PLEASE NOTE: This transcript is being provided for educational purposes only to be used in conjunction with a university course designed to raise awareness of the serious environmental issues that the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth addresses. The kind understanding of the filmmakers will be appreciated with respect to any copyright issues which may arise, and it is hoped that permission to use this material will be granted so that the message Mr. Al Gore puts forth may be disseminated among the students participating in this course.
Students are encouraged to purchase their own copies of this important documentary on DVD.
Thank you.
Tony Del Vecchio, M.Ed.
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Part I
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Introduction
You look at that river gently flowing by. You notice the leaves rustling with the wind. You hear the birds; you hear the tree frogs. In the distance you hear a cow. You feel the grass. The mud gives a little bit on the riverbank. It’s quiet; it’s peaceful. And all of a sudden, it’s a gear shift inside you. And it’s like taking a deep breath and going, “Oh yeah, I forgot about this.”
Earth Rise
This is the first picture of the Earth from space that any of us ever saw. It was taken on Christmas Eve 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission.
I’m Al Gore. I used to be the next president of the United States. [laughter and applause from audience] I don’t find that particularly funny.
I’ve been trying to tell this story for a long time and I feel as if I’ve failed to get the message across.
I was in politics for a long time. I’m proud of my services.
Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans in background discussing the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
There are good people who are in politics in both parties who hold this at arm’s length because if they acknowledge it and recognize it then a moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable.
And they lost radio contact when they went around to the dark side of the moon and there was inevitably some suspense. Then when they came back in radio contact they looked up and snapped this picture and it became known as Earth Rise. And that one picture exploded in the consciousness of human kind. It led to dramatic changes. Within 18 months of this picture the modern environmental movement had begun.
The next picture was taken on the last Apollo mission, Apollo 17. This one was taken on Dec. 11, 1972 and it is the most commonly published photograph in all of history. And it is the only picture of Earth from space that we have where the sun was directly behind the spacecraft so that the Earth is fully lit up, and not partly in darkness.
The next image I’m going to show you has almost never been seen. It was taken by a spacecraft called the Galileo that went out to explore the solar system. As it was leaving Earth’s gravity it turned its cameras around and took a time-lapsed picture of one day’s worth of rotation here compressed into 24 seconds. Isn’t that beautiful?
This image is a magical image in a way. It was made by a friend of mine, Tom Van Sant. He took 3000 separate satellite pictures taken over a three-year period, digitally stitched together. He chose images that would give a cloud-free view of every square inch of the Earth’s surface. All of the land masses are accurately portrayed. When that is spread out it becomes an iconic image.
The Most Ridiculous Thing
I show this because I want to tell you a story about two teachers I had, one that I did not like that much, the other who was a real hero to me. I had a grade school teacher who taught geography by pulling a map of the world down in front of the blackboard. I had a classmate in the sixth grade who raised his hand and he pointed to the outline of the east coast of South America, and he pointed to the west coast of Africa, and he asked, “Did they ever fit together?” And the teacher said, “Of course not! That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” That student went on to be a drug addict and a ne’er-do-well. That teacher went on to be science advisor in the current administration.
But you know, the teacher was actually reflecting the conclusion of the scientific establishment of that time:
“Continents are so big, obviously they don’t move.”
But actually as we now know they did move. They moved apart from one another, but at one time they did, in fact, fit together. But that assumption was a problem.
It reflected the well-known wisdom:
“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”
– Mark Twain
This is actually an important point, believe it or not because there is another such assumption that a lot people have in their minds right now about global warming that just ain’t so. The assumption goes like this:
“The Earth is so big is we can’t possibly have any lasting, harmful impact on the Earth’s environment.”
Maybe that was true at one time, but it is not true anymore. One of the reasons it is not true anymore is that one of the most vulnerable parts of the Earth’s ecological system is the atmosphere. Vulnerable because it’s so thin. My friend the late Carl Sagan used to say “If you have a big globe with a thin coat of varnish on it, the thickness of that varnish relative to that globe is pretty much the same as the thickness of the Earth’s atmosphere compared to the Earth itself.” It is thin enough that we are capable of changing its composition.
