An uncomfortable truth

Movie
German title	An uncomfortable truth
Original title	To Inconvenient Truth
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	2006
length	100 minutes
Age rating	FSK no age ; limit JMK 0
Rod
Director	Davis Guggenheim
production	Laurie David , ; Lawrence Bender
music	Michael Brook
camera	Davis Guggenheim ; Bob Richmann
cut	Jay Cassidy; Dan Swietlik
occupation
	Al Gore;
chronology
	Successor → ; Still an uncomfortable truth - our time is running out

An Inconvenient Truth ( An Inconvenient Truth ) is a documentary by Davis Guggenheim with former US vice president and presidential candidate Al Gore on global warming . After the events of the presidential election in 2000 , Al Gore devoted himself even more to the fight against global warming. The film shows recordings of his presentations, which have been presented in many cities, in which he conveys his view of scientific and political aspects of global warming.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2006. It was the first film in ten years to receive a Special Humanitas Prize for its particularly successful message to humanity. The film also won the 2007 Oscars for Best Documentary and Best Song ( I Need to Wake Up by Melissa Etheridge ). He was considered a favorite even before the award ceremony in February 2007.

On January 19, 2017, the sequel Still an Inconvenient Truth - Our time is running ( An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power ) premiered on the opening day of the 2017 festival as part of the newly established “Climate Section” of the Sundance Film Festival ; the production is by Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk.

Making the film

Gore has been fascinated by the topic of global warming since he attended a course with Roger Revelle at Harvard University . After he was later elected to Congress , he initiated the first negotiations on this subject and made contact with scientists and politicians. He believes his arguments will lead legislators to act; even if this process progressed slowly.

Al Gore's book Paths to Balance (original title: Earth in the Balance ) reached the New York Times bestseller list in 1992 .

As Vice President during Clinton's term in office, Gore implemented a coal tax in 1993 to limit the use of fossil fuels and thus reduce the greenhouse effect . In 1997 he helped enforce the Kyoto Protocol , an international agreement aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions . The United States signed the treaty but did not ratify it . During his campaign for the presidential election in 2000 , Gore promised to approve the agreement if he took office. He has also helped fund a satellite called Triana , which will help identify environmental issues and take direct measurements of the reflection of sunlight.

After his defeat in the presidential election, Gore reworked an old slide show and started giving multimedia lectures on global warming. By the time the film was made, he had given his speech about a thousand times. Producers Laurie David and Lawrence Bender saw his show in New York after the premiere of The Day After Tomorrow film . Inspired by this, they met with director Davis Guggenheim and considered the possibility of turning Gore's slideshow into a movie. Guggenheim, who was initially skeptical, later saw the presentation himself and was "overwhelmed". Convinced that the fight against global warming was the most important of all challenges, he wanted to try to make a film out of it.

content

The film presents Al Gore's view of the current state of climate research and comments on it:

He points to the very thin earth's atmosphere , which can hardly be seen from space, and shows that mankind has an impact on global warming as possible. Al Gore fears that, despite the size of the earth, mankind with its exhaust gases will alter the composition of the Atmosphere changed with devastating consequences.

From the solar radiation , which warms the earth and atmosphere, part of the heat is radiated outwards as infrared radiation , while the rest is reflected back again from the outer layer of the atmosphere and thus has kept the temperature relatively constant so far. The climate-damaging greenhouse gases make the outer layer of the atmosphere more and more impermeable, more infrared radiation is reflected back to the earth. It is the carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ) involved, the content from the start of recording of Roger Revelle a zigzag curve continues to rise in 1957 in the form as a whole. The annual variation is due to the fact that the land mass north of the equator contains most of the vegetation; in spring and summer it can "breathe" more CO ₂ and "exhale" oxygen than the ocean-rich southern half. Despite attempts to curb emissions of CO ₂ , the most widespread greenhouse gas, such as a CO ₂ tax and the Kyoto Protocol , CO ₂ levels continue to rise. As a result, the glaciers are melting , including on the Kilimanjaro massif and in the Himalayas , the latter with dramatic consequences for the drinking water supply of 40 percent of humanity. In 50 years there will be hardly any glaciers like those in the Himalayas that feed the great rivers.

Over the past 650,000 years, the ratio between the CO ₂ share and the rest of the atmosphere has remained relatively constant, as research results on ice cores show, which can be used to draw conclusions about the climate of the past, similar to the annual rings of trees. But in the last 50 years the CO ₂ share has almost doubled. With increasing CO ₂ emissions, it will be ten times as high in 50 years, which means that even more solar radiation will remain in the atmosphere, which will heat the earth's climate even more.

Since the 1970s, skeptics have been predicting ocean warming and have been laughed at for it. Today we can see that their prognoses were correct. Warming of the oceans leads to higher humidity and stronger storms and hurricanes. These connections are confirmed by the scientific community, but denied in the media in the same way as the expansive striving of fascism in the 1930s by appeasement politicians , to whom Winston Churchill countered that the time of procrastination was over because mankind was entering the age of consequences would occur.

