ABSTRACT
Al Gore’s film and accompanying book An Inconvenient Truth (Gore 2006), perhaps along with the Stern Report authored by Nicholas Stern (2007), a former World Bank economist, propelled climate change into public consciousness around the world. An Inconvenient Truth earned $49 million at the box office and became the seventh-highest-grossing documentary in US film history. The film derived from a slide show on climate change that Gore had been showing around the world. For his highly acclaimed film, Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. While some climate scientists may quibble about certain details in Gore’s presentations, the vast majority along with many government leaders express appreciation to him in his efforts to bring his message to the attention of millions of people. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel distributed 6,000 DVDs of An Inconvenient Truth to German schools and the film has been shown in schools in other countries. Climate skeptics, most of whom are politically ultraconservative, have repeatedly sought to undermine his efforts. In the UK, climate skeptics challenged the government’s distribution of the film and managed to convince a judge that it purportedly contained nine scientific doubts which had to be pointed out before showing the film in schools.
