He introduces himself as the man, who "used to be the next president of the United States of America."

The lecture element is interspersed with personal insights from Gore himself, either in voice over or interview mode, charting his long relationship with environmental issues, which was sparked off by a teacher in his youth. Those were the bits where I learned the most – the environmental arguments, while well put, are pretty well known to anyone interested in the issue. And even though the film is packed with a lot of pretty grim facts, it resists any temptation to be over dramatic or sensational.

Talking, as it is, primarily to an American audience, An Inconvenient Truth concentrates almost exclusively on putting forward the argument that the problem exists - a fact which America largely refuses to accept. What is missing from the film is any significant material and suggestions regarding the next stage - so what are we going to do about it? It also raises the interesting speculation in one's mind as to what would have happened if six years ago Gore had not ceded Florida to Bush and with it the presidency. Since he tells us here that he sees the environmental threat as far more important than any war against terrorism, it follows as a strong possibility that the invasion of Iraq would never have happened. But as president would he have been able to stand up to the powerful commercial interests in his country and get America to sign the Kyoto agreement? Or can he actually do more for his cause as an independent loose cannon?

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