Global warming is accompanied by torrential rainfall that floods small areas while at the same time drying up neighboring areas - like in India in 1994, where the monsoons failed to appear in many regions, while Mumbai received 940 mm of rainfall in one day (940 liters Rainwater per square meter) has been flooded. The warming not only removes water from the sea, but rather from the ground, and desertification occurs in many places . Lake Chad is drying up in central Africa .

In the Arctic , the permafrost is thawing , pipelines are breaking and houses are collapsing. 35 years ago you could drive a truck on the permafrost for 225 days, today only 75 days a year. Since 1970, the amount, extent and thickness of the Arctic ice have decreased by 40 percent, and in 50 years it will be completely gone. The Arctic ice cap , like a mirror, radiates 90 percent of solar radiation and heat, while 90 percent of it is absorbed by the sea. Recently there has been an increasing number of drowned polar bears , which sometimes have to swim for distances of more than 100 km to reach pack ice .

The world's climate is like a big engine that drives heat from the equator to the poles through currents and wind systems . The climate is changing in abrupt leaps. If, according to the statistical mean, there were a worldwide temperature increase of 2.75 ° C, the earth near the equator would only warm by 0.5 ° C, but in the Arctic by 6 ° C. The Gulf Stream is a kind of conveyor belt of the ocean propelled by the heavy salty water of the Arctic that sinks to the ocean floor. 9000 years ago there was a cold spell of almost 1000 years in the Atlantic region, because melted glacier water on the North American continent got into the North Atlantic, thinning the salinity and thus putting the Gulf Stream inoperative. Something similar could happen again in a decade. If freshwater lakes form on the surface of the Greenland Glacier as a result of the warming, which dilute the Atlantic salt water, as has been observed for several years, there is a threat of climate shock.

In the Dutch Wadden Sea , migratory birds have appeared around April 25th for centuries, and their chicks hatched around June 3rd. The ecosystems had adjusted to one another in such a way that at this time caterpillars also hatched, which formed the foodstuff for the birds. But now the caterpillars hatch two weeks earlier than the chicks, so that on the one hand the chicks no longer have enough food and on the other hand the undecimated caterpillar population causes great environmental damage. New species are also immigrating, closing the ecological niches , such as bark beetles in Alaska , which are destroying the tree population. Even cities that were deliberately founded above "mosquito height" have recently suffered from mosquitos, which in turn transmit diseases to humans and animals. The warming of the sea leads to coral death , which in turn causes fish species to become extinct. The rate of extinction has increased a thousandfold over the past few decades.

In the Antarctic , the meltwater collects on the ice shelf in freshwater lakes. For example, within 35 days an ice shelf of immense size disappeared, which scientists had granted 100 years of existence. The mainland ice slides under its own pressure, the warmed sea touches the lower surface of the pushed out ice, which accelerates the melting process. When the Greenland ice shelf and the Antarctic ice shelf melt in half, the global sea level will rise by six meters. The water from the freshwater lakes changes the consistency of the ice, glacier caves are created, and the space between the rock bottom and the glacier is lubricated by the seeping water. The Greenland Ice Shelf has shrunk by half in the last 15 years, according to Al Gore. Over 100 million refugees can be expected in the next few years due to the rise in sea levels. Since disasters occur suddenly, humanity is faced with disasters of unimagined proportions.

30 percent of the CO ₂ content in the atmosphere is caused by forest fires and natural gas fires . Old habits and new technologies have unpredictable consequences, as can be seen from the example of nuclear weapons. The increase in the world population from 2 billion to 6.6 billion people in less than 70 years is an example of the unpredictable consequences of the combination of old habits and new technologies.

The Aral Sea is shrinking due to the diversion of rivers. America and Europe, with their industries, place the greatest burden on the world climate. As humans get used to the slow, steady changes, the collective nervous system of mankind needs a shock similar to that caused by the education about the harmfulness of cigarette smoking, although the cigarette industry to this day with the help of irresponsible scientists the connections between Denies smoking and cancer .

Al Gore remembers his childhood and youth, when he had a lot of fun raising cattle and planting tobacco on his father's farm during the summer holidays. His older sister died of cancer from smoking cigarettes, and his father stopped planting tobacco out of guilt. Al Gore's environmental activities against the conservatives' appeasement policy on climate change are also based on feelings of guilt. By Upton Sinclair , the finding comes that it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on the level that he does not understand it. Al Gore wants to address this.

It is very easy to reduce the CO ₂ content through fuel-saving cars, heat insulation of the houses and a conscious consumption of energy and goods without reducing the usual quality of life .

