An Inconvenient Truth

Imagine, the homes of millions of people all around the world destroyed because of flooding. Imagine having no more glaciers or icy mountains because they have melted, flooded several different countries on the ocean border, and killed millions of people. This rapidly growing dilemma is confronted in An Inconvenient Truth, a movie that opened my eyes to the seriousness of climate change. This movie brought many valid points to my attention, including the overall effect climate change will have on the human race if we do not change the way we live. I have heard many arguments about this immensely growing issue, but I never knew how serious it really was therefore, I never really worried too much about it. I also never exactly knew what I could ever do or change about my life style to change the devastating outcome of our quickly rising climate. However, I believe that by analyzing the movie inside and out, maybe we can all better understand how to fix this issue. This can be possible by analyzing the content of the movie, dissecting Gore’s use of ethos and pathos, and using outside sources to prove and disprove Al Gore’s points from the movie.

This movie is incredibly effective in the way it is constructed. Throughout the movie, it shows Al Gore narrating a power point that he created to present to his audience. He presents this power point for a small live audience but in reality, this presentation was intended for the world to see. Gore talks about how the atmosphere is the most vulnerable part of the Earth and that it is being thickened by pollution. This is trapping in heat and causing the overall temperature of the earth to rise. This process is described as global warming or climate change, a growing issue happening all over the world. He discusses how global warming creates more natural disasters that are devastating to people’s homes and killing our people. For example, when water temperatures rise due to heat trapped in the atmosphere, it creates higher winds and stronger storms. This is how hurricanes are created.

Gore then goes back and talks about how he became interested in his attempt to improve global warming. He showed clips of his son and talked about how he was hit by a car when he was only six years old. Gore’s son nearly died in this terrible accident and this event changed his priorities completely. He realized that nothing else in the world could be more important then his family. He wanted nothing more then his children to live a long and satisfying life. This is where his interest in environmental issues came into play. He began researching all aspects of global warming including how it would eventually affect our world. The future generations were the ones who were going to have to bear the consequences of this growing epidemic, that meant his children, the ones he cared about more then anything in the world. He did not want this to be the downfall of the human race. Gore wanted people to become interested and knowledgeable about this issue, for this is the only way that we can improve and change the way we live to better our planet.

Gores use of pathos throughout the film is extremely effective. He uses video clips and music that pull at the emotions of the audience. The one way he does this is through his son’s accident in which I had described before. Another way in which Gore does this is by talking about his sister. Al Gore grew up on a farm with his family. His father grew many different crops, one being tobacco. Gore’s sister began smoking at an early age and as she grew older she developed lung cancer. After this terrible disease had taken away her life, his father blamed himself because the whole time he was growing and selling tobacco to the tobacco companies, he believed he was contributing to his daughter’s death. He compares this to how we all are contributing to our own death. He explains that if we don’t change our lifestyles, we will all eventually die due to global warming. Gore also shows scenes of himself staring out the window and him narrating about devastating issues in the world. In the background there would be sad music, the kind of music you hear in movies where one of the main characters experience a saddening death of a friend or loved one. We all know how effective this can be when you walk out of the movie theatres in tears and used tissues are falling out of your pockets. If it’s the death of a character’s mom you feel like calling up your very own mother and telling her how much you love her and appreciate her. The method Gore uses is exactly like this. He pulls at the audience’s emotions and makes them want to change the way they live to save the fate our earth and our future generations. Throughout this entire movie he uses ethos to make the audience feel guilt and suggests through his discouraging music and background stories that this rapid climate change is going to be the destruction of our world.

Although Gore’s use of pathos is extremely effective, many argue that his credibility is not satisfactory enough for his argument to be completely valid. When one thinks about Al Gore they think of a politician, not an environmentalist. How much does Gore actually know about climate change? After all, Gore is not technically an environmental scientist. However, the evidence is clear that something strange and unnatural is going on in our environment. In the movie Gore discusses how burning fuels like coal, gas, and oil and tearing down our forests we are causing an extreme rise in our carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Logically, it makes so much perfect sense that we are contributing to climate change. Maybe if we suggest using alternative resources other then oil, gas, and coal we can stop global warming and save our planet.

There are many different anti-Gore sources on the Internet. The first source I came across was a movie review done by Kevin Carr. Kevin described Gore’s movie as a “100 minute campaign commercial” and his main concern at that time was Gore putting himself out there for the 2008 presidential election. However, it is now 2010 and Gore did not run for the 2008 presidential election so obviously this was not his reasoning behind the video. If found another article; in my research written by Tom Harris. In this article he quotes Professor Bob Carter, of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, who says, “Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention”. This quote really baffled me because I really do believe that Al Gore did a great job in all of his arguments. He made valid points and he had evidence to back up all of his statements.

There are also many pro-Gore sources that agree that Global warming is a very serious issue. “Sea levels rose as much as 20 centimeters, or 7.8 inches, over the course of the 20th century, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates a rise of 18 to 59 centimeters by 2099” according to Kate Ross in an article she wrote for The New York Times. With these facts and statistics that not only Gore states, but also other outside sources, it is extremely hard for me to believe that global warming is not a serious issue. In an article written by Ronald Bailey he stated, “I reviewed former vice-president Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth for Reason. I agreed that Gore has "won the climate debate" and that "on balance Gore gets it more right than wrong on the science” though I argued he exaggerates just how bad future global warming is likely to be”.

