Brad Marko
Miss Mudd
English 151
25 October 2010
Argument Essay
Al Gore’s The Inconvenient Truth is a 100 minute documentary structured around Carbon-dioxide emissions and how it is warming the climate. According to Ecoworld, the temperature on Earth has been rising .17 degrees Celsius per decade since the 1970s. When a small correlation was discovered between carbon-dioxide increase in the atmosphere and temperature increase, there became people who were the global warming believers and also, on the contrary, the skeptics. Al Gore astounds the audience with global warming by using bad examples and simple data and then falsely promises them that it can be reversed and fixed in a feasible amount of time, all in a plea to get elected President someday.
Al Gore uses a great amount of bad examples with simple and already known statistical data to startle the audience into believing global warming. Gore uses a lot of general information that scientists and educated people already know and has actually been reported before (Hall). He uses a lot of charts which makes his assumptions at least appear logical. It also shows where he gets his information which makes him seem more credible. What he presents however is very vague and simple with not much explanation as Kevin Carr of 7mpictures.com elaborates, “He never gives any real science behind his theories. Rather, he says it’s too complicated and then throws a graph on screen and calls it gospel truth.” He goes on a tangent while using pathos by showing damage after hurricane Katrina, which he blamed on extreme hurricanes caused by increased ocean temperature. Nonetheless, Katrina was a big storm, but the photos he uses in the film show the mass amounts of flooding and homes that actually the breaking of the levees was held accountable for, making Gore’s argument not as valid (Carr). EcoWorld explains the actual main reason for stronger hurricanes is because of the naturally occurring Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, which is warm water from the Caribbean shifting up and down the Atlantic. More intense hurricane activity has been in correlation with the shift of the AMO since the mid nineteenth century.
Greenland’s rapidly melting glaciers and ice flow is used as a big tool to show the effects of global warming. The ice may be melting but this can be credited to the warmer waters brought from the AMO which is also balancing out the melting ice:
While it’s true that ice cleaving and ice flow rates at the coast have increased in recent years, these shifts are due to the AMO – and will abate once the AMO oscillates southward. What the global warming theorists fail to mention in their findings is that the increased ice and snow pack on Greenland is balancing out the coastal melting. And what’s creating the increased ice and snow pack? Warmer sea surface temperatures: The increased temperatures create moisture, which in turn causes additional snowfall (EcoWorld).
By fact checking The Inconvenient Truth you can learn how bias the film really is. Temperatures are not rising strictly because of increased CO2 emissions; there has been a steady rise in temperature per decade since the 1970s without exponentially rising CO2 levels which would be required for CO2 to cause temperature to rise linearly (EcoWorld). Gore goes on a limb about two family tragedies with snippets that you would’ve thought were in a political campaign to make him look like a sensitive and understanding candidate. Both clips are completely impertinent to the whole ideology behind the movie and the moment I watched those two scenes I believed Al Gore was going for his own self image.
After scaring you from talk of the end of the world, such as mass flooding of countries and states due to rising sea levels, Al Gore promises that everything will be okay if we act now and take initiative. Al Gore wants you to join him in his journey to help save the world and he is going to be the leader. Al Gore loses credibility from me for the fact that he makes himself seem like the world savior: “The film makes him out to be a bigger martyr and better savior than Jesus Christ, himself” (Carr). In actuality he couldn’t be farther from that. Phil Hall of filmthreat.com explains, when in office, Gore consistently voted on the non-environmentally friendly side of many big issues. On another issue, stabilization of CO2 might flat out be unobtainable.
Alan Zarembo of truth-out.org shares, that in order to just stabilize the CO2 levels in the atmosphere you would need a 70-80 percent drop in carbon emissions and a drop like that would mean producing 20 billion tons less of carbon emissions per year. We would have to practically stop use of all oil and coal burning products in order to meet these requirements which I do not believe is economically a good idea or possible. Gore defended global warming as a moral issue but if the technology isn’t available we’ll clearly never get out this problem. Only through great advancement in technology can we ever reduce our CO2 levels: “The practical conclusion is that if global warming is a potential calamity, the only solution is new technology” (Samuelson). Global warming is practically irreversible as Zarembo tells us of, “A landmark report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . . . warns that there is so much carbon dioxide and other green house gases in the atmosphere that even if concentrations held at current levels, the effects of global warming would continue for centuries.” If CO2 did not take so long to dissipate then the reversal of global warming would not be as challenging. What is even more unlikely than reversing the effects of CO2 emissions is the idea that we will reduce production at all. Samuelson says greenhouse emissions are going to rise because “The IEA simulates five scenarios with differing rates of technological change. In each, greenhouse emissions in 2050 are higher than today."
