Al Gore continues to be inconvenient a decade on

Al Gore continues to be inconvenient a decade on

Review: Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power

(PG) Al Gore

It has been just over ten years since Al-Gore shared with the world the Academy Award-winning film about the inconvenient and alarming truth of climate change.

This sequel however is not as ground-breaking instead it’s a catch up on what the former U.S Vice President has been up to the last decade as he wearily continues to fight for the world’s precarious environment.

And what has changed in 10 years? Well, not a lot but small the strides made for awareness and action have been important. As the film shows there a still loud naysayers including President Trump, as developing countries and pacific island nations bear the deadly brunt of climate change.

Though the film is mediocre in its delivery, what can’t be denied is the impact of global warming seen all over the world.

The 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement featured heavily in this film. It was interesting to go briefly behind the scenes to see the challenges that arose trying to get nation states to commit to reducing global warming to below 2°C.

While in negotiations for this agreement tensions between countries, in this case India, and the developed world where highlighted particularly when debating who is responsible for climate change. There was also tension with the prospect of developing countries having to play catch up with countries such as Australia and the U.S without using fossil fuels that developed worlds have benefitted from for 150 years. This was one stalemate that Al-Gore tried to help leaders negotiate at the Paris talks.

Al-Gore admits that the challenge for climate change action has been actively foiled by businesses who rely on fossil fuels, including Trump’s attempt to disrupt the Paris climate agreement.

It was depressing look at how politics and big corporations have put pressures to ensure that action on climate change is stalled. Yet what the film showed was that towns, countries and individuals are fighting back and seeing the benefit in going 100% renewable energy.

Al Gore continues to draw on his faith as his justification for doing what he can for the environment. At one point, he paraphrases Deuteronomy 30:19 where God says that He has set before us life or death, so choose life. Al Gore stops short of reciting the rest of the scripture that calls us to choose to live in the loving God but the sentiment of protecting God’s creation is clear.

It’s also here that the Inconvenient Sequel hinges heavily on combating global warming as a moral obligation. Al Gore states that global terrorism, poverty, hunger, migration strains even though all higher on the worlds priority list are all issues that link back to climate change. This raises the questions that if we prioritized and stabilized our climate would we have a better chance in solving these social issues? Al-Gore seems to think so.

A questionable claim but what is certain, is that if the governments aren’t taking climate change seriously then local communities and individuals need to. It won’t change with inaction.

So yes be inconvenient, in the most positive way to help the world, your community, your church, your neighbours, your family by committing to protect the environment because we were only given one earth.

Learn more about how you can #BeInconvenient

Melissa Stewart

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