The Inconvinient Truth Movie Report
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The introduction of the Earthrise photograph gave rise to the environmental movements in the modern times. It caused people to open their eyes and realize that the environment of our planet faces a real threat. However, through the means of the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”, Al Gore tries to emphasize on the harm and grave danger that the habits of the human kind has caused for planet Earth and how we have not yet realized the full potential of the threat that our environment faces.
According to the documentary, Global Warming is the greatest threat to our environment and the leading cause of environment degradation. Global warming is basically the thickening of the layer of atmosphere around the Earth due to the increase in Carbon Dioxide and greenhouse gases emissions. The increase in the level of Carbon Dioxide emissions leads to the outgoing infrared radiations being trapped in the atmosphere and heats up the Earths surface temperature.
For decades, ever since the carbon dioxide levels had started being measured in 1958, scientists observed an upward trend of increase in the CO2 levels. This has had a great impact on our environment and this could be highlighted by using the examples of the melt down of major glaciers.
It is predicted that the gigantic glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro in the coming few years will have melted off completely and the ice caps will have disappeared, due to warmer temperatures. Apart from Mount Kilimanjaro, other major glaciers around the world are also responding in a similar way due to the global warming. The melt downs of such glaciers gives rise to an alarming problem which Is that 40% of the worlds population depends on the water received from the glaciers for drinking water, suggesting a shortage of water in the near future of the coming half century.
As commonly known, the temperature gets warmer as there is an increase in the CO2 emissions. The problem of the increasing temperature is now worse than ever and we know this as the CO2 levels in the last few years have been higher than they have ever been before according to the records, which is considered much higher than the natural cycle. Also, they have been predicted to go much higher in the coming 50 years.
The effect of the rising temperatures is what caused some of the hottest years which occurred in the last decade. It also lead to the increase in the temperature of oceans which lead to a number of tornadoes, hurricanes and typhoons in the last few years as an increase in the temperature of oceans causes stronger storms.
Apart from the storms, floods, droughts, typhoons and tornadoes that has led to the loss of many human lives , the disappearance of ice caps largely effects animals like polar bears and seals by their natural habitats getting taken away. This is caused due to the warming up of areas like the Arctic which Al Gore talked about in the documentary as one of the two Canaries in a coal mine. The other being the Antarctic.
We may not realize the devastating nature of the of the negative changes in our environment as the temperature change seems gradual when talked in terms of a human life , however in the course of time the harm caused is happening very quickly.
The measure of the human impact on the environment, called the ecological footprint is a term that clearly helps us understand how rapidly we are depleting the natural capital of the earth and this adversely affects the natural cycle in numerous ways.
The Antarctic has diminished by 40% in the last 40 years which is a huge loss in an almost negligible amount of time. Another example of a negative change in the natural cycle in the environment would be the Western Pine Beetle damage. Earlier the pine beetles would be killed by the cold weather, however due to an increase in the global warming the number of days of the cold weather has reduced ,not killing the amount of pine beetles that it used to, which lead to these pine beetles destroying about 14 million acres of Spruce trees in Alaska.
In the last quarter century, about 30 new diseases have surfaced, such as the Ebola, SARS and the Arena Virus for example and the loss of species is occurring at a rate 1000 times higher than the natural rate.
As human beings we contribute to the changes in the environment not just individually but also as corporate societies. When we refer to the environment from a business point of view, the term created