Al Gore really hoped this movie would gain him political attention. Even though he tries to act distant from the current government and even refers to himself as the “former next president of the United States,” I think that was just a tool of reverse psychology to get your guard down. Obviously you think no, this movie is about Al Gore caring about the world but when Al Gore made this movie he had a 10,000 square foot house. A 10,000 square foot house is going to consume way more energy than the average person’s home, who he preaches to for 100 minutes to be energy conscious. I believe that is hypocrisy at its finest and it just shreds his credibility. Seeing how he clearly doesn’t believe his own idea enough to take it into practice, this has to be a political plea where he tricks his audience into the idea explained by Carr: “The message is clear: If we don’t get Al Gore in the White House soon, the polar ice caps are going to melt, global air and water currents will change and the world will literally start to fall apart." The ending credits are also tainted with the message to persuade voters to choose environmentally friendly candidates (Carr). The more political the movie gets, the more credibility it loses I believe because as the movie gets more political, the audience will become more partisan. For someone that assured us his political career is over he is awfully tantalizing the idea to vote for people that so seemingly appear just like him. Is this coincidence? I don’t think so.
Al Gore did a great job of tricking many of his viewers. He presented them with the terrible “catastrophe” called “global warming” by reiterating information that was already available and exposed to the public, although at a lesser degree. In actuality, however real global warming is which I’m not suggesting it’s not; it is something that we aren’t capable of stopping in the near future. We will need major technological advances in order to askew away from carbon dioxide emitting fuels. Al Gore making the audience think that his bright ideas can help save us all and that he’s the only one who can do so is just to help his political image for next time he runs for office.
Works Cited
Carr, Kevin. ‘“An Inconvenient Truth’ Movie Review.” 7mpictures.com. 23 Oct. 2010 web.
“Global Warming Skeptics Are Deconstructing Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth.” Ecoworld.com. 15 Nov. 2006. 23 Oct. 2010 web.
Hall, Phil. “An Inconvenient Truth.” Filmthreat.com. 15 May 2006. 23 Oct. 2010 web.
Samuelson, Robert J. “Global Warming’s Real Inconvenient Truth.” WashingtonPostc.com. The Washington Post 5 Jul. 2006. 23 Oct. 2010 web.
Zarembo, Alan. “Game Over on Global Warming?” truth-out.org. Los Angeles Times 5 Feb. 2007. 23 Oct. 2010 web.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
formal response
Formal Response
An Inconvenient Truth is a persuasive documentary about Earth and global warming. In this film Al Gore shares data and facts which are angled to prove global warming. He really brings attention to the issue and wants people to realize how we are affecting the planet in a negative way. He describes global warming as a “moral issue” that can only be fixed through the power of our decisions.
His thesis is exposing global warming, showing it as a problem and to persuading people to take initiative against it. Al Gore appears fairly credible but I really thought he did a good job of providing a logical argument. He uses a great amount of different numbers, charts and graphs. A graph I found interesting was the one that showed the CO2 levels in the atmosphere for the last tens of thousands of years. It showed a great rise in C02 levels in just the last 40 years which was jaw dropping. His college professor was apparently the first person to suggest measuring these levels in the atmosphere back in the 1970’s. The pictures he uses of the ice caps and glaciers melting more dynamically each and every year are very surreal. It really grabs at your emotions, and even more so when he talks about polar bears drowning. This isn’t something that directly affects any of us directly but it is sad and depressing to hear of these creatures struggling to survive. Throughout the majority of the film he comes in and out of emotional draw, pathos, and logic, logos. The main purpose of his pathos is to make us feel bad about our environmental ignorance.
I found it very interesting when he shared his stories of his son’s accident and the whole tobacco story. I suppose the ideology behind it kind of made sense in the way that we take things for granted. Like Earth, and how ignorance of something such as tobacco can lead to losses that you don’t wish for. I didn’t really like the way he used his son’s near death experience and his sister’s death to get us to side with him on an emotional level. It’s not something that I’d see myself ever doing and I found it to be pretty random. He does a good job of making himself credible, ethos, in how he doesn’t consider himself a part of the government and how his passion of this issue was brought about. The government’s economic weight against fixing global warming and reducing CO2 emissions makes them not seem like they don’t have our best intentions at hand. So for him to exclude himself from that group helped him I believe. When he brought up president Bush and the 2000 election, I didn’t really like that because that made global warming appear as a political party issue and that contradicts his statement of global warming being a “moral issue.”
