An Inconvenient Truth Essay

Submitted By gutsy911er
Words: 783
Pages: 4

Tracy Ballejos
Anth1000
Dr. McManama-Kearin
Feb 26, 2015
“An Inconvenient Truth” I will be the first to admit that I was not looking forward to this assignment. The whole topic of global warming, while an important one that needs to be addressed, has never been a “hot” topic for me. Add to that the topic being presented by one of my least favorite people Al Gore, this did not make me excited for the task at hand. Much to my amazement, within the first thirty minutes Mr. Gore had captured my attention. I found myself completely drawn into the information being presented to me. I am a bit ashamed to admit that I am one of those people who always thought that the problem of global warming was one that future generations would have to deal with. I never thought that that the actions or lack of action of my generation would make a difference in the great scheme of things. One of the major things that changed my thinking while watching this movie was the pictures shown of the changes of the various glaciers over the years. I was amazed at the amount of change that could visually be seen in these massively beautiful glaciers. At the same time I was saddened that they are slowly disappearing due to something that could possibly be reversed with a few behavior modifications. The information in the presentation that hit me the hardest was seeing the carbon dioxide concentration levels in relation to the temperature. It is alarming to see the level of carbon dioxide at the time the movie was made and also the projected level in 50 years. That spike alone should have everyone that shares this planet with us concerned for the topic of global warming. I do believe that there are countries that are doing their parts to help with decreasing carbon emissions. Mr. Gore stated”We can't sell our cars in China today because we don't meet the Chinese environmental standards”. That being said, our country as pointed out in the movie is contributing the majority of the carbon emissions and doing the least to decrease them. I feel that it is time that we do our part. It is time for the United States to look to countries like Japan and start demanding better environmental standards. My favorite quote in this presentation was when Mr. Gore stated “I don’t really consider this a political issue, I consider it to be a moral issue.” I could not agree with that more. Morally we need to do more, whether that be carpooling, electric cars, or converting to solar power. All I know is something has to be done. This presentation made me realize that my thinking was wrong when it comes to global warming and climate changes. These problems are not problems of the distant future; they are problems that are affecting us now, and they are a globally encompassing human problem. This problem could be researched with an anthropological perspective to learn more about the significance of the