Our thoughts on 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Ombeline, Alexia and Lucie in France

An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary film directed by Al Gore, a politician who participated in the US 2000 presidential election. Since 1976, he has devoted his life to fighting against global warming and tries to find solutions to protect the environment as much as possible. He thinks we have to struggle against this problem whereas for him, people prefer turning a blind eye to it. When this film appeared, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Causes/Consequences
 According to Al Gore, and many scientists throughout the world, we only have 10 years to avoid a planetary catastrophe. At the beginning, Al Gore introduces us to all different problems caused by global warming: there are more and more droughts, the sea level is rising, and the ice cap is melting, and so on. In this film, we can see the Kilimanjaro 30 years ago with a lot of snow, and now, almost without any. But global warming is not natural; Al Gore claims man’s activity is responsible. Indeed, Al Gore shows us a graph to illustrate the increasing temperatures of the world. He thinks car pollution and factory pollution are responsible. The more Carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere, the hotter temperatures will be. Then, he explains if global warming continues there will be more and more flooding because the sea level is rising and icebergs are melting. The greenhouse gases are a natural process, but the amount of CO2 in the world, which is increasing, intensifies this natural effect causing droughts all over world. The consequences are serious. In approximately 100 years, there will be a rise of the sea level, which will cause flooding, and New York could be underwater. Approximately 30% of animals in the world could incur a risk of extinction, like polar bears for example, which need the ice cap to live on. Global warming can also cause forest fires, flooding, droughts.

Solutions 
In the film, Al Gore doesn't mention any solutions to fight against global warming, he advances only proposals. However, he mentions the urgent need to act to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly at individual level because today 50% of emissions of greenhouse gases are the outcome of household behaviour. He says also « In fact, the solutions to the climate crisis are the same solutions that we can bring to the economic crisis and national security ». He therefore thinks that certain measures are necessary like making maximum use of renewable energy, or making cars that emit less pollution such as electric cars, for example. According to Al Gore, these are the main solutions to reduce CO2 emissions, and therefore greenhouse gases.

Conclusion
After a first viewing, we were really shocked by all the problems that humans have created in the world. Indeed, this documentary was really instructive. We think that it’s urgent to find some solutions to stop or slow down global warming. Al Gore presents us with the impact of global warming on the environment, and now, we are paying attention to everyday life habits. We hope that, with this project, we will find some solutions and we could help to change people’s behaviour.