An Inconvenient Truth is a persuasive documentary about Earth and global warming. In this film Al Gore shares data and facts which are angled to prove global warming. He really brings attention to the issue and wants people to realize how we are affecting the planet in a negative way. He describes global warming as a “moral issue” that can only be fixed through the power of our decisions.
His thesis is exposing global warming, showing it as a problem and to persuading people to take initiative against it. Al Gore appears fairly credible but I really thought he did a good job of providing a logical argument. He uses a great amount of different numbers, charts and graphs. A graph I found interesting was the one that showed the CO2 levels in the atmosphere for the last tens of thousands of years. It showed a great rise in C02 levels in just the last 40 years which was jaw dropping. His college professor was apparently the first person to suggest measuring these levels in the atmosphere back in the 1970’s. The pictures he uses of the ice caps and glaciers melting more dynamically each and every year are very surreal. It really grabs at your emotions, and even more so when he talks about polar bears drowning. This isn’t something that directly affects any of us directly but it is sad and depressing to hear of these creatures struggling to survive. Throughout the majority of the film he comes in and out of emotional draw, pathos, and logic, logos. The main purpose of his pathos is to make us feel bad about our environmental ignorance.
I found it very interesting when he shared his stories of his son’s accident and the whole tobacco story. I suppose the ideology behind it kind of made sense in the way that we take things for granted. Like Earth, and how ignorance of something such as tobacco can lead to losses that you don’t wish for. I didn’t really like the way he used his son’s near death experience and his sister’s death to get us to side with him on an emotional level. It’s not something that I’d see myself ever doing and I found it to be pretty random. He does a good job of making himself credible, ethos, in how he doesn’t consider himself a part of the government and how his passion of this issue was brought about. The government’s economic weight against fixing global warming and reducing CO2 emissions makes them not seem like they don’t have our best intentions at hand. So for him to exclude himself from that group helped him I believe. When he brought up president Bush and the 2000 election, I didn’t really like that because that made global warming appear as a political party issue and that contradicts his statement of global warming being a “moral issue.”
Thursday, October 7, 2010
project 2
Brochure Rhetoric
Vernon R. Alden Library is the tallest standing structure on Athens’ campus. It’s in the top 100 largest libraries in the country and it took a long way to get it there. To portray the library I used a schematic color scheme, while showing evolving pictures with plenty of robust information.
I used a fair amount of green in my brochure about the Alden Library to try to appeal to fellow Bobcat students such as myself. I wanted to use color in my brochure because it makes it look more artsy and that much nicer. I used the green tastefully, mostly to try and headline information to make it stick out so that readers would see what they need to read. I also used green in various parts of the brochure, such as the green canopy design that sits over top of my brochure title and main information on the inside. I used red on the back panel though because the 40 year anniversary sign was red and seeing how the complimentary color to green is red I found this move acceptable. Using green is more of an emotional appeal then logic and credibility because all it really shows of my knowledge is that I know the school’s colors. Using green was a logical choice to me because I believe that a student would be more enticed to read a brochure with colors of their school versus any other color because in my opinion it deals with school pride which is very common here.
Seeing how the theme of my brochure is about how the library started, how it was and how it is now, I found it smart to use pictures to reflect my theme. On the front page of my brochure I have the statements, “from then…” and “to now…” In correlation to these statements I have one picture underneath each of them. One picture being an architectural drawing which shows the library when it was still just an idea, sitting isolated with no real surroundings to it. This makes the library have a strong presence in the picture but still reminisces to a more simple time for the library. Then underneath my second statement I have a picture of the library from an elongated view after all the remodeling and additions have been completed. Not as an architectural drawing, but how the library is portrayed today. With the additions intact and the elongated view it makes the library appear bigger than its actual size. This hypes the actual massiveness of the Alden Library to the brochure reader. On the inside panel where I talk about the initial construction of the library I have a picture to match that as well. The picture shows the building when it was well underway but still nowhere close to being done with construction. On the main inside I have a picture on the left panel and on the right panel. Both of these pictures are just simple pictures of the library in use by patrons. The photo on the left being from the early 70’s and the photo on the right being from more recent, probably the 90’s. These pictures draw towards my credibility because not only do I defend my theme with words but I have pictures to express my text as well. When I show the up-close elongated picture of the library on the front page and then later tell the reader that it’s one of the largest libraries in the country, it defends my statement visually, hence, making me more credible.
