This very unusual movie stands out. I didn’t quite know what to think.
If you’re like I am, you look around at certain outlets or entertainment clusters (like Hollywood) and you might have a predetermined perception of what you might be getting in advance. Is there an agenda?
Sometimes, like the case with this unique film, you have to decide for yourself. It’s not force-fed to you like so much propaganda or feedback from an echo chamber.
I approached with caution, for I have been on the receiving end of so much group-think peer pressure when it comes to certain subjects. Think of certain subjects and try to stay balanced or even dare to think for yourself when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict, abortion, evolution, Jan. 6, Christianity, the 2020 election, or climate change. If you find yourself on the “wrong” side of any of these debates, forget about it. You’ll never be given a fair trial in the court of public opinion. Bullies lurk nearby and you’ll find them in all shapes and sizes.
I wonder if it felt this way for an abolitionist in Atlanta around 1859.
The first few minutes of this film made me nervous. The introduction is shot in my beloved kinda-wish-it-was-my-hometown-San-Diego at the University of California campus, but the footage and edits made me wonder about the quality of what I was about to devote the next two hours of my life to. It felt shot on video and pre-formatted. What soon becomes apparent is that this is a serious documentary about a very big subject in our culture. The point that is made early on is that Dr. Roger Revelle was a highly respected scholar in the scientific community. So much so that a campus within the campus of UCSD is named after him. Like many universities which are a collection of colleges/schools, this one is rigorous with difficult requirements.
The filmmaker, who is on screen almost as much as his subject matter, lets it be known that a careful study of the climate change crisis/emergency that has been declared should involve an interview with its author, former Vice President Al Gore.
Carefully documenting the steps he takes to request an interview for this film, this former Tennessee Senator intern (yes, he once worked for Gore) sends a formal email to Senator Gore. In the meantime, he reads a large stack of books on Gore’s career, including his famous Earth in the Balance.
It’s quickly revealed that this interview request is not returned and thus a fabricated interview is created using artificial intelligence (AI). While this is off-putting at first, it is not too difficult to transition into the receptive mode of one being given a report with known information that is searchable on the internet. Of course, Al Gore’s lips do not move in perfect synchronization with his words and the delivery is in that stilted meter we’ve come to recognize as AI video.
Getting past this creative flair is a slight intellectual exercise that we’ll all have to probably get used to, but in the end we are left with a compelling argument regarding the climate conversation that Gore hung his hat (and reputation) on.
While it might be gratifying for some to finally hear Gore admit to fabricating much of his argument (and aping it and re-formatting it from Fairfield Osborn’s Our Plundered Planet), it’s the journey that is most compelling. It’s hard not to agree that Gore plagiarized Osborn’s highly religious text for his 1992 best-seller.
Filmmaker Joel Gilbert first pokes at the connection between Al Gore and the scientist he credits with his book and subsequent lectures.
Roger Revelle published his beliefs that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that increased carbon dioxide emissions were harmful to our planet. One of Revelle’s famous quotes about the subject of carbon dioxide levels and its implication was, “look before you leap.” In fact, in much of his work he was documented as weighing the detriment vs. benefit of said increased carbon dioxide levels. When asked about this publicly, Gore replied that Revelle’s daughter implied that he agreed with Gore’s conclusions near his death bed.
The film goes on to dig deep into Gore’s academic career. At Harvard, he got lots of poor grades. Not many D’s or F’s, but many “Gentlemanly C’s,” as they were called, where fair, young (privileged) sons of politicians were given passing grades to avoid scrutiny and to keep up the needed appearances of a positive academic record. His grade for the lone Revelle class he took was a C, which might’ve been one of these “gimme” passing grades.
His lack of political consistency is scrutinized here. His jovial, albeit fake, AI confessional quotes lend fake favor to this line of reasoning, but it’s not far-fetched to agree with the conclusions of this man’s political career.
The filmmaker went on to attack and poke holes at Al Gore’s credibility. My wife even turned to me halfway through watching the film and told me, “I’d hate for someone to make a film like this about me.” I feel the same way empathetically, but I also believe that someone who has made the claims this man has and led the wildly popular movement that this man has at least deserves some skeptical questioning.
Journalism can be a powerful tool that benefits the entire world sometimes.
Al Gore, the poster boy of climate change (fka “Global Warming”) doesn’t appear to stand up to the snuff.
If you’ve ever wondered if the politicization of climate change was some sort of power trip with another agenda inside, you might find this presentation quite compelling.
If you make the mistake of questioning this in public, though, watch out. It’s kind of funny how predictable the reactions might be.
“That’s ridiculous!”
“You’re an idiot!”
“You cannot be taken seriously.”
Any question or doubt is labeled pseudo-science and you’re labelled a “climate change denier.” It’s like being a flat-earther. Except if you believe in a flat earth, you can search on Google and Facebook and X all day long and find information. But try that with climate change and I bet you get smothered with fact checking notifications and dead ends.
While I don’t think resistance equates cover-up and conspiracy, it makes you wonder why some arguments are met with immediate dismissal. For this reason alone (even if climate change was 100% real and a crisis worth sounding an alarm over) this movie deserves consideration and an open-minded watch.
Check out the trailer here.
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