Formal Response

Formal Response

After watching An Inconvenient Truth, it really had an impact on the way I think when it comes to the issue of climate change. I never really bought into all the hype about climate change because I was not directly affected by it and was unaware of the changes taking place due to climate change. I now think that something definitely needs to be done and changes must be made in the way we live our lives. The movie made me willing to do my part in order to save the earth.

The movie starts off with Al Gore explaining what climate change is. He explains that due to the increased levels of CO2 in the past 50 years, the temperatures have increased drastically in the past 50 years as well. He gives numerous examples throughout the movie that show how detrimental such drastic temperature increases are to earth. As temperatures increase, storms get worse because increased temperatures means increased wind and speed of storms. Thickness in ice in the Artic has gone down dramatically and is even starting to melt. Polar bears are dying off because they are drowning and cant’ find places to live. Al Gore also talks about his personal life a little bit throughout the movie. He talks about how he almost lost his son to being hit by a car and also how his sister past away due to lung cancer. The movie finishes with Al Gore giving an inspirational statement saying that we are more than capable to do something about the climate change so we must take initiative.

The central claim, or thesis, of the film is that this climate change is detrimental to earth and dangerous to mankind and we must do something about it in order to preserve this planet. It offers evidence of this by showing how this climate change is destroying some of the most beautiful aspects of our earth such as the melting of glaciers. It also shows how dangerous this climate change is to mankind by showing the increase in deadly natural disasters as well as the increase in new diseases.

The intended emotional appeal of the film is to make the viewer feel apathetic about the climate change. The movie was successful in making me feel this way. I used to not really know what the effects of climate change were nor did I care. Now I know the effects and I feel bad about what is going on and I want to do my part to help. With all the examples of how detrimental it is to nature and, more importantly, how dangerous it is to mankind.
The character of the speaker, Al Gore, is kind of like the one person who is willing to take a stand and do what is necessary to make a change. He goes around, city to city, giving this power point hoping to make such an impact on the viewers that they will feel inspired to make a change. I also did not like how he included little parts of his personal life to make the viewer feel bad and have emotional ties to what he was saying. This character of Al Gore kind of annoyed me. I feel like if it was someone else that I would have not only like the movie more but also would have had more respect for the message he was trying to get across.

Overall, I thought the movie was very effective and got the message across loud and clear. After seeing An Inconvenient Truth I want to make a change in order to keep the earth beautiful, as well as make it a safer place to live.