Comparing An Inconvenient Truth and Cool It!

An Inconvenient Truth and Cool It Important to note before this topic is discussed, no single person holds all the answers to every problem, but only through the unification of ideals and effort to accomplish them can sustainability be achieved. The fact that global warming is happening is not debatable, it is happening and it is a problem. This is the most significant similarity between each documentary. What the debate falls to however, are the consequences, and what can be done to resolve it. Both documentaries discuss the potential consequences of global warming, but from very different extremes, and both promote potential solutions to the problem. The main points I will address are: Consequences, the Big Picture, and Solutions. The consequences of global warming, according to Al Gore in his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” are catastrophic to say the least. In it he depicts a world in which the sea level rises more than 20 feet, destroying nearly every highly populated city in the world. The average temperature rises significantly as a result of an overabundance of greenhouse gases. All dry land remaining becomes like that of a desert. The Gulf Stream and oceanic currents that we depend on completely stop and wind patterns change as a result of the dilution of the ocean. Finally, civilization as a whole collapses under the weight of the consequences we could have avoided. It is a truly horrific tale that strikes fear into almost every viewer of the documentary, as it did to me as well. In the documentary “Cool It” however, Bjorn Lomborg rebuts the catastrophic events as depicted above by Al Gore when he reveals data and ideas that argue with those provided in “An Inconvenient Truth.” Bjorn takes each event, point-by-point, and analyzes them for their value. He examines the sea level rise as a result of the melting of western Antarctica and shows that it wouldn’t raise sea levels by 20 feet in 100 years, but instead would raise it by