Throughout my brochure I use a good amount of short and to the point facts. I use comparison of before and after the library’s 1972 remodeling to demonstrate the growth that the library has gone through. Going from holding 800,000 volumes to 2 million volumes is quite a change. I use chronological order throughout the three inside panels of the brochure to make it easier to follow for the reader. I also have separated headings so that if the reader wants to know something specific they can look straight to it, given that I have the data. I have the information separated into bullet points so it’s easier to read versus having the information in paragraph form. Short statements seem more coherent when reading through an informational brochure, such as this one. My facts are in order and use logic to reflect the growth of the library and how it has changed and why it’s such an important part of Ohio University.
I find my brochure to be helpful to someone looking for a little bit of history on the Alden Library. I used proper display of colors, photos and short and sweet information to create appeal for the reader. My brochure defends its theme and if I were you I’d go read it!
Vernon R. Alden Library is the tallest standing structure on Athens’ campus. It’s in the top 100 largest libraries in the country and it took a long way to get it there. To portray the library I used a schematic color scheme, while showing evolving pictures with plenty of robust information.
I used a fair amount of green in my brochure about the Alden Library to try to appeal to fellow Bobcat students such as myself. I wanted to use color in my brochure because it makes it look more artsy and that much nicer. I used the green tastefully, mostly to try and headline information to make it stick out so that readers would see what they need to read. I also used green in various parts of the brochure, such as the green canopy design that sits over top of my brochure title and main information on the inside. I used red on the back panel though because the 40 year anniversary sign was red and seeing how the complimentary color to green is red I found this move acceptable. Using green is more of an emotional appeal then logic and credibility because all it really shows of my knowledge is that I know the school’s colors. Using green was a logical choice to me because I believe that a student would be more enticed to read a brochure with colors of their school versus any other color because in my opinion it deals with school pride which is very common here.
Seeing how the theme of my brochure is about how the library started, how it was and how it is now, I found it smart to use pictures to reflect my theme. On the front page of my brochure I have the statements, “from then…” and “to now…” In correlation to these statements I have one picture underneath each of them. One picture being an architectural drawing which shows the library when it was still just an idea, sitting isolated with no real surroundings to it. This makes the library have a strong presence in the picture but still reminisces to a more simple time for the library. Then underneath my second statement I have a picture of the library from an elongated view after all the remodeling and additions have been completed. Not as an architectural drawing, but how the library is portrayed today. With the additions intact and the elongated view it makes the library appear bigger than its actual size. This hypes the actual massiveness of the Alden Library to the brochure reader. On the inside panel where I talk about the initial construction of the library I have a picture to match that as well. The picture shows the building when it was well underway but still nowhere close to being done with construction. On the main inside I have a picture on the left panel and on the right panel. Both of these pictures are just simple pictures of the library in use by patrons. The photo on the left being from the early 70’s and the photo on the right being from more recent, probably the 90’s. These pictures draw towards my credibility because not only do I defend my theme with words but I have pictures to express my text as well. When I show the up-close elongated picture of the library on the front page and then later tell the reader that it’s one of the largest libraries in the country, it defends my statement visually, hence, making me more credible.
Throughout my brochure I use a good amount of short and to the point facts. I use comparison of before and after the library’s 1972 remodeling to demonstrate the growth that the library has gone through. Going from holding 800,000 volumes to 2 million volumes is quite a change. I use chronological order throughout the three inside panels of the brochure to make it easier to follow for the reader. I also have separated headings so that if the reader wants to know something specific they can look straight to it, given that I have the data. I have the information separated into bullet points so it’s easier to read versus having the information in paragraph form. Short statements seem more coherent when reading through an informational brochure, such as this one. My facts are in order and use logic to reflect the growth of the library and how it has changed and why it’s such an important part of Ohio University.
I find my brochure to be helpful to someone looking for a little bit of history on the Alden Library. I used proper display of colors, photos and short and sweet information to create appeal for the reader. My brochure defends its theme and if I were you I’d go read it!
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