An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming

It’s been at our local cinema, but, not being a cine’aste, I didn’t see it. However, the last 20 years have shown me lots of books about global warming and, essentially, this is just another one.

What it does present, though, is drama. Much of this comes courtesy of the author’s influential friends – photographer Tom Van Sant (iconic ice-cap images), the late Carl Sagan, ‘my wonderful teacher’ Roger Revelle – and one could go on. Designed to shock, the excellent photographs of – for instance – disappearing glaciers, melting permafrost, drying rivers, all-consuming hurricanes and floods are worthy of Picture Post at its peak. The text canters along comfortably in the pictures’ wake (or should that be slipstream?). Gore pulls no punches in slagging off his own country for its laggardly approach to the situation and goes to commendable lengths to rubbish the petrol-powered denial lobbyists and media dis-informers.

But his overall message is, as it should be, ‘It’s not too late to save the planet.’ Basing his beliefs on the Chinese word for ‘crisis; being translated as ‘Danger-Opportunity’, he bravely lights (with energy-saving bulbs) the way ahead. So, says nearly-nearly man Gore, icecaps may melt, storms may intensify, Bangladesh may drown and the future of Lake Chad hang in the balance (and Gore knows a thing or two about hanging Chads), but let’s build our wind farms, set up our solar panels, ride our bikes and buses and, above all, shut the refrigerator door and together we can fix it. After all, remember how we plugged the hole in the ozone layer – ditch the Dyson, exhume the Ewbank and you’re half-way there. Spend a tenner on Gore’s book and you’ve bought a latter-day indulgence which should get you the rest of the way.