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Global Warming Predictions - Main Menu
3. Al Gore - An Inconvenient TruthAn Inconvenient Truth is an Academy Award-nominated documentary film about climate change, specifically global warming, directed by Davis Guggenheim and starring former United States Vice President Al Gore.
An Inconvenient Truth is also the title of a companion book by Gore, which reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller lists of July 2[1] and August 13, 2006, and again during several months on the list.[2]
The film premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and opened in New York and Los Angeles on May 24, 2006. It is the third-highest-grossing documentary in the United States to date.[3] Both Gore and Paramount Classics, the film's distributor, have pledged proceeds from the film to further educational campaigns about climate change. The film was released on DVD by Paramount Home Entertainment on November 21, 2006. OverviewA documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth explores data and predictions
regarding climate change, interspersed with personal events from the life
of Al Gore. Through a Keynote presentation (dubbed "the slide show") that
he has presented worldwide, Gore reviews the scientific evidence for
global warming, discusses the politics and economics of global warming,
and describes the consequences he believes global climate change will
produce if the amount of human-generated greenhouse gases is not
significantly reduced in the very near future. The film includes many segments intended to refute critics who say that
global warming is insignificant or unproven. For example, Gore discusses
the risk of the collapse of a major ice sheet in Greenland or West
Antarctica, either of which could raise global sea levels by approximately
20 feet (6m), flooding coastal areas and producing 100 million refugees.
Meltwater from Greenland, because of its lower salinity, could halt the
Gulf Stream current and quickly trigger dramatic local cooling in Northern
Europe. In an effort to explain the global warming phenomenon, the film examines annual temperature and CO2 levels for the past 600,000 years in Antarctic ice core samples. An analogy to Hurricane Katrina is used for those familiar with the 30-ft to 45-ft (9 to 14m) waves that destroyed almost a million homes in coastal Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida. The documentary ends with Gore noting that if appropriate action is
taken soon, the effects of global warming can be successfully reversed by
releasing less carbon dioxide and growing more plants or trees. Gore calls
upon viewers to learn how they can help in this initiative. Gore's book of the same title was published concurrently with the
theatrical release of the documentary. The book contains additional,
detailed information, scientific analysis, and Gore's commentary on the
issues presented in the documentary. Scientific basisScientific opinion on climate changeGore's basic claim—that global warming is real and largely
human-caused—is supported by current research. Gore presents specific data that supports the film's thesis, including: The retreat of numerous glaciers is shown in before-and-after photographs (see Retreat of glaciers since 1850). A study by researchers at the Physics Institute at the University of Bern and the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctic presenting data from Antarctic ice cores showing carbon dioxide concentrations higher than at any time during the past 650,000 years.[8] A 2004 survey by Dr. Naomi Oreskes of 928 peer-reviewed scientific articles on global climate change published between 1993 and 2003. The survey, published as an editorial in the journal Science, claimed that every article either supported the human-caused global warming consensus or did not comment on it.[9] The Associated Press contacted more than 100 top climate researchers
and questioned them about the film's veracity. Because this was at the
time before the film's general release many of those surveyed had neither
seen the movie nor read the book, but all 19 climate scientists who had
done so said that Gore conveyed the science correctly.[10] The U.S. Senate
Committee on Environment and Public Works, chaired by Sen. Jim Inhofe, a
global warming skeptic, issued a press release criticizing this
article.[11] Inhofe's statement that "global warming is the greatest hoax
ever perpetrated on the American people" appears in the film. RealClimate, a group blog maintained by eleven climate scientists,
lauded the film's science as "remarkably up to date, with reference to
some of the very latest research."[12] Michael Shermer, science historian and founder of The Skeptics Society,
wrote in Scientific American that An Inconvenient Truth "shocked me out of
my doubting stance".[13] However, in a June 26, 2006 editorial in the Wall Street Journal,
climatologist and global warming skeptic Richard Lindzen criticized the
movie and questioned its claims.[14] A response to Lindzen's piece
disputes the basis for his claims as allegedly not supported by currently
available data.[15] Gore discusses the possibility of a sudden rise in sea level of 20 feet
if a major polar ice sheet collapsed. This should not be confused with the
more certain, gradual and moderate rise due to non-catastrophic ice
melting and the thermal expansion of water. The IPCC's Third Assessment
Summary estimates the latter as between 0.1 to 0.85 meters (0.3 to 2.8
feet) by the year 2100, but notes that "this range does not allow for
uncertainty relating to ice dynamical changes in the West Antarctic ice
sheet."[16] The Antarctic as a whole contains enough ice to raise sea
level by an estimated 60 m (200 ft) if it were to melt entirely[17] and
the collapse of the grounded interior reservoir of the West Antarctic ice
sheet alone would raise sea level by 5-6 m (16-20 ft).[18]
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inconvenient_Truth References
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