An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth – Review
As close to everyone knows, this is Al Gore’s book which supposedly proves that, because of mankind’s increased carbon emissions, therefore the international climate is warming and therefore we will suffer from a large type of terrible problems unless we act to reverse the situation. Gore essentially argues in this book that, unless we radically decrease CO2 emissions, the oceans will rise 20 feet, most of Florida and New York City will be nearly drowned — he provides extremely real currently looking virtual maps of these predictions — there will be many more hurricanes and, in general, the world as we know it will come to an end. It is possible that Gore’s central thesis is correct. Our climate might be warming from CO2 emissions. There is no way to assess the consequence of his thesis from this book, however. This is a well illustrated picture book. It is usually filled with stunning photographs. It has very little text. On the few occasions when Gore actually puts more than 50 words in a row it is generally to tell some heart-wrenching anecdote such as why the near-death of his son became him passionate about global warming. The book has no footnotes, and no closely connected argument. It is, to be blunt about, a coffee-table book, not a technical book. I appreciate that Gore’s defenders will disagree. After all, the pictures illustrate facts don’t they? We can see, from the pictures, that there is less ice on Mt. Kilamanjero. We can see that many glaciers have retreated in the last century. We can still see the photos revealing how much of Florida would be completely submerged, if the sea rose 20 feet, which it would, if all of the ice in Greenland completely melted. Yes, the pictures produce unique facts. But science is not done with pictures, because one can constantly take a few facts out of context to prove anything. You do not do science with a few photos. You do science with hard data, taken from as many sources as possible. You do science by currently looking at the complete picture, or as much as you can. You also do science by seriously addressing critics and alternative theories. I am sorry, Al, but this book is much closer to a rock video than it is to a logical argument. It relies on pictures, emotions and outrageous claims. That does not prove that it is wrong. You can not , however, normally assess the truth or falseness of the statements with Gore’s presentation. Al considers we are stupid. He does not think we will widely read through fundamental science. He thinks we need portions of pictures or we only won’t get it.