Al Gore’s Inconvenient Sequel

Activist Heather Heyer said, “If you you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” Incredibly, it took her murder in a public space in broad daylight to make people pay attention to organized American white nationalists. Even then, her death wasn’t sufficient to galvanize substantive action on domestic terror. The president’s refusal to condemn her killers became the focus of the news cycle, thus shifting the public’s outrage away from a dire national threat, and proving once again that motivated people are easily immobilized without the guidance of a good, well-informed leader.

The Inconvenient Sequel to An Inconvenient Truth doesn’t mention the alt-right or white supremacy, but two centuries of white Western economic dominance over the world has certainly left its mark. While “the West” includes a diverse mix of races, it is white men who led the charge of industrialization and technological advancement with devastating environmental consequences. The deeply upsetting conversation about the environmental crisis often glosses over the fact that older wealthy white men would have to give up substantial economic gains in order to lead a course-correction for the entire planet. Instead, the powerful few are pitted against millions who will be adversely affected by climate change for generations to come and they are using their limitless resources to disinform the world and downplay the dangers.

The images of melting glaciers and floods throughout An Inconvenient Sequel are disturbing, but to an informed viewer the most panic-inducing sections of the movie should be the round table negotiations between world leaders. The magnitude of political star power that shows up for working-level environmental policy meetings is alarming. While the agreement reached at the 2016 UN Climate Change Conference is presented in the film as a triumph, it should strike fear into the hearts of every global citizen. The unprecedented cooperation which occurred to make that agreement happen is damning evidence that we’re facing an imminent existential threat.

Al Gore is no longer a controversial figure. His presence is almost Christ-like now. He’s a mouthpiece for the planet, a voice for millions of people who have no political power in the face of this unfolding man-made catastrophe. Gore doesn’t do much explaining in this film. We simply follow him around the world and watch how he responds to questions about what’s happening. He looks fatigued and worried. He speaks in short bursts of truth. No one has a justification for ignoring reality that he can’t refute in a few words. When Christiana Figueres, Secretariat of the UNFCCC, entreats him to bring India — the 1.3 billion people of India — on board with the Paris Accords, Gore makes a phone call to the CEO of SolarCity and an economic carrot materializes. The urgency of our situation is evident in the staggeringly short distance between nightmare and hope, that distance being the reach of one man, Gore.

Figueres closes the Paris climate conference with an announcement that 194 countries signed the Paris Agreement. The jubilation onscreen is heartbreaking in light of what we now know will follow — an alt-right sympathizer will take power in the White House. He will refuse to acknowledge the global cooperation and sacrifice needed to save the planet. He will withdraw America from the Paris Agreement and derail our best hope of reversing climate change, thus exhibiting the hallmark decision-making of denialism and white American exceptionalism.

Gore says American democracy has been “hacked” by corporations. He’s adamant that the government is not acting in the best interests of the people. Given his personal and very public journey to bring climate change to light, there’s no reason to doubt him. He asks viewers to “connect the dots” but in truth he has connected them for us. All we need to do is watch the film and let that truth wash over us.

An Inconvenient Sequel is in theaters now.