That brings up the basic science of global warming. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this because you know it well. The sun’s radiation comes in in the form of light waves and heats up the Earth. Some of the radiation that is absorbed and warms the Earth is re-radiated back into space in the form infrared radiation. Some of the outgoing infrared radiation is trapped by this layer of atmosphere and held inside the atmosphere. That is good thing because it keeps the temperature of the Earth within certain boundaries, keeps it relatively constant and livable. But the problem is that this thin layer of atmosphere is being thickened by all of the global warming pollution that is being put up there. What that does is it thickens this layer of atmosphere. More of the outgoing infrared is trapped. So the atmosphere heats up worldwide. That’s global warming.
Carbon Dioxide Levels
This is the image that started me in my interest in this issue. I saw it when I was a college student because I had a professor named Roger Revelle who was the first person to propose measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. He saw where the story was going. After the first few years of data, he intuited what is meant, for what is yet to come. They designed the experiment in 1957. He hired Charles David Keeling who was very faithful and precise in making these measurements for decades. They started sending these weather balloons up every day. They chose the middle of the Pacific because it was the area that was the most remote. He was a very hard-nosed scientist. He really emphasized the hard data. It was a wonderful time for me, because, like a lot of young people, I came into contact with intellectual ferment, ideas that I’d never considered in my wildest dreams before.
He showed our class the result of these measurements after only a few years. It was startling to me. He was startled and he made it clear to our class what he felt the significance of it was. I soaked it up like a sponge. He drew the connections between the larger changes in our civilization and this pattern that was now visible in the atmosphere entire planet.
He projected into the future where this was headed unless we made some adjustments and it was as clear as day. After the first seven, eight, or nine years you could see the pattern that was developing. But I had to question, “Why does it go up and down once each year?” He explained that if you look at the land mass of the Earth, very little of it is south of the equator. The vast majority of it is north of the equator. And most of the vegetation is north of the equator. When the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, as it is in our spring and summer, the leaves come out and they breathe in the carbon dioxide and the amount in the atmosphere goes down. When the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun as it is in our fall and winter, the leaves fall and exhale carbon dioxide and the amount in the atmosphere goes back up again. It’s as if the entire Earth once each year breathes in and out.
So he started measuring carbon dioxide in 1958. By the middle 60’s when he showed my class this image, it was already clear that it was going up. I respected him and learned from him so much I followed this.
Political Journey
When I went to the Congress in the middle 1970’s I helped organize the first hearings on global warming, I asked my professor to be the lead off witness. I thought that would have such a big impact we’d be on the way to solving this problem, but it didn’t work out that way. I kept having hearings. In 1984 I went to the Senate and really dug deeply into this issue with science roundtables and the like. I wrote a book about it. I ran for president in 1988 partly to try to gain some visibility for this issue. In 1992 I went to the White House. We passed a version of a carbon tax and some other measures to try to address this. I went to Kyoto in 1997 to help get a treaty that is so controversial, in the US, at least. In 2000 my opponent pledged to regulate the CO2. That was not a pledge that was kept. The point of this is all this time you can see what I have seen all these years. It just keeps going up. It is relentless.
Effects of Global Warming
• And now we’re beginning to see the impact in the real world. This is Mount Kilimanjaro more than 30 years ago, and more recently. And a friend of mine just came back from Kilimanjaro with a picture he took a couple of months ago. Another friend, Lonnie Thompson, studies glaciers.
Here’s Lonnie with a last sliver of one of the once mighty glaciers. Within the decade there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro.
• This is happening in Glacier National Park. I climbed to the top of this in 1998 with one of my daughters. Within 15 years this will be the park formerly known as Glacier.
• Here’s what has been happening year by year to the Columbia Glacier. It retreats every single every year. And it’s a shame because these glaciers are so beautiful. People who go up to see them, here’s what they’re seeing every day now.
• In the Himalayas there is a particular problem because 40% of all the people in the world get their drinking water from rivers and spring systems that are fed more than half by the melt water coming off the glaciers. Within this next half century those 40% of the people on Earth are going to face a very serious shortage because of this melting.
• Italy, the Italian Alps, same site today. An old postcard from the Switzerland. Throughout the Alps we are seeing the same story.
• It’s also true in South America. This is Peru 15 years ago. The same glacier today.
• This is Argentina 20 years ago. Same glacier today.
• 75 years ago in Patagonia on the tip of South America. This vast expanse of ice is now gone.
