An inconvenient truth - A must see

I just came home from seeing a very informative film "An inconvenient truth".

This film follows one man’s crusade to bring home the terrifying truth about global warming to ordinary people before it’s too late. The film was produced by Al Gore - the man who, had it not been for controversial Supreme Court decision on the 2000 US election, would have become President of the United States.

Combining hard science with Gore’s passion and drive, the film makes for compelling viewing.

The film follows Gore on his seemingly selfless crusade to educate the world that global warming is an imminent threat, interspersing interviews with long sequences capturing Gore's elaborate traveling slide show on the issue.

The film is a magnificent primer on global warming and a tough-love commentary on how today's energy gluttony could be endangering tomorrow.

To be sure, Gore does take the occasional jab at business interests, the Bush administration and naysayers who remain noncommittal about whether global warming is real or simply a result of natural cycles. So he's not entirely an apolitical saint doing what's right by humanity.

Yet even skeptics who go in scornfully figuring Gore is serving his own self-interests may come away wondering, what's in it for him? Gore has said he does not plan to seek office again and that spreading the word on global warming will be his main pursuit from now on.

In "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore comes across as a man without a personal agenda, following a cause for the greater good, whether you believe in it or not. Gore has believed since college in the 1960s, when he took a class from Roger Revelle, a pioneer in global-warming studies.

Gore lays out the science behind the notion that our fuel emissions act like an envelope, trapping heat in the atmosphere and causing glacial retreat, the melting of polar ice caps, increases in hurricane intensity and other climate changes.

The film includes footage of the devastation Hurricane Katrina wrought on New Orleans and images of melting glaciers, evaporating lakes and the vanishing snows of Mount Kilimanjaro. It shows what could happen if ice covering Greenland and Antarctica continues to melt -- huge tracts of Florida flooded and the site of the World Trade Center Memorial under water. Other areas could be hit by drought and disease, while the world may have to cope with widespread relocation of refugees fleeing deluged coastlines.

The scientific evidence Gore shares is alarming, but the film lays out steps to reverse the warming trend -- a combination of conservation and new energy technology. All that's lacking is the political will, Gore says.

This is a must see, in my opinion, for everyone on this planet.