At the end of the film, further information is provided on the film's website.

reception

A number of climatologists confirm that Al Gore correctly portrays the state of climate research in the film, except for a few minor details. A judge at the High Court in London ruled in 2007 that the film "largely correctly" reproduced the state of research on the causes and likely consequences of climate change. The Kiel climate researcher Mojib Latif describes the film as "on the whole correct", but criticizes the film's lack of scientific foundation, for example in relation to one-off events such as Hurricane Katrina , which are only meaningful when they occur frequently.

The brevity in which solutions to the problems presented were discussed was criticized. Gore is accused of spending too little time depicting the urgently needed climate protection measures in the film, which would explain the content inaccurately. Critics also accuse Gore of insufficient consistency in adapting his own lifestyle to the ideals he propagated. For example, Gore is shown several times in the film in an airplane . Al Gore also uses environmentally harmful means of transport himself. He also has several large private properties, which also collide with the aim of leaving the smallest possible ecological footprint . However, Al Gore offsets every flight and the other carbon dioxide emissions it inevitably causes by reducing it elsewhere by donating money for corresponding greenhouse gas reduction measures - similar to the German variant atmosfair . In addition, contrary to the tabloid press campaigns, there is no question of completely abolishing air traffic, but merely reducing it to an acceptable and necessary level.

Some critics accuse Al Gore of exaggerated or one-sided presentation and the presentation of allegedly scientifically not always reliable facts: He uses worst-case scenarios without a temporal classification, such as the complete melting of western Antarctica, which, based on current knowledge, will probably take at least a few thousand years would. In this context, Gore shows the consequences of rising sea levels by several meters, including the flooding of large parts of New York and New Orleans, without specifying the more realistic time horizon. This is alarming .

Since October 2007, the film has not been allowed to be shown without comment in British schools. A court found the film to be flawed and required the teachers to point out a total of nine errors named by the court during a screening, including the fact that the melting of the glaciers in West Antarctica and Greenland will not be "in the near future" as in the film claims sea levels will rise dramatically, but rather over millennia. The claim by the plaintiff's parents to have the film banned in class was rejected by the court on the grounds that the film as a whole was "largely correct".

Visitor numbers and box office earnings

In the USA, the film was released on May 24, 2006, Memorial Day , in New York and Los Angeles as a limited edition. On that day, he grossed 91,447 US dollars per cinema, the highest daily turnover ever made by a documentary . The film was released in Germany on October 12, 2006.

In the US, the film has grossed $ 24 million so far. Worldwide revenues of $ 49 million were achieved. This makes An Inconvenient Truth the third highest grossing documentary in history, after Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Voyage of the Penguins .

distribution

In order to deal with the topic of climate change more intensively in the classroom, 6,000 DVDs were distributed free of charge to schools in 2007 in Germany alone in cooperation with the WWF . In Switzerland, a citizens' movement against climate change (myblueplanet) has distributed 1,100 DVDs to the population free of charge in a DVD project. This project is still being continued by the resulting spin-off "Films for the Earth". In mid-October 2007, the Spanish Ministry of the Environment bought 30,000 copies of the film from Paramount for 580,000 euros in order to be allowed to show it in Spanish schools.

Trivia

Among other things, a spot was used to promote the film, which was realized by Matt Groening . This shows Al Gore in cartoon style together with Bender, a character from Groening's series Futurama . The film itself uses a scene from the Futurama episode, The Smelly Pollution Medal , to explain global warming . Al Gore made a guest appearance in this episode, but not in said scene.

An episode of the American cartoon series South Park is also about Al Gore. In episode 145 with the title Mannbärschwein, Al Gore warns the population about the man bear pig - an allusion to his warnings about global warming in his lectures and in the movie. In the series, there were more frequent references to warnings from climate protection organizations.

In The Simpsons, Matt Groening alludes to the lift scene from that film. Lisa tries to use a graphic to demonstrate the pollution of Lake Springfield .

Awards

Academy Awards 2007

Oscar for Davis Guggenheim for Best Documentary
Oscar for Melissa Etheridge in the category Best Song for the song "I Need to Wake up"

Grammy Award 2007

Nomination for Melissa Etheridge in the category Best Movie Song for the song "I Need to Wake up"

Producers Guild of America Awards 2007

Stanley Kramer Award in the Best Documentation category

DUH Environment Media Prize 2006

Special film award

National Board of Review Award 2006

NBR Award in the Best Documentary Category

Satellite Awards 2006

Nomination in the category Best Documentary

Satellite Award in the Best Documentary DVD category

Awards from film critic associations

In addition, the film won awards from various local film critic associations in the category of best documentary :

New York Filmcritics Online 2007
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards 2006
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards 2006
Florida Film Critics Circle Awards 2006 (here in the Best Non-Fiction Film category )
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 2006
San Francisco Film Critics Circle 2006
Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards 2006
Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards 2006

A detailed list of other awards can be found in the IMDb .