So that brings me to the question, is global warming as serious of an issue as Al Gore made it out to be? Can this issue lead to the end of the human race and eventually destroy our world? From everything I have researched I think it’s quite fair to say that Al Gore made a very valid argument and if we ignore everything he discussed in An Inconvenient Truth, it can have a serious effect on mankind in the future. Global warming is not an issue that can be disregarded and put off as unimportant. The more we ignore it, the worse it will get and as Thomas Friedman wrote in his article from The New York Times, “…take your socks off yourself. It’s going to get hot around here”.

Peden Stadium

There are many ways to make an effective piece of rhetoric. We see rhetoric everyday, whether it is in television, magazines, brochures, flyers, or on the radio. For my particular piece of rhetoric, I promoted the history of Peden Stadium here at Ohio University. I decided to make a brochure because I feel it is the best way for people to view pictures of our beautiful stadium and see how it has changed over time. My audience, the information I used and intentionally left out, and the purpose of the brochure, all contribute to how effective it is as a piece of rhetoric.

The audience intended for this brochure would have to be Ohio University sport fans and everyday Ohio University students. Since my audience is so broad, it is difficult to find a specific part of the stadium that will appeal to everyone in those categories. I picked something that would definitely interest me as an Ohio University student and still promote the history of the place. In my brochure I discussed how the stadium has changed overtime. I did this because I know that people involved with Ohio University, and most students who attend the games, would most likely be interested in discovering more about the stadium.

I used pictures and made the brochure very appealing so that people would look at it and want to read it. I know when people look at brochure that is plain with so much writing and no pictures; they usually do not actually take the time to read it. This is why I kept my brochure short and sweet. I talked about the year it was built and went into how much it has changed over the years. I put pictures on it from when it was being built and I think it is really cool to see what the stadium started off as and how amazing it has come to be now. I intentionally did not include too much history and writing because I wanted this brochure to appeal to students as well as adults. I found that young people are more interested in looking at pictures and reading small amounts of information rather then long and boring novels about the history of the stadium.

The purpose of my brochure was to promote the history of the Peden Stadium and get Ohio University sport fans and students a better and deeper understanding of our school and its fascinating history. People go to the stadium to watch the games and do not fully appreciate how the stadium came to be and how lucky we are to have such a nice place to watch our football games. We have come a long way from 1929 and our stadium has changed tremendously. People would probably learn to appreciate our stadium so much more if they understood how it became what it is today. This is why I decided to make my brochure on how the stadium has changed throughout the years.

My main concern for the brochure was how to make it so Ohio University sport fans and students will actually pick up the brochure and want to read it. I reflected on myself as an Ohio University student and a sport fan and thought, “what would make me pick up a brochure and read it”? Brochures that are most appealing to me are colorful and not filled with a mass amount of text. I decided that the easiest way to make people read my brochure would be to make it appealing and interesting. I did not want to load up the brochure with all text and make it boring to sit and read. I picked out information that I thought was important and interesting and put it into my brochure along with many pictures to show the change of the stadium overtime. I believe that, overall, my brochure would be appealing to my audience.

An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth is a movie starring Al Gore, who discusses his concern with climate change and the danger we are creating for future generations, through a captivating and shocking power point. In the very beginning of his discussion, Gore presents pictures to the audience of beautiful mountains covered in ice. These pictures were taken years ago. He then compares those pictures to pictures taken up to the year the movie was produced (2006). The changes were shocking. There was little to no ice left on the mountains he showed.

Al Gore is an intriguing and convincing public speaker. He is completely convincing in all of his arguments about climate change and how it is affecting our planet. He discussed the way pollution thickens the atmosphere causing heat to become trapped within it. This heat causes the earth’s heat to increase, which can be completely and utterly destructive to our precious planet and the place that we call home. This makes the viewer feel empathetic with earth and guilty for our bad habits and refusal to change our selfish ways. I felt extremely saddened with the way we treat our planet and dissatisfied with the way I go about my everyday life. I, myself, am a contributor to pollution and after watching the movie, I feel I have made little steps to change my lifestyle and help be conducive to the solution of this rapidly growing dilemma. I feel that Al Gore used pathos extremely effectively and I believe many people have become more aware and conscious after watching it.

Al Gore was also effective in the category ethos for me. I feel the background information he gave about his personal experiences related pretty well to the points he was trying to make throughout his entire speech. He mentioned his father’s farm and how his father always would grow tobacco plants and how Gore would help him. He then mentioned his sister who had picked up the habit of smoking and eventually developed lung cancer and passed away. Gore’s father was disgusted that he had contributed to the same companies that had contributed to his own daughter’s death. He then explained that like his father contributing to tobacco companies, we all are contributing to our own demise as a human race. Eventually, if we keep living like we do, we will destroy earth, the only planet we could ever call home.

In conclusion, Gore ended his speech in what is called a “Call to action”. This is supposed to motivate the viewer to be motivated to make a change or follow and believe what the speaker is arguing for or against. He talked about how us, as Americans, need to work together to save our planet. The only way that this problem can come close to being solved is if we take action to make a change and decrease the rate of climate change. This was an effective way to end his speech because it leaves people feeling like they can make a difference and it most of all makes people want to make a difference.