My Inconvenient Truth: Reflections on Al Gore's Impact 10 Years On

In May of 2006, Al Gore's now-classic climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" was released. The movie won an Oscar in the Featured Documentary category, and Gore was co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The nominating committee recognized Gore and the IPCC "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

For many, it was as if Al Gore invented global warming. Or that global warming invented Al Gore, I'm not sure which. What is certain is the enormous impact the movie and Gore's advocacy through the years had on raising awareness about the, well, inconvenient truth of climate change.

To be perfectly candid, I think "raising awareness" is among the canon of over-hyped phrases like "paradigm shift." Meaningful at their core, these idioms are overused, often with a pretentious tinge, to the point of diffusing much of their impact and credibility. This is ironic given that we live in transformative times ourselves, witness to a global paradigm shift of raised awareness.

It's tricky.

I read Gore's 1992 nonfiction book "Earth in the Balance," so I was no stranger to his environmental advocacy. But "An Inconvenient Truth" brought the issue to the forefront of public consciousness like little did before or since (except the changing climate itself), for better and worse. I can only speak anecdotally, but I believe Gore is likely the most famous straw man alive -- and for some, also the most reviled. He raised awareness about global warming so masterfully that he has become synonymous with it, often not in a good way.

This may sound like I'm being critical of his work. If I do admit some ambivalence, it is not for lack of admiration and inspiration for what Gore has done and is doing in the public campaign to push for climate action. I've heard Gore speak on several occasions. I've gone through his Climate Leadership training. He is passionate and sincere about his work.

Perhaps my ambivalence is directed more toward the climate change narrative itself than to Gore's engagement with it. It is a narrative too often oversimplified, tortured beyond all recognition of civility and imbued with an ideological fervor that has little to do with the task at hand.

And it's for all this that I'd like to take the opportunity of the 10-year anniversary of "An Inconvenient Truth" to thank Al Gore for changing my life.

An inconvenient journey

I can't say exactly when I first learned about climate change, but it was long before Gore's movie. I'd also read other cautionary works like Jeremy Rifkin's early work "Entropy," Paul Ehrlich's "Population Bomb," Robert Heinberg's "The Party's Over" and The Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth," among others. 

From a very young age I was a budding Malthusian.

But while contemplating this doom, I also found great joy in the beauty of the world around me. My ambivalence was my own.

I acquired the domain name "globalwarmingisreal.com" several years earlier, but after seeing "An Inconvenient Truth" in May of 2006 I decided to focus my efforts on what I cared about most and launched the official blog GlobalWarmingisReal.com (GWIR). It was a humble launch, but 10 years on it is still going strong.

What's more, I've had an opportunity to temper my general Malthusian worldview with a sense of guarded optimism. While I've endured over the years the expected heaving of hate and fear, I've also seen firsthand the hard work of many talented, passionate and brilliant people focused on moving the world toward a better future. That's what gives me inspiration to engage with these pathfinders, tell their story and each day try a little bit harder to help light the way.

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself," Robert Kennedy said in a 1966 speech in South Africa, "but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. And in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation." We all have within us the power to send out "tiny ripples of hope" that will converge into a mighty current of sweeping renewal.

Few of us have the influence or reach of Al Gore, but we all have a responsibility to pursue the harder path before us, so that others may follow. Each in our own way.

Is Al Gore the reason I am concerned about global warming? No. But Gore and his documentary helped set me out on the path I am on today, and upon which I intend to remain for the rest of my life

"My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world."
-- Adrienne Rich

Image credit: Woody Hibbard, courtesy flickr