Gore Can Help

Joel Kovel, whose comments form the basis of the film, A Really Inconvenient Truth.

Comment on the film A REALLY Inconvenient Truth from student at SUNY, Purchase:

How does one continue to exist in a system that one knows is wrong and is harming them and everyone around them? Certainly one must continue to strive to agitate, to work against this mechanism but as one does this, one must keep in mind that their actions no matter how small still matter. This is maybe where Gore can help to some degree and this is why I dont think a complete and total write off of Gore is a good idea (Gore is still an asshole). Gore stresses individual action however filthily moderate his ideas are. Gore makes a step but is afraid to take the leap. However, if these individual actions are connected to a overarching critical view of where the problems are indeed coming from, one can begin to make enormous progress toward ending capitalism in the longer term without ignoring personal responsibility for the environment in the short term.

What Gore Leaves Out

Gore's Band-aids

Comments from a student at SUNY Purchase:
I thought the concept of the movie (A REALLY Inconvenient Truth) was great. I watched "An Inconvenient Truth" with a bunch of friends over the summer and struggled to explain to them why the solutions Gore gives are no more than band-aids. Environmental issues are political issues, are social issues, are economic issues and Gore simply fails to address this by putting up a facade of 'going green' as a moral imperative. That is a really interesting assumption that opens a lot of doors of discussion. Is the continued survival of the human race (which is really what Gore is talking about more than the survival of the planet) a moral imperative then? What exactly is Gore's morality based upon? God? Mom? Apple pie? Baseball?

Gore Gave a Lot of Facts

Willow, New York

Comment from student after viewing A REALLY Inconvenient Truth:
I thought the movie was informative and communicated its ideas. It made me realize how Gore was capitalizing, basically, off of making this movie. One of the central ideas to this movie is how Gore gave a lot of facts about global-warming and displayed the problem like it was societies faults; when in fact the ‘system’ and institutions that make up society should be looked at how they contribute to the problem. The dispersed car commercials were an interesting touch because they were really invasive and obnoxious, and we are bombarded with them when watching television. Having it set up like a debate made it easy to follow the points that were being put-forth. I am anxious to see what the movie suggests we do to make a difference. It was very informative and gave a different and mind-opening perspective on the world-and America’s destructive capitalistic traits.

Gore is Disappointed

Snow on Mount Tremper, Willow, NY

This is a comment made by a student about a new film, A REALLY Inconvenient Truth, which looks at Global Warming as a problem of capitalist production.

I enjoyed " A Really Inconvenient Truth" very much. It manages to give a critical evaluation of another critical evaluation. It reminds us that we should take every opinion with a grain of salt because even an opinion that seems to be somewhat revolutionary can be driven by Capitalist motives.
My one critique of the views presented on the movie is that Al Gore is not anti-Capitalism and i don't think he ever claims to be. He instead seems to be simply disappointed with the Capitalist decision to value money OVER the well being of our planet.
Still, I agree with the fact that if he wanted to make a real difference he would have done more about the issue during his term in office

Gore's Mission to Heal the World

Cambiz Khosravi, director of A REALLY Inconvenient Truth films Joel Kovel in Willow, New York.

Student comment about the film which critique's Gore's position. It's hard enough to get people to sit down and watch a movie about global warming (which directly affects them), let alone a movie trying to explain the real motives behind it. I feel as though the power of his message will be pending on the person who watches it, and how much they are truly willing to believe that things aren't really as they seem (alienation, etc etc.) I personally loved the film, but I hate to trust (rich,white) people, so exploiting An Inconvenient Truth for what it really is, business propaganda (??) rather than Gore's mission to heal the world, is exactly what I wanted to see after hearing him speak for 90 minutes. Fight the Power

Critique of Gore

Raw Cinematography

Comment from student:
I found the film to be informative and interesting. I liked the rawness of cinematography when the camera wasn't completely still during certain interviews. It added to the character of the film. The one thing I didn't like was that it seemed to be more of a bashing against Al Gore with little information of how the problem can be solved. Although maybe the solution comes at the end of the film. I agreed with another girl's comment in class about how the comparing of the two movies seems almost irrelevant as they seem to be talking about two different things, Granted the two are similar problems but I feel its more cause and effect against the reason why.
All in all I found it to be a good film and am very interested to see some of the solutions to this problem.