An Inconvenient Truth – Al Gore

Since Al Gore conceded the election to his opponent, he has embarked onto something different in his life. In the past few years, he contributed to a social enterprise project where he started from schools within the United States to the rest of the world, to talk about the issues of global warming and warn about the consequences if we do not have the political will to solve the problem. The movie “An Inconvenient Truth” (a book copy is available) presents the problem of global warming and he gives his perspective on how to resolve the issues. We present a review of the movie in this blog entry and provide some information about CO2 emissions in Singapore.

Finally, after a year, the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” (directed by Davis Guggenheim) has finally touched down in Singapore. Without doubt, it is one of the must-see movies because it presents us a picture of global warming and how it is affecting our earth. Protecting the environment has been an important aspect of social entrepreneurship and sustainable development.

Al Gore, the former US President, has been passing the message of the need to do something about the climate crisis around the world for the past few years. If you watch the movie, the whole movie is divided into a few parts: (i) the reasons behind why he was inspired to champion the issue of climate change in politics (ii) the science of global warming and its harmful consequences and (iii) how we can move ahead with possible solutions that can reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Strictly speaking, the movie is centered for the American audience and seeks to spread his message for everyone in the US to do something about it.

For the first part, Al Gore’s view on climate change was heavily influenced by Roger Revelle, who was the first person to propose measuring the rate of carbon dioxide emissions in the Earth’s atmosphere. He also presented how he got involved in presenting the problem first as a congressman and subsequently as a senator.

That is followed by a scientific exposition of global warming. He presented different facts from looking at the CO2 emission and the temperature of the earth in the past 650,000 years. Slowly he built up his case by showing how the weather patterns (hurricanes, typhoons and drought) are surfacing, the damage of the ecosystem, the drying of the glaciers and lakes and the effects on the gulf streams to a possible ice age.

Finally, in the last part of the movie, he discusses the various myths that are currently spinned by the big oil corporations and the political right. He based his evidence on the amount of respectable publications in the scientific circle and how Phillip Cooney censored the information during his term as the chief of staff in the White House Environmental Office. Finally, he gave his views on how market capitalism can be an ally to solve the problem of climate change. Interestingly, he argued his case based on the technology in cars developed by car companies outside the US doing better than the ones in US (General Motors and Ford). Finally, he presented several approaches in reducing carbon emissions by (i) reduction from efficient use of electricity appliances, (ii) reduction with better designed buildings and businesses that uses far less energy, (iii) reduction from increased vehicle effeciency, for e.g. hybrid cars, (iv) alternative renewable energies technologies (biofuels, wind) and finally (v) reduction from the capture and storage of excess carbon from power plants and industrial activities.

My opinion is that the movie has adopted a very concise and straightforward way to present global warming to the masses. It also plays on Al Gore’s life and how he championed it as a cause from his term in the US Congress and Senate to the time he ran for the presidential elections in 2000. It also exploited on an emotional level using his sister’s death by lung cancer to show how his family gave up tobacco farming as a result. Nevertheless, it is an inspirational film and it encourages people to take action at the end credits of the film.

I want to leave a quote which left me a deep impression in this movie and hope that you can go and watch it:

“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences.” – Winston Churchill, 1936.

On CO2 emissions In Singapore

In Singapore, we have the National Environmental Agency that focuses on the issues of global warming. In the report “Managing the Climate” 2005, here is an interesting note which might be of interest to the advocates of environmental friendliness:

Singapore’s carbon dioxide emission has grown by 2.9% annually, slower than the 8.4% annual growth of real GDP. Measured in CO2 per GDP dollar, its carbon intensity – the ratio of carbon emissions to economic activity – improved by 15% between 1990 and 2003. That means that while the country’s been growing, its carbon emissions have been decreasing.

By 2012, Singapore aims to achieve a carbon efficiency that is at least 25% better than in 1990. At the same time, it aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 190,000 tonnes.

If you want to see how the graph of carbon dioxide emissions matches up for Singapore, here is a link for your information.

What can the social entrepreneurs do? Here is the challenge for most social entrepreneurs? There are currently ongoing projects for the entrepreneurs to find ways to deal with carbon dioxide emissions:

• Carbon Trading or related business models to help governments to reduce emissions.
• Searching for new technologies that might replace conventional means of generating energy, for example, coal burning and petroleum for cars.
• Finding ways and means that can provide incentives for people to promote and propagate the message of climate change.

Of course, we will leave you to think of more interesting and enterprising means to this social cause that is affecting our Earth everyday.
Related Links:
[1] Presentation Zen, Al Gore: another presenter extraordinaire?. This blog entry discusses the presentation style of Al Gore and for those who want to pick up some tips on presentation, this is a good article to pick up.

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