Danger and Opportunity: A Review of An Inconvenient Truth
Vivid with dramatic, full-page photos, bold graphics and attention-grabbing quotations in oversize fonts, “An Inconvenient Truth” is a fairly quick read for those familiar with the science of global climate change. For those who aren’t, it’s a persuasive primer on the ever-growing impact humans are having on their environment, and on the potentially devastating consequences of that impact.
“(T)he Chinese expression for ‘crisis’ consists of two characters âÂ?¦ The first is the symbol for ‘danger,’ the second the symbol for ‘opportunity,’ ” Gore writes. “The climate crisis is, indeed, extremely dangerous. In fact it is a true planetary emergency. Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, working for more than 20 years in the most elaborate and well-organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have forged an exceptionally strong consensus that all the nations on Earth must work together to solve the crisis of global warming.”
As for readers who dismiss the whole idea that people are causing the planet to overheat? Well, it’s easy to imagine many who, simply by seeing Al Gore’s name on the cover, would scoff, “A book written by a stiff, wonky ex-vice-president? No thanks.” Even the often touching personal essays that Gore scatters throughout the book – aimed at illustrating why he has been inspired to make this issue his mission – are unlikely to win over these detractors.
However, while it’s likely that, for most of its readers, “An Inconvenient Truth” is preaching to the choir, there’s a visual, compelling and immediate appeal to anyone who might happen to flip through a few pages while browsing the shelves at their local Borders or Target.
Take, for example, the stunning photo spread picturing the Upsala Glacier in Argentina. Across the top half is a black-and-white panorama of the glacier as it appeared 75 years ago; across the bottom, the identical scene in 2004, with a teal-blue lake now spreading across the entire width of the once-ice-filled valley.
Then there’s the two-page montage of 2005’s record-breaking 27 Atlantic hurricanes, a satellite image of swirling white for each storm, A through Zeta (it was the first time the World Meteorological Organization ran out of alphabetical names for hurricanes and had to resort to Greek letters for the last six). While Gore is careful to point out that scientists still disagree about global warming’s effect on hurricanes, there’s something visceral and disturbing about seeing so many storms in a single glance.
And, whatever you believe about global warming, there’s no denying the devastating impact of changing climate on whole societies, particularly in already impoverished parts of the world. When you see a series of photos depicting the disappearance of Africa’s Lake Chad – once the sixth largest lake in the world – over the last four decades, you vividly appreciate how its loss contributes to the misery of people in their neighboring regions of Darfur and Niger.
Even the bar charts and graphics are effective and dramatic in their simplicity. Many of them also depict a depressingly repetitive trend: progressively rising carbon dioxide levels, rising incidence of major floods around the globes, growing rates of desertification, increasing numbers of major wildfires, growing numbers of lost animal species.
Despite the overwhelming gloominess of the book’s material, though, Gore ends with a section that is both hopeful and helpful to his readers. There is much each of us as individuals can do to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, cut down on the production of greenhouse gases and mobilize others to do the same, he writes. He offers a number of suggestions and resources for readers, as well as to-the-point rebuttals for those who remain unconvinced.
“When considering a problems as vast as global warming, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless – skeptical that individual efforts can really have an impact,” Gore writes. “But we need to resist that response, because this crisis will get resolved only if we as individuals take responsibility for it. By educating ourselves and others, by doing our part to minimize our use and waste of resources, by becoming more politically active and demanding change – in these ways and many others, each of us can make a difference.”
In that respect, “An Inconvenient Truth” works as much as a passionate, hopeful appeal to people around the world as a warning about a potential global disaster.
