rhetorical analysis

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.