In the 2008 presidential race, both candidates promised urgent action on climate change. For a time, the issue became unavoidable. Perhaps above all, Gore’s film was well-timed: Just as American opinion of the Bush administration was collapsing, and just as Hurricane Katrina reminded Americans that no one can escape the weather, An Inconvenient Truth refocused the media’s attention on global warming. A Pew survey conducted in its immediate aftermath found that the number of Americans who say that climate change is caused by human activity rose by 9 percent, from 41 percent to 50 percent.
#SEQUEL TO AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH MOVIE#
Multiple studies have found that the movie really did shift public opinion on climate change. More than a decade later, An Inconvenient Truth remains a standalone accomplishment in the history of American climate politics. Which makes An Inconvenient Sequel a pretty accurate document of the times. Gore declares that we cannot go back, we cannot lose ground, we cannot surrender-but he seems as at a loss as anyone else about what to do next. (Warning: This review contains spoilers about the last nine months of geopolitics.) But given that the last moments of the film take place in this world, the movie spends its last moments on the election of Donald Trump and America’s abandonment of Paris. The movie’s climax is the agreement’s completion-a crowning achievement for Gore, and a rare triumph in the long and otherwise sorry history of global climate cooperation.Īnd just think: If 100,000 people had voted differently in three states, that could have even been the end of the movie. Over the course of 100 minutes, Gore educates handsome young people about global warming while working off-stage to push for a finished document. And the Paris Agreement on climate change provides the closest thing this documentary has to a plot. The arrangement, which saw SolarCity donate one of its newest solar-panel designs to India, allegedly allowed that country to sign on to some of the more stringent language in the Paris Agreement.
Let’s just hope we wont need an Another Inconvenient Sequel: The Problem’s Still Here documentary in another ten years telling us how awful we all actually are.An Inconvenient Sequel, the follow-up to Al Gore’s blockbuster 2006 global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, spends a major chunk of its screen time on an intellectual-property deal-one that was imagined, brokered, and sealed by the former popular-vote winner himself. Therefore it begs the question, did this film actually need to be made? It is, however a good film for people wanting to re-engage with an important subject, one that if not discussed often enough, can be pushed to the side and forgotten about.
It’s not going to convert the non-believers that global warming exists because, unfortunately those cynics will likely avoid this film like the plague. The film doesn’t try to wake people up to the thought of climate change, as those who choose to acknowledge it are already awake. However, this fervour only lasts a few minutes, and maybe that’s our problem? According to Gore it all comes down to two simple things: common sense and optimism. Showing us the appalling conditions in Chile, India, Texas, and Miami, the film provides a gut wrenching feeling of guilt and uselessness combined with an utter determination to make things right.
The famous slideshow is still present, with a few updates on current conditions, but it’s the film’s relationship with real people that really gives it an edge this time around. It’s a thought provoking and informative film, but only sporadically compelling. The future, Gore contends, is not so bleak after all, and it’s his endless, energetic sense of hope that powers the film. With solar power booming, climate science in good shape and much cooperation with international allies, things are looking up, despite a Commander in Chief who is hellbent on ruining everything. The film does, however, express its congratulations on getting so far. Are all our changes in behaviour actually benefiting the earth? What more can we do? Well apparently a lot more.įollowing Gore across the continents, directors Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk film the devastating effects fossil fuels are having on our planet and the murky political considerations that stand in the way of fixing it. It therefore seems odd to now have a sequel essentially telling us the same things again. Gore previously stated that all our actions have consequences and that the earth will die quickly if we do not do something about it, pronto.