I ATTENDED the free showing at the local cinema of Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary An inconvenient truth with a slight sense of trepidation. All the reviews I had read before going felt the film was difficult to watch and that as a documentary it was rather too long.
The movie was being shown in conjunction with the signing of the Scottish Declaration on Climate Change by the Chief Executive of the local council. It was to promote awareness within the island community where I live, of the need to look after our environment and to encourage healthy debate about how everyone, from individuals to schools and businesses can play an important part. The Islands are already at the global forefront of technology in the field of renewable energy, researching and testing the world's first wave making machine over the past two and a half years. The Polamis is now installed and working a few miles off-shore. The fact that the recent proposal to establish a wind farm also, was met with major opposition for fear that it would spoil the view over the wealth of neolithic and bronze-age monuments this area is blessed with, is surprising therefore, and a story for another time.
Personally I found An inconvenient truth much easier to digest than expected. Whatever one might think about Al Gore as a person or as a politician, there can be no doubt that he is passionate about his subject which helps to make it more palatable to his audience than it would otherwise have been. The documentary follows Gore on his lecture tours and features him facing halls filled, by turns, with bemused/interested-looking students, using excellent, computer-generated graphics to illustrate his points, I can see, though, that some will find this method of presentation too dry to hold their attention. For me it worked very well. Probably better than if he had been followed around the countryside and across continents by a camera crew and a couple of producers.
To break the monotony of being holed up inside a lecture theatre Gore takes time out to reflect on a few episodes in his personal life which significantly affected him. The first, every parent's nightmare, tells of how his young son escaped from his father's grip while crossing a busy street and being hit by an oncoming car. Although touching in its own right it is clearly only an attempt to show that Gore has warmth and compassion, irrespective of how he comes across in his career. The episode, however, has little to do with concern for our planet, as far as I can see. His own backstory of how he grew up on a tobacco farm and his beloved sister dying of lung cancer at the age of forty five are more relevant to the theme and may make a greater impact on his audience.
Other interludes from Gore's lectures show him being visibly touched by the obvious effects of global warming he observes, first flying over Antarctica and later over a parched landscape with black smoke belching out from huge chimney stacks in the background.
The film ends with the ex-politician impelling us to tell everyone to change their ways, our parents, our spouses, our children, to enable us to endow future generations with a life on this planet such as we are enjoying ourselves. This final attempt to drive the message home seemed to me unnecessary and to be over-egging the pudding somewhat. However, there can be no doubt that this is an important movie, totally relevant to our time and our changing world. Whether it is warning enough to convince the many cynics out there who remain dubious that climate change is happening to the threatening degree that it is claimed, remains to be seen.
17/04/07
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