Ice Cores: The 650,000-Year Record
There is a message in this. It is worldwide. The ice has a stories to tell. My friend Lonnie Thompson digs cores in the ice. They dig down and they bring the core drills back up and they look at the ice and they study it. When the snow falls it traps little bubbles of atmosphere. They can go in and measure how much CO2 was in the atmosphere the year that snow fell. What’s even more interesting I think is they can measure the different isotopes of oxygen and figure out the very precise thermometer and tell you what the temperature was the year that bubble was trapped in the snow as it fell.
When I was in Antarctica I saw cores like this and the guy looked at it. He said, “Right here is where the US Congress passed the Clean Air Act.” I couldn’t believe it but you can see the difference with the naked eye. Just a couple of years after that law was passed, it’s very clearly distinguishable.
They can count back year by year the same way a forester reads tree rings. You can see each annual layer from the melting and refreezing. They can go back in a lot of these mountain glaciers a thousand years. They constructed a thermometer of the temperature. The blue is cold and the red is warm. I show this for a couple of reasons. Number one the so-called skeptics will sometimes say “Oh, this whole thing is a cyclical phenomenon. There was a medieval warming period after all.” Well, yeah, there was. There it is right there. There are two others. But compared to what is going on now, there is just no comparison. So if you look at a thousand years worth of temperature and compare it to a thousand years of CO2 you can see how closely they fit together. Now, a thousand years of CO2 data in the mountain glaciers. That is one thing. But in Antarctica, they can go back 650,000 years. This incidentally is the first time anybody outside of a small group of scientists have seen this image. This is the present day era and that’s the last ice age. Then it goes up. We’re going back in time now 650,000 years. That’s the period of warming between the last two ice ages. That’s the second and third ice age back. Fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh ice ages back.
CO2 Concentration Is Above 300 PPM
Now an important point: In all of this time, 650,000 years, the CO2 level has never gone above 300 PPM (parts per million). Now, as I said, they can also measure temperature. Here is what the temperature has been on our Earth. One thing that kind of jumps out at you is…Let me put it this way. If my classmate from the sixth grade that talked about Africa and South America might have said, “Did they ever fit together?” Most ridiculous thing I ever heard. But they did of course. The relationship is actually very complicated. But there is one relationship that is more far powerful than all the others and it is this. When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer, because it traps more heat from the sun inside. In the parts of the United States that contain the modern cities of Cleveland, Detroit, New York, in the northern tier, this is the difference between a nice day and having a mile of ice above your head. Keep that in mind when you look at this fact. Carbon dioxide having never gone above 300 PPM, here is where CO2 is now. We give off where it has never been as far back as this record will measure. If you will bear with me I would like to emphasize this point. It’s already right here. Look how far above the natural cycle this is, and we’ve done that. But ladies and gentleman, in less than 50 years it’s going to continue to go up. When some of these children who are here are my age, here’s where it’s going to be in less than 50 years.
You’ve heard of off the chart. Within less than 50 years it’ll be here. There’s not a single fact or day or number that’s been used to make this up that is in any controversy. The so-called skeptics look at this and say, “So, that looks seems perfectly okay.” On the temperature side: If this much on the cold side is a mile of ice over our heads, what would that much on the warmer side be?
Ultimately, this is really not a political issue so much as a moral issue. If we allow that to happen, it is deeply unethical. I had such faith in our democratic system, our self-government, I actually thought and believed that the story would be compelling enough to cause a real sea change in the way Congress reacted to that issue. I thought they would be startled, too. They weren’t.
Children
The struggles, the victories that aren’t really victories, the defeats that aren’t really defeats can serve to magnify the significance of some trivial step forward, and exaggerate the seeming importance of massive setbacks.
April 3, 1989. My son pulled loose from my hand and chased his friend across the street. He was six years old. The machine was breathing for him. We were possibly going to lose him. He finally took a breath. We stayed in the hospital for a month. It was almost as if you could look at that calendar and go…whew! And everything just flew off. Seemed trivial, insignificant, He wqas so brave. He was such a brave guy.
It just turned my whole world upside down and then shook it until everything fell out. My way of being in the world. It just changed everything for me. How should I spend my time on this Earth? I really dug in, trying to learn about it much more deeply. I went to Antarctica, to the South Pole, North Pole, the Amazon. I went to places where scientists could help me understand parts of the issue I didn’t really understand in depth. The possibility of losing what was most precious to me. I gained an ability that I maybe I didn’t have before. But when I felt it, I felt that we really could lose it. What we take for granted might not be here for our children.
