From the perspective of an artist and graphic designer, I believe that Al Gore’s, An Inconvient Truth, is wildly successful. The most effective aspect of the film is how engaging the presentation of his lecture is. One reason many people have ignored global warming for so long is because of the feeling of hopelessness created due to the complexity of the problem. Gore does an excellent job creating compelling evidence, that effectively engages its target audiences. He uses powerful imagery, simplified scientific evidence, and short impressive facts to create a lecture and film that turn people on to global warming instead of off. Gore also does a great job of showing compassion, explaining causes for error in the past and, and does not concern himself with putting too much blame on anyone, especially his audience.
On the other hand, I did not care for the back-stories in the film. I understand how they personalize his intentions but overall they are irrelevant to his argument aside from the fact that the debate over global warming is an ethical one, and his understanding comes from personal experience. It however did not inspire me to contemplate about personal events in my past and channel that energy towards fighting global warming.
Instead, I would have liked to see more information in the lecture about solutions and actions people can take. Whenever a person is approached with a problem they immediately want that problem to be followed with a solution. When Gore makes the point that, every person’s actions can be a part of the solution he presents, he spend more time in detail about what exactly should people do and how they should do it. Instead he brushes over these points with one slide showing a list of different actions. Also, his point that economic growth and environmental protection can coexist is one of the most important points within the lecture, since the greatest opposition to environmental regulations in America are large corporations, more than anyone they need to be shown how they can increase profit through sustainable and synergetic design and environmental protection.