Where would we be without flat-earthers, Creationists and other utterly ridiculous people around to amuse us? Davis Guggenheim’s excellent, clear-headed documentary, fronted by former almost-President Gore, is a compelling, scary-ass piece of cinema detailing how close we are to planetary heat death. That, of course, is enough to get the cranks out.
Kyle Smith writing in the reliably idiotic New York Post has dismissed the film as a ‘lefty hymn’ – “Gore implies that no reputable scientists dispute anything he says – basically, that the ice caps are melting and people on the 50th floor of the Empire State Building had better learn to swim. But there is wide disagreement about whether humans are causing global warming.” Erm, no there isn’t. Unless you count that Danish clown The Economist like so much. Did anyone say ‘vested interest’?
For those prepared to listen to reason and empirical data, Gore’s now famous power point lecture spells out the horrors of global warming in a fashion even the most doltish sceptic can appreciate. As our Earth heats up, our future will ultimately become too, too bright to allow the long term survival of the species. It’s a bummer. It may well demand a total rethink and major lifestyle changes. But you can’t argue with cold, hard facts just because they don’t suit.
There’s a monstrous irony here – had Gore been elected to power, it’s unlikely, given who bankrolls presidential campaigns, that he could have lent his voice to this particular platform. With any luck, An Inconvenient Truth will revitalise the green movement and Gore’s political career. And then we can hold him to his word.