The 10 Hottest Years
These are actual measurements of atmospheric temperature since our Civil War. In any given year it might look like it’s going down, but the overall trend is extremely clear. In recent years it is uninterrupted and it is intensifying. In fact, if you look at the 10 hottest years ever measured in this atmospheric record, they have all occurred in the last 14 years. The hottest of all was 2005. We have already seen some of the heat waves that are similar to what scientists are saying are going to be a lot more common. A couple of years ago in Europe they had that massive heat wave that killed 35,000 people. India didn’t get as much attention, but the same year the temperature there went to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. This past summer in the American west, there were a lot of cities that broke all time records for high temperatures and number of consecutive days with 100-degree temperature or more. 200 cities and towns in the West set all time records. And in the East there were a lot of cities that did the same thing, including, incidentally, New Orleans.
It’s Natural!
So the temperature increases are taking place all over the world, including in the ocean. This is the natural range of variability for temperature in the oceans. You know people say, “Aw, it just naturally go up and down, so don’t worry about it.” This is the range that would be expected over the last 60 years. But the scientists who specialize in global warming have computer models that long ago predicted this range of temperature increase.
Ocean Temperature and Storms
Now I’m going to show you, recently released, the actual ocean temperatures. Of course, when the oceans get warmer, that causes stronger storms. We have seen in the last couple of years, a lot of big hurricanes. Hurricanes Jeanne, Francis and Ivan were among them. In the same year we had that string of big hurricanes we also set an all time record for tornadoes in the United States. Japan again didn’t get as much attention in our news media, but they set an all time record for typhoons. The previous record was seven. Here are all ten of the ones they had in 2004. The science textbooks that have had to be re-written because they say it is impossible to have a hurricane in the South Atlantic. But it was the same year that the first one that ever hit Brazil. The summer of 2005 has been one for the books. The first one was Emily that socked into Yucatan. Then Hurricane Dennis came along and it did a lot of damage, including to the oil industry. This is the largest oil platform in the world after Dennis went through. This one was driven into the bridge at Mobile. And then, of course, came Katrina. It is worth remembering that when it hit Florida it was a Category 1, but it killed a lot of people and caused billions of dollars worth of damage. And then, what happened? Before it hit New Orleans, it went over warmer waters. As the water temperature increases, the wind velocity increases and the moisture content increases. And you’ll see Hurricane Katrina form over Florida. And then as it comes into the Gulf over warm water it picks up energy and gets stronger and stronger and stronger. Look at that hurricane’s eye. And of course the consequences were so horrendous; there are no words to describe it.
Something new for America. But how in god’s name could that happen here? There had been warnings that hurricanes would get stronger. There were warnings that this hurricane, days before it hit, would breach the levies and cause the kind of damage that it ultimately did cause. And one question that we, as a people, need to decide is how we react when we hear warnings from the leading scientists in the world.
Winnie’s Warning
There was another storm in the 1930’s of a different kind, a horrible unprecedented storm in continental Europe. Winston Churchill warned the people of England that it was different from anything that had ever happened before, and they had to get ready for it. A lot of people did not want to believe it and he got real impatient with all the dithering. He said this:
“The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing, and baffling expedience of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”
– Winston Churchill, November 12, 1936
Making mistakes in generations and centuries past would have consequences that we could overcome. We don’t have that luxury anymore. We didn’t ask for it, but here it is.
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An Inconvenient Truth Transcript
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After watching the films, I took the situation of the Earth seriously. I thought that I knew the problems of the global warming before I watched it, but I realized that we should solve this problem immediately. The most shocking truth is the amount of CO2 is rising rapidly. Though this film was released in 2006, CO2 was increased and a lot of glaciers melted. However, now is on 2020. I think the situation of the environment is more terrible. Moreover, I was surprised that American government ignored this circumstance. One of the big economic power is America, so they have to work on decreasing to emit CO2. However, they took priority the economic. I think that all of the countries have to consider the environment and protect the future of the Earth. This film changed my thoughts. I felt that the problem of the global warming was anyone else’s business. However, I should play a part in improving this incident quickly.
After watching this film, I realize the earth environment is getting worse every year.
I have already known that CO2 is bad influence on the earth, however I didn’t know that CO2 is the reason why the ice is melting that causing the high temperature that damages the earth. The images that appeared in the film impressed me the most. It was very shocking to me. It is very sad to see the beautiful nature destroyed. As I watched this film, I have thought that if the ice from the world start to melt, the sea levels will go up and causes our place to live flows. Our lives will be limited. Moreover, I think the number of animals would be killed. This fact made me so emotional. We have to think a way to solve this issue and save the environment. I do not want to see the wildlife get harm. I hope by taking this class, I would understand more about the environment and be the person who can change the world.
