Perhaps the underscored theme in the film An Inconvenient Truth is hope. But it is a certain kind of hope, a hope that is entrenched in perseverance and commitment. While Al Gore’s lectures all around the world seem heavily pronounced with this hope, despite the “inconvenient truth” of global warming, the tonal aspects of the film ultimately function as an accordion playing out signals for hope and alarm for the audience.

Al Gore, a quintessential underdog who has travelled all around the world, in order to save the world; for decades, doing the same work and improving upon it, even as time reveals more damage around the world from global warming; persisting, even when the naysayers call him a “hoax” or a threat to American society; he preserveres in his commitment and rings tirelessly the alarm bells of a “moral issue,” “not a political one,” all while reminding his audience that they have a choice and humankind can do anything, even the unthinkable, even the impossible.

Al Gore in 2007 discussing the impact humanity has had on the planet’s ecosystem. LLUIS GENE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The film’s incessant framing of Gore as a hero can be distracting to the significant messages in the film, such as the damaging effects of 2005’s hurricanes, the loss of polar bears , the increasing heat over the current years , and major potential disasters arising for Beijing and Calcutta. At each circumstance, I am waiting for more information, left with questions. What measures are being drawn up to prevent these issues? What new technologies could help us gain “dramatically altered consequences”?

But, at the same time, despite the film getting nowhere close to any resolve for any of these issues, it is, essentially, this certain hope of Al Gore that is to set the precedent for global warming awareness-raising. It is Gore’s universal commitment that is emphasized in the film. He travels the world, seeks out scientists, has been involved for decades, he thinks about the future. In some way, Gore is the “hero” of the [first wave of] climate crisis attention.

An Inconvenient Truth, despite its shortcomings or its conceits, ultimately presents a model for a behavioral approach to climate crisis: stick to truth, and stay with it, because, no matter what you may lose, nothing compares to losing the planet.

For more, check out: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation/conservationists/inconvenient-truth-sequel-al-gore.htm