Back in high school, we had to watch Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in English. While we were more focused on studying his use of rhetoric, the content of the documentary is something that the public should be educated about.
An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary where Al Gore tries to inform the public on environmental issues, such as global warming and climate change. He tries to convey how significant of an issue climate change and global warming is using a slide show format. Al Gore provides lots of graphs, charts, and other visuals to show the changes in Earth due to global warming. He uses a lot of personal experiences and ties them with the environmental issues he talks about. He also tries to use humor to explain the greenhouse effect, which was effective because it makes people more willing to listen to his argument about the subject. While discussing the effects of global warming, Al Gore also stresses that it is a moral issue. He believes that significant consequences will be produced from global warming if humans continue to generate large amount of greenhouse gases. He reports how carbon dioxide levels are already higher now than ever before. While there are many critics to global warming, Al Gore brings up how severe flooding can result and how different types of animals would be more vulnerable. Gore concludes by arguing how if we take action soon and plant more vegetation to consume the carbon dioxide, then the effects of global warming can be reversed. In the film, Al Gore said “each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive; we can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands, we just have to have the determination to make it happen. We have everything that we need to reduce carbon emissions, everything but political will. But in America, the will to act is a renewable resource.” This really sums up what we as society needs to do. While, there are many people that are skeptical of global warming, wouldn’t you think it is better to be safe than sorry. It is not that hard to reduce your carbon footprint. It is as easy as driving less or planting a garden. Do not let that be an inconvenience to you. It is easier to prevent something that you know can happen then, trying to fix it after the fact.
Image by Eric Lee/Paramount Classics
Fast forward 12 years. The environment is changing faster than ever. There are more fires, intenser hurricanes, droughts, changes in precipitation patterns, and more. You may have heard of the recent wildfires in California. They were so severe because of climate change. The wildfires in California were one of the most severe and deadliest wildfire in state history. California faced a very dry summer and fall. Combined with the timber-dry forests, howling winds, and high temperatures, a disaster is just waiting to occur. Something as little as a tossed cigarette bud is all you need for a wildfire to start. This spark combined with the current conditions California had was the perfect combination for a deadly wildfire. As Inside Climate News reported, the fire so far chased 200,000 people out of their homes in LA, killed 86 people, and destroyed 14,000 homes. “If the global gas emissions continued at such a high rate, the frequency of wildfire would increase by nearly 50 percent. The average area burned by wildfires would increase 77% by 2100.”
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The are also have been more hurricanes with greater intensities. While, there is not much evidence that there is a correlation between climate change and hurricane frequency, there is a link between climate change and hurricane intensity. Hurricanes gain energy from warm water, so it is not a surprise that higher sea surface temperatures have resulted in intense hurricanes. Rising sea levels due to global warming also made flooding more likely. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy came to be. It was a category 3 storm. CNN reported that Hurricane Sandy affected 24 states and cost $71 billion in damages. Sandy was the tenth hurricane in the Atlantic hurricane season. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey hit. Hurricane Harvey was a category 4 hurricane that hit Texas. 13 million people were affected from Texas through Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Hurricane Irma also occurred in 2017. It was also a category 5 storm when it hit Barbuda. Hurricane Irma was the strongest Atlantic basin hurricane outside the Gulf Coast of Mexico and the Caribbean Coast. What set Irma apart from other hurricanes is that it was able to stay so powerful for so long. It was a category 5 storm for three days. It sustained 185 mile per hour winds. The majority of destruction and deaths occurred in the Caribbean, also affecting Cuba and the Florida Keys.