It was shocking for me to know that thin layer of atmosphere is being thickened by the global warming pollution and More of the outgoing infrared is trapped. I guess most of the people have not realized the fact yet. Also, I have not known What we take for granted might not be here for our children due to global warming in the near future. I believe that not only government but also us should deal with this problem. Although it takes a long time to improve this situation better, we are able to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide by small things. To cope with this problem, it is necessary that we share the documentary movie with those who do not know yet. After watching this video, I was shocked and got angry at myself for not knowing the fact until watching . I need to understand this problem deeply and take action immediately.
As soon as I watched this film, I felt very heartbreaking. The images that’s appeared in the film made me surprised. I never thought the earth was changing this much. The graph of rise of CO2 was terrible. This film made me understand that as the CO2 increases, the sea levels will get high. I learned that the higher sea level will cause a seriously bad influence on our lives. If the ice melts, the water which melted from the ice will flood and sink the land. That’s mean the area which human and animals’ lives will be narrowed and causes the restriction of food and habitats. Lots of animals will be facing the endangerment of species. Moreover, when human’s life is restricted, it may cause the explosion of dissatisfaction. The dissatisfaction would cause strife in the human world. I am very terrified that this may happen someday in the future. To prevent this horrible event, we should take the global warming very seriously. If we don’t make any changes, not even in our generation, but next era will suffer more from global warming. I wish not only the government, but the people from all over the world will face this problem and solve it together.
After watching this film, I was so surprise. In this film, there are a lot of issues. Of course, I know the climate change and cause of climate change. However, as Mark Twain said before, I misunderstood that I know the fear of climate change. It is unusual thing and was never happened before. But, I was not afraid of it because it doesn’t sound sincere. Also, I have no idea what I can do. This movie said the points about climate change specifically. Then, I know the problem is already happening on the earth. Especially, I was afraid of problems with viruses. Now, Coronavirus infection is spreading. The coronavirus was detected in the town I live in. If I watch this movie before Coronavirus happen, I think I was less shocked. I felt scared because I saw it now. This problem is not easily solved. That’s why I was so glad to know the knowledge about climate change.
At first, I felt this film looked like full-length Ted. I could understand easily what the speaker said, because this film has a lot of charts and pictures. However, the actual pictures or movies of disaster were really shocking for me. Of course, this film makes me think deeply about the global warming. The global warming has a bad influence on our earth than I expected. We should regard the global warming as emergency. Moreover, I’m proud of Al Gore. He is active, and he can conduct ahead of us. We must work together with people like Al Gore. People all over the world should have the correct information about the global warming, and then we reconsider our action or behavior for the global warming. After I watched this film, I felt not only fear but also ashamed. That’s why I didn’t know completely about the global warming, and I didn’t do something special for the global warming. I’ll try to be more eco-friendly.
After watching this movie, I thought that human beings are very negligent about environmental problems. Humans only realize that the situation is serious after the disaster. I thought it was too late and I should think about measures beforehand. Also, we found that there is a relationship between global warming and the amount of CO2. In addition, I learned that some of the outgoing infrared radiation is trapped by the thickened atmosphere caused by greenhouse gases. In a serious situation, I thought it was great that the scientists actually visited the scene and confirmed the current situation with their eyes. And I was shocked by the glacial melting picture in the movie. That’s why, we need to understand the seriousness of the problem to protect the future. Various things will hurt due to changes in the weather. I think we have to take reality and change the way we live our everyday lives.
After watching this film, I surprised that present situation of the earth. The most shocking thing was the image that a lot of glaciers and snow of mountains melting. All snow and glaciers melt sometime soon as it is. I know that global warming is one of the most serious problems. However, I fully realized that we should solve this problem by the images. In addition, I was surprised that the 10 hottest years ever measured in this atmospheric record, they have all occurred in the last 14 years. This information proved that the global warming worsens more in these past several years. Though temperature is observed more than 650,000 years, it is extremely terrible to be unbalanced in the hottest year for only in 14 years. I think that this is the result that we continued missing the eyes from an environmental problem We may have to be opposite to global warming seriously.
