Ain't It Cool News: Review

Hola all. Massawyrm here. (a self-described extreme conservative). Well, with An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore sets out to challenge that way of thinking and manages to turn what could easily be a 100 minute episode-of-Nova snoozefest into a riveting conversation and argument on the need to reduce our CO2 emissions. This is effectively a filmed version of the lecture he’s been giving over the last six years, inter-cut with a series of personal anecdotes shot at locations pivotal in Gore’s life. Using stories of his past as metaphors, Gore manages to introduce us to himself in a whole new light, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for arguments made later in the film. And those arguments are incredibly simple – elegantly simple in fact.

While not entirely unassailable (as arguments go), what seemed like a “Save the Spotted Owl” plea for environmental consciousness rapidly became a wrecking ball of rhetoric that tore down common myths and hit every point in the argument, from personal cost, industry and the technology needed. This isn’t some crazy, left wing, bleeding heart, tree hugger plea – this is an honest to god, very well thought out evaluation of facts, figures and concepts. And its an argument, valid or not, that is so good, it should be heard by members of all political slants and bents.

This film, this lecture, comes across as very personal; a passionate argument in the old school sense of the word. This isn’t the stodgy, stiff shirt Al Gore we all remember – this is an Al Gore who jokes openly, is warm and entertaining and speaks with pain about his loss in 2000. You can easily tell that he’s a changed man, someone who while on the track to the White House gave us what he thought we wanted, and now, with nothing to lose, can let it all hang out and just be himself.

And the man before us in the film, well, he’s one I quite like now. He’s been moved from the category of people I never hope to meet into the realm of “Man, I’d really love to pick this guys brain over a cup of coffee.” And believe me, that’s a BIG deal. This is a guy I believed stood against most everything I believe, and while he still may, I no longer think it’s because of anything but that we want different things and have different priorities.

Comments

[mesa doctor]

That will give the rest of your budget more freedom.