A Series of Inconvenient Truths

In this summer of our discontent, those of us who believe that President George W. Bush’s policies have destabilized the Middle East, fostered growing anti-Americanism abroad, and endangered civil liberties at home may be overlooking even more serious and deadly long range ramifications of the current regime.  The failure to acknowledge the consensus of the scientific community regarding the consequences of global warming led the Bush administration to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocols; an international agreement negotiated during the Clinton Presidency placing limitations upon fossil fuel emissions.  While the slaughter in Iraq and the Middle East presents a steady and staggering loss of life, the abdication of national security concerns with the environment may culminate in the destruction of the United States and the planet.

This dereliction of duty on the part of the Bush White House is exposed in the film An Inconvenient Truth made by documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim.  An Inconvenient Truth features a rather unusual film star in former Vice President Al Gore.  Guggenheim’s film is essentially a rendering of the high tech slide show and lecture which Gore delivers primarily on university campuses.  This Gore environmental stump speech warns audiences regarding the clear and present danger of global warming.  This is the first inconvenient truth presented in a documentary earning critical praise and decent box office receipts—over $13 million in a limited release.  It is not the usual fare for summer film audiences flocking to Johnnie Depp’s latest installment of The Pirates of the Caribbean.  Yet, global warming is an issue which we must confront, and Guggenheim’s film delivers its message in a clear and generally entertaining fashion; albeit without the humor of Michael Moore.

Although the examination of global warming is certainly the film’s most important contribution, a second inconvenient truth raised by Guggenheim’s production is the status of Gore as a leader or President in exile—the man who won the popular vote in 2000 and whose recount in Florida was halted by a five to four vote in the Supreme Court.  The Gore of this film is articulate, relaxed, and even humorous—clad in slacks, sport shirt and jacket, and sans tie.  He delivers his scientific lecture without notes, observing that  he was drawn to the topic of global warming while studying with Harvard professor Roger Revelle. 

One is immediately struck by the contrast with the current White House incumbent.  Was George W. Bush intellectually engaged in a similar fashion during his days at Yale, or was he more interested in the next fraternity party?  It is almost inconceivable to imagine the man who invented the word “strategery” being able to deliver Gore’s lecture.  In a series of shots featuring Gore with his omnipresent laptop computer and checking into late night flights dragging his suitcase behind him, Guggenheim portrays Gore as a solitary man on a mission.  As an audience, we are left to speculate about what direction America might have taken under a Gore Presidency?  Would we be bogged down in the quagmire of Iraq?  In fact, the courageous and amiable Gore we witness in this film makes one long for a 2008 Presidential bid.

But before we wax too poetically about the prospects for a revitalized Gore candidacy, it is worth recalling the wooden performances of Gore in the 2000 Presidential debates.  It appeared that a different Gore showed up for each debate.  And while few objective viewers of the debates could term Bush the intellectual equal of Gore, it is, nevertheless, a fact that many American found the folksy Texan the more likeable of the two men.  Gore also refused to call upon Clinton in the latter stages of the campaign, apparently afraid that the Clinton sex scandals would alienate more conservative middle class voters.  This bloc was already lost to Gore, who could have used the charismatic Clinton to energize the Democratic Party base in key swing states.  Finally, Gore, the author of the 1992 environmental best-seller Earth in the Balance, allowed campaign strategists to temper his global warming message for the campaign.  In short, when Gore, the politician, perceived the Presidency within his grasp, his moved to the political center and toned down his environmentalism.  Perhaps Gore is more effective when removed from the political limelight.  He makes a stronger impression as an entertaining lecturer/professor than as a rather uptight Vice President.  The planet may be better served without a Gore candidacy in 2008.

In the final analysis, Gore’s case for the dangers posed by global warming is persuasive and reflects the conventional wisdom of the scientific community.  In his solution to the environment crisis, however, Gore remains the political moderate.  He argues that greater energy efficiency and personal choices such as recycling can avert global catastrophe.  Many scientists believe that more radical political and economic solutions are necessary if we are to avoid the devastation suffered by previous civilizations described by Jared Diamond in his best-selling study Collapse.  This may be an inconvenient truth which not even Gore is prepared to acknowledge.  It is an inconvenient truth that our children are likely to face unless we embrace Gore’s message with a sense of urgency.  The Bush head-in-the-sand assertion that global warming is a controversial topic which needs further study endangers our nation and world even more than the misguided and dangerous notion that democracy can be brought to the Middle East through the barrel of a gun.