I thought one of the most important points in this part is water and ice. Warming water trigger a lot of terrible issues to our daily life. Last year, I had ever searched about in danger of becoming extinct of sea turtles. It is also caused by global warming (also human). Global warming threatens not only human life but also animals. In addition, when I did scuba diving, my instructor said that “ocean is getting warmer certainly. It is abnormal.” At first, I thought it is comfortable for us to swim but it is serious problem for an ecological system in ocean. On the other hand, melting glacier also increasing gradually. When I went skiing with my friends in winter in japan, my friends said that “this year the snow is lesser than last year.” So, we can see the melting ice as well as Kilimanjaro.
In summarize, water and ice have a great role in earth, and these are changing certainly. We notice such a great change even children. Nevertheless, this condition is getting worse. I think there is only a little people who has a sense of crisis.
After watching this film, I was shocked about what has been happening on the earth. Especially, the change of the amount of nitrogen dioxide totally freaked me out. It was quite obvious how unusual the change of the increasing amount of CO2 when we saw the graph which shows fluctuation of the amounts of CO2. I think this situation is getting worse today. People who are top of the countries have to decide what they should do at first. I think it is more serious problem than economics. Because, most of the industry are based on the nature of the earth. Therefore, the priority matter is protecting environment. Furthermore, the things that have never happened in the history happen for these 100 years. Melting glacier is one of the biggest problems. However, most of these problems are caused of increasing the amount of CO2. So, above all, I think people have to solve the problems of CO2. In brief, I have never thought these problems as one big problem. However, these problems are connected closely. And I noticed that the cause of these problems is CO2 after watching this film. I became to think reducing emission of CO2 is the most priority problem.
At first, when I saw this movie, I thought that I didn’t know much about global warming. I knew a little about the mechanism of global warming and how it affects the earth. However, the first time I saw this movie, I learned about the details of the fact that the amount of CO2 was observed for a long time, and that CO2 in the atmosphere fluctuates twice a year. I was very surprised to find out the CO2 concentration and climate at that time from the ice bubbles. The amount of CO2 has increased rapidly in recent years. The place that was covered with ice in the old days has also melted into the sea. Until now, we are taking measures. But more and more people should think about global warming. The amount of CO2 has increased rapidly in recent years. The place that was covered with ice in the old days has also melted into the sea. Until now, we are taking measures. But more and more people should think about global warming.
When I saw this movie, I realized that global warming is progressing rapidly. Before I saw this movie, I knew that global warming was a global problem. However, I was disappointed because the United States did not know that it was ignoring this problem and promoting the economy. Also I noticed that the carbon dioxide emissions have increased dramatically over the past few years, causing rising temperatures and destroying the nature of glacier collapse. We thought that the carbon dioxide emitted by our lives should not damage the environment in which we live. That’s because these problems adversely affect all living things such as plants, animals and humans and the environment. In order to solve global warming, I think it is necessary for countries all over the world to cooperate and change our lives.
Firstly, I was surprised the growing rate of the amount of CO₂ and the temperature in the graph of the past 650,000 years. I have thought the rate was more gradual. In fact, however, they grow at alarming rate though a slight fall also exists. I was shocked by images of melting glaciers around the world and the expectation of the future. 50 years later, I might alive, and have my children and grandsons too. Beautiful sights which exist in the earth now could disappear in our grandson’s age. However, we can feel this issue as our own one, and think politicians would have some strategies. After watching the TED talk, I think that’s our issue. Also, it doesn’t change at all no matter how many strategies are made if we don’t take action. An argue for the environment such as “We should recycle plastic bottles” is always with the counterargument such as “Recycling doesn’t work for the environment.” However, the point is to take an action, so we should rather recycle than argue the meaningless of recycle.
As I watched this movie, I have to take action for saving the earth immediately. I did not think global warming is so serious problem and it can be solved someday before watching this movie. However, in fact, the problem of global warming is getting worse and worse because of our ignorance. Moreover, it makes natural disasters like hurricanes, tornados, and typhoons stronger and it kills a lot of people. Furthermore, by measuring ice cores, the amount of CO2 is unnatural and it relates to temperature. so, if we keep producing CO2, the earth changes an inhospitable environment. Therefore, we have to recognize that we are destroyers and share the correct information. Then, we must change our thinking and take action for going down the CO2 levels. I think one of the causes of this problem is human, so if we change, it can be the solution, too. so, I mean taking small action saves the earth.
