Naomi Riskin August 27,

2014
Environmental Science Lecture

An Inconvenient Truth Reflection Paper
The Oscar-winning documentary of Al Gore entitled An Inconvenient Truth was
released in 2006. Since then, eight years have passed and its context is that which is
separate from today. In this documentary, Al Gore aims to convince people then of the
existence of global warming through the presentation of studies and evidences of the
reality of global warming and its effect on the planet. He focused mainly on the melting
of the glaciers in the north and south poles, and how these melting surfaces could affect
the water level all over the world by displacing millions of people and damaging an
insurmountable number of properties. During the time this movie was shot the US was
still very skeptical about the reality of global warming, many people dismissed it as a
hoax even if it was right in front of their eyes. Al Gores film presents many records of
the past records of environmental status and it can be seen from these the truth to his
claims as many of these records have experiences severe increase in numbers, and
none of them beneficial or positive in terms of the environments status.
Many of the evidences shown were the comparisons of data from the past decades
in relation to the ones of recent years (2000s, primarily 2005). The evidences that really
put global warming into perspective for me were the before and after pictures of places
in the northern hemisphere. In the pictures of places shown of Kilimanjoro in Africa, the
Boulder Glacier, Columbia Glacier in Alaska, Tschieva Glacier, Argentina, Peru, and
many more, the receding ice glaciers are very obvious and shocking. These pictures put
into perspective how global warming can really impact the state of the glaciers, which
our planet depends on to cool our temperatures. Another set of evidences were the
new records set for the number of hurricanes the occurred within one year. Included
here are hurricanes Jeanne, Frances, Ivan in the US and in Japan Sudai, Dianmu,
Ranamin and many more. The intensity and frequency of these occurrences were never
before experienced and is hard evidence regarding the existence of global warming.
Sunbeams enter the earth and majority bounces back into to space, the heat
retained has always been enough to warm the earth as usual. However due to
greenhouse gases, the bouncing back of the sun beams is hindered because the new
thicker layer of atmosphere prevents them from existing the earth. These in turn heats
up the earth more than necessary. An example of this is the glaciers. When the
sunbeams hit the ice, 90% bounce back but due to the increase of heat, many of these
glaciers are melting. The melted glaciers surrounding the intact glaciers absorb the heat
instead of it bouncing back. This heats up the water and melts even more glaciers. The
abundance of greenhouse gases impacts us on a very severe level. With these
happening in the glaciers, the average world temperature increases which affects the
seasons, the occurrence of disasters, the presence of dieses and much more. The
relationship between CO
2
and temperature is directly proportional. This is so because
the increase of CO
2
in the atmosphere prevents heat from escaping the atmosphere,
meaning the earth gets hotter as the amount of CO
2
increases.
The focus of this film was to convince skeptics of the reality of global warming
which I was already convinced of. However, this film presented me with evidences that I
was unaware of. It made me realize the severity of global warming and how bad it has
gotten within recent years. The movie was released in 2006 and its been a long time
since then, one of the things that scared me the most was that in the 7 years since then,
how much worse has in gotten? This movie opened my eyes and made me realize that I
need to make a more conscious effort of diminishing my carbon footprint. I can do this
by taking the train more, recycling and using renewable energy sources, and many
more. I believe if more people reduce their carbon footprint, the effect will be
substantial. It all starts with me. And Im ready to do my part.