The most frightening film of the year

Noel Vera

Davis Guggenheim's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" has the force
of a high tide, pulling imperceptibly yet irresistibly upwards until
you're knee deep in it, you can't ignore it, and the edge is some
twenty feet behind where you're standing at the moment.

The film is a 96-minute documentary on a series of what appear to be
Power Point presentations given by Al Gore who, as he puts it "used
to be the next president of the United States (when the audience
laughs, he replies "I don't find that particularly funny.")." Gore
uses animation, graphs and anecdotes to make the not-so-easy-to-
grasp case that the world's average temperature is rising, that
man's--and especially the United States'--technology has been
largely responsible, and that the consequences on our weather and
water levels are going to be dire.

I won't mince words on this one--it's one of the most frightening
recent movies I've seen. Unlike pictures like "Hostel" or the "Saw"
franchise, it portrays ordinary horrors, horrors you are likely to
meet every day (step outside in any Metro Manila street and take a
deep breath), and are likely to choke on (now try hold that breath).
It makes its case calmly, simply; Gore himself has the manner of a
cheerful host talking to a group of friends. The understated manner
only makes the facts he quotes all the more convincing, all the more
chilling--when he makes the assertion that the rise in world
temperatures in recent years, for example, is correlated to the rise
in carbon dioxide levels, and that levels of this gas (thanks to
industrialization) are rising to unprecedented levels, he climbs a
cherry picker and follow the chart's extrapolation of gas readings
for the next few years, up, up, past the screen's upper edge, almost
all the way to the ceiling. Up there he considers the line's upper
end in the calmest way possible, doling out a smattering of jokes.
But that unbelievable spike remains there on the big screen
(actually, a good distance beyond it) for you to stare at, and take
to heart.

Global warming is real; Gore makes a good case for it. But he also
goes into the reasons why countries like the United States have not
done anything about it, and he points to the present
administration's stance of not taking the issue very seriously (we
get a clip of Bush in 2000 warning voters that if they vote for
Gore, they'll be up to their necks in endangered snow owls), and
notes the attempts by the government to actually muzzle scientists
who have less than pleasant (if no less truthful) things to say
about global warming trends. Not just the scientists; he notes how
oil companies (yes, those who profited handsomely from the recent
rise in gas prices), particularly Exxon Mobil (yes, the same company
whose tanker the Exxon Valdez spilled millions of gallons of crude
in Alaska's Prince William Sound back in 1989) have hired so-called
scientists to cast doubts about the trend (successfully too; Gore
mentions that where in the scientific community not a single doubt
has been raised about global warming, in the mainstream press
skeptical articles outnumber supportive ones 57 to 43 percent).

The film does go on to show a more personal side to the man: the
death of his sister, for one, and the near-death of his son. Gore
himself muses on how the threat to his son's life focused his
thoughts on the kind of world the boy will be living in, in some not
unthinkably distant future, but five, ten years from now. One might
think these quick snippets cynically package the man as more
sympathetic, perhaps even presidential; actually, they also help
explain his interest in such an ostensibly abstract topic--helps, in
short, to explain why he gives a damn about what happens to the
world five or ten years from now.

It's a sobering to realize how thoroughly the rest of the world gets
it, if the United States doesn't. United Nations Secretary General
Kofi Annan in a recent speech said that those who denied there was
any threat were "out of step, out of arguments, and out of time." He
insists that world leaders give global warming "the same priority as
they did to wars and to curbing the spread of weapons of mass
destruction." Easy to say that Annan is no friend of the United
States--but then President Bush is an oil man, from Texas, and a
good friend of companies such as Exxon Mobil, among others; Annan's
family fortune as far as I know isn't tied into environmental
progress, except in the very general sense that we'd all benefit.

It doesn't take much of a leap of imagination to realize what
consequences global warming can have on this particular country--
think of Metro Manila during a strong rain storm, how flooded some
streets can get; then think not of a strong rainstorm (never mind an
actual typhoon--those can paralyze the city for about a week) but of
the sea level permanently rising, say, twenty feet. Gore shows a map
of New York City, and what it would look like when the water level
goes up (most of the city disappears in an ocean of blue); you
wonder if Metro Manila could fare half as well.

We don't even have to think of the issue of rising world
temperatures--the rising level of carbon monoxide and other
industrial fumes, and the accompanying rise in respiratory diseases
will do. With an entire government office (the DENR, or Department
of Environment and Natural Resources) devoted to the environment,
and most companies in the Philippines required by law to secure an
ECC (an Environmental Compliance Certificate) whenever they build a
new building or factory, why does Metro Manila remain one of the
most polluted cities on earth, why does illegal logging go largely
unabated, and why are our waters being quickly and drastically
depleted of its aquatic wildlife? Certainly the legal framework is
there, and (as Gore insists) the technology to combat gas emissions;
what's missing, as in the United States, is the will to actually and
impartially enforce those laws.

Perhaps the most common complaint American critics have about the
Gore they see in "An Inconvenient Truth" is this--where, many of
them ask, was this jokey, folksy man, so light on his feet and fleet
with his facts, when Gore ran for president in 2000? Where indeed?
The man had been serious about the environment ever since college,
and if he had actually taken office six years ago…well, it might be
useless to speculate (I for one doubt that he'd do something as
boneheaded as go to war against Saddam Hussein for something the Al
Qaeda did), but it's still an irresistible "what if" daydream.
Actually what we need, more than to go and see this picture, is our
very own Al Gore, tirelessly championing the cause for a cleaner,
purer Philippines.

(First published in Businessworld, 11/24/06)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)