The global is broken by human. In this part, I found that there are a number of problems in the world now. we live carelessly so our thoughtless actions affect the environment, but most of us do not try to change our life. Because a few damages affect our life directly. Therefore, we don’t really feel yet that our daily life is gradually lost. Also, at this moment, the world is approaching to the end. We don’t notice the big problems which is approaching to us until we become victims. We need to reconsider our life and I think there are a lot of our actions that we can change to save the world and also oueselves. As this part also mentioned, carbon dioxides which we emit a lot in our daily life affect the world and animals and natures die. We emit too much carbon dioxides which are useless everyday. In our time, there are many technical and ecologiocal things so we will be able to cut the useless emission of carbon dioxides. It is needed to take action indivisually one by one. I think human have to save the animals, natures and the world.
After watching this movie, I thought about the earth.
If we continue to live as it is, there is no hope for our future. When your child grows up, it may be difficult to live on earth like today.
Until now I didn’t have much thought to do something for the earth. However, we can make a big difference in the future just by doing what each person can do.There are several ways to reduce carbon dioxide, one of the causes of global warming.It is also effective to reduce the number of times we use a car, bring our own bag for shopping, and turn off the electricity frequently.
The future will be better if everyone keeps these things in mind.
If we take action now, we can still save the earth.
Honestly, I did not think about global warming seriously before watching this movie. The reality of our earth in this movie gave me a big shock. I feel like most of the people in the world do not think about the relationship between global warming and CO2. However, I think we have to consider it seriously, because only human beings can change our earth. In other words, creatures other than “us” can not make the earth better. As the movie says, the atmosphere is the most vulnerable part of the earth’s ecosystem. We need to protect it for our future.
There are a lot of things that we can do in our daily lives. For instance, they are bringing shopping bags, being careful of the preset temperature of the air conditioner, turning off the light when we are not at home and so on. I cannot change anything on my own. Each one has to be environmentally conscious. The situation is going to become better in the future if we do so.
This film was very shocking to me. I realized the earth is in a dangerous situation. If the present circumstance does not improve, the nature in the earth will disappear soon. CO2 is a huge problem and have bad influence for nature such as the melting glacier. I think that we can solve some problems by CO2, If we change present awareness of each person to CO2. First of all, every person sould do action that they can do. To take examples, using an electric car. Action of each person influences nature environment of the earth. To sum up, reducing CO2 is primary for the earth to save it.
When I saw this movie, I thought that global warming was a problem to be improved. In this movie, I could see the sea level rising as CO2 increased. When the sea level rises, it has a great impact on humans and animals. If the land that humans and animals live is submerged in the sea, they will not be able to live. I thought this meant that we were going to extinction at this very moment. I expect it’s too late when we start to feel danger of extinction. If we don’t do anything, the earth will go to destruction. However most people don’t try to live by changing their consciousness. I think we should think about the environment now.
I was very shocked after watching this movie because, environment is worse than I think. I know CO2 is bad material for people, animal, plant and earth. I know also that CO2 has been increasing. We know about global warming and we are told about danger of global warming but many people misunderstood that the earth is still okay. It is wrong. We must change our lifestyle, behavior and recognition. There are many things we can do immediately and easily. CO2 is melting ice that will connect global warming. Every thing about environment connect our future. So, we must do we can immediately
When I saw this movie, I felt like I witnessed the reality of the problem I had pretended not to see. The pictures and images in the movies, and the specific numbers are scary, and I thought we should have a more sense of crisis. I think everyone has once heard of the issue of global warming. However, I often think that I can’t do anything. However, seeing this movie and knowing the reality, it may be possible to do something by itself. We should be more interested in the reality of the earth on which we live and protect ourselves.
Shunsuke Miwa
In Inconvenient truth part 1, I learned that situations of global warming are too serious today, and most people turn their gaze from this. In the beginning, Gore introduces Mark Twain’s speech. He said ”What goes us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” I thought this word is applicable to global warming as Gore said.
Also I understood how important the layer of atmosphere is. Today, this thin layer of atmosphere is being thickened by all of the global warming pollution and it traps heat in the atmosphere. More of the outgoing infrared rays are trapped. So the atmosphere heats up worldwide. That’s global warming. I think destroying this system which keep the appropriate temperature for the earth with human hands is against the laws of nature. We have to keep it in mind that we are part of nature, and being kept alive by nature.