An Inconvenient Truth

When this movie came out I purposely avoided it. The trailers for it seemed over the top with a doomsday sort of approach. It became a political football immediately and the extreme views of both supporters and detractors turned me off from seeing it as well. After 13 years I finally watched it out of idle curiosity rather than any strong interest in the pros or cons of any climate change debate. And maybe that's what it takes to view certain documentaries with any sort of objectivity. I always thought Gore was a bit of an alarmist on the topic when seeing him interviewed after the movie came out. However the ultimate irony is that the movie (and Gore) probably understated the peril of climate change at the time. After 13 years the predictions now seem a bit tame, if anything, especially when compared to the actually tally of extreme weather events that have affected just the US. And the actual rate of glacial melting, polar ice retreat and permafrost degradation is actually a bit faster than predicted even at the time the movie was made. I notice many negative reviews concentrate on the possible misinterpretation of certain data or the omission of conflicting sources and possible counter narratives using the same data. All well and good. The only problem with those criticisms now is that they have been overtaken by events in the space of just 13 years. Both Gore and his critics got it wrong. Climate change is worse than Gore or the even more extreme partisans predicted. Not a pleasant realization to come to.