blogg #2

Al Gore (and the IPCC) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 (BBC 2007) largely for the production of the film 'An Inconvenient Truth'
The committee cited "their efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change".
To what extent do you think this was deserved? Having watched this film in class did you feel that your opinion (or perhaps the opinion of others) to the issue of climate change could be positively influenced? What did you think of this film? Was it effective?

The film ‘an inconvenient truth’ was created to highlight people’s knowledge (or lack of) of global warming, Al Gore, as a major promoter of ‘green living’ (http://www.algore.com/) presented the film as a documentary in a hall in front of not only cameras but an audience as well. The film did highlight the fact the people in general really have no idea of the damage that we are doing to the world and the fact the although global warming is a major newspaper seller, we really don’t know the extent to which we are polluting the atmosphere and causing ‘never before seen’ weather patterns, areas that once were covered in permafrost and sea level rises.

However, as good as the film was and as educational as it seemed this doesn’t mean that he was a worthy winner of one of the world’s most prestigious awards whose list if previous winners include the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, Ralph Bunche and Martin Luther King to name but a few. The reasons cited for Al Gore being given this award include ‘for his efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change’. I wouldn’t say that Al Gore didn’t illustrate that problem of Global warming, but did he do it on a wide enough scale? Did he address any alternatives to the way in which humans live their lives, non-energy efficient way, people still doubt that global warming is happening or at least being affected by human impact (ILoveCarbonDioxide.com).

The film is almost like just watching a PowerPoint in a lecture hall, the most important age group that Al Gore needed to address and influence is children, and I don’t believe he did this at all. Apart from a small clip from futurama (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_playlists&search_query=futurama+global+warming+clip&uni=1) he didn’t address the one group of people that are really going to make a future difference to the state of the planet and the ones who are going to have to deal with the problems that the previous generations have left them.
Al Gore also didn’t seem to approach the problem of the growing number of Americans who just seem to want to ignore the problem of green house gasses; it just seems to be one of those things that he simply accepts.

Al Gore being given the Nobel peace prize is a good way of enhancing the reputation of the film and of keeping the public eye on global warming but there were probably more worthy candidates for the prize in 2007.
The film did highlight the point that we as a race on this planet are seeing, even if not doing, things that have never been seen before and we need to keep being reminded that the earth was here long before us and it will be here long after we are gone.