Climate change fight dealt a Trump card
Gore says president’s ‘wild statements and actions’ have inspired unprecedented upsurge in environmentalism
If Al Gore needed a 21st-century, climate-change villain, Donald Trump obliged with his actions and “wild statements.”
The controversial U.S. leader fulfilled his bad guy role by withdrawing his country from the Paris Agreement on climate change this year and labelling the accord harmful to the economy.
So the release of the former American vice-president’s followup documentary, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, seems more vital than ever to environmentalists.
“We didn’t plan that or intend it, but it has worked out that way,” said Gore, who was in Toronto promoting the new movie with backer Jeff Skoll, Participant Media head honcho.
They had teamed up for the Oscar-winning 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which educated audiences on the imminent threat of global warming using Gore’s comprehensive slide show. Not only did it motivate activism, the movie earned a surprising US$49.8 million worldwide.
The sequel is a more personal Gore effort framed by directors Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk. But the former presidential candidate said he hopes the impact is just as pivotal, especially in the age of Trump.
“There’s a law of physics that sometimes becomes a cliche in politics and it goes like this, and you’ve heard it,” Gore said. “‘For every reaction, there is an equal and opposite reaction.’ The reaction to Trump’s wild statements and actions have included the biggest environmental upsurge and action that I’ve ever seen.”
When Skoll and Gore met a few years ago to discuss the sequel possibility, they were more interested in updating the climate change situation and revealing some positives.
“A new story had evolved,” Skoll said. “That’s how quickly the prices had gone down to give us a viable economics on clean energy.”
Gore agreed, echoing what he says in the latest film: “It’s taken a long time, but now the changes are coming so quickly from solar and wind, the electricity for renewables is cheaper than fossil fuels in so many places ... the solutions are available.”
An Inconvenient Sequel does come with lots of climate change warnings, too. More intense typhoons, hurricanes, floods and storms are creating catastrophic havoc. Extreme downpours called “rain bombs” decimate areas even as wildfires and droughts displace whole communities.
As global tour guide, the smoothtalking Gore shows up in the aftermath of disasters or while they occur, and he’s even profiled with friends, references family and gets emotional at his leadership conferences past and present.
“Having them follow me around for two years was an interesting experience made enjoyable by the fact that we all became good friends,” said Gore of the directors Cohen and Shenk and their crew.
“But honestly, when I saw the first rough cut of the movie, I was so surprised by some of the footage they had captured.”
In one sequence, Gore comforts a survivor of a devastating 2013 Philippines typhoon.
In another, he offers his condolences to a French crew filming him just before the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris and shortly after the terrorist attacks there.
“The 150 leaders who came to speak naturally offered condolences and then expressed solidarity, and it was as if there was a shared recognition — we need to use this to focus on how important life is and the choices we make.”
There are some less acute moments in the cinema verite portion of the documentary.
One has Gore intercepting newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on his way into the Paris climate conference. At a recent D.C. screening, the audience reacted to the sequence with an enthusiastic response.
“They erupted in applause and made me so proud,” said the Montreal-born Skoll.
An I-told-you-so sequence has Gore reminding us he was vilified for An Inconvenient Truth computer simulation predicting a potential flood of Lower Manhattan, including the 9/11 memorial.
“The single most criticized scene was the animation,” Gore said. “Sure enough, after Super Storm Sandy (in 2012), it was flooded by the ocean water.”
Despite the “undeniable evidence” offered up, some other things have remained the same.
“The truth about climate change is still inconvenient for the large carbon polluters and they still put their money in propaganda and spewing out false information,” Gore said.