Gore updates ‘Inconvenient’ facts
Eleven years ago, Vice President Al Gore went from being the biggest loser of the 2000 race for the U.S. presidency to assuming the mantle of rock star of climatechange documentaries in the award-winning doc “An Inconvenient Truth.” For people willing to look at the scientific evidence of rising CO2 levels and concomitant rising temperatures causing extreme weather events and blocks of ice the size of Rhode Island to break away from the polar ice packs, the argument was pretty convincing.
As a sequel, this time directed by Bonni Cohen (“The Rape of Europa”) and Jon Shenk (“The Lost Boys of Sudan”) — the first effort was directed by Davis Guggenheim — this new film is inevitably a remake of the first one, providing many of the same arguments and examples, but with an even more alarmist tone, given that our current leaders and their electoral base are mostly climate deniers.
Gore, who is followed everywhere by a shakycam, gets the sort of face time reserved only for the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. We meet local politicians in a part of Florida where the roads along the coast are being submerged much more frequently — “You cannot pump the ocean,” one remarks. The roads must be built higher, they agree, an option the houses and buildings do not have.
We are reminded of how much of lower Manhattan, including the 9/ 11 Memorial site, was under water during Hurricane Sandy. Gore projects mastery of his subject, charm, statesmanship and a likability that were sorely lacking in his failed campaign for the presidency. The film makes a convincing and wisely frugal case for renewable energy such as solar and wind, and it works best when it focuses on three things: what is happening; why it’s happening and what we can do to try to stop it.
We see Gore and Secretary of State John Kerry feverishly negotiate to get India, a country whose leaders resented being treated as “climate criminals” when the United States has had 150 years to get its economy up and running using fossil fuels, on board at the Paris Climate Accords. We meet the mayor of “the reddest city in the reddest state,” who has led the march to renewable energy and low utility costs for his constituents, and we hear from climate-denier Donald Trump. “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” is a call to action. If you believe something, the film argues, do something.