Please Note: This film screening will take place at the Weston Public Library, at 87 School St.

ACCELERATING CLIMATE RESILIENCE

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH 2006, 97 minutes

Long before Al Gore was vice-president, he was initiating efforts to bring the issue of global warming to the public’s attention. In 1976, when he was a 28-year-old representative, he held the first Congressional hearings about climate change. In 1989, he began the first of his presentations detailing the threat to mankind, publishing the book Earth in the Balance in 1992. While he was vice-president, he helped broker the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gas emissions––an agreement that was rejected by the US Senate 95-0. In the 2000 election, Gore won the popular vote but not the Presidency, and that loss crystalized his efforts to warn of the dire consequences of global warming, touring the world with what Gore himself would call his ‘slide show.’

In 2004, producer Laurie David saw Gore’s presentation as part of a global town-hall meeting and brought in fellow producer Lawrence Bender and director Daniel Guggenheim with the idea of adapting the ‘slide show’ into a feature-length documentary. Gore was initially hesitant about a film version, but he found the director just as determined not to stray from the scientific consensus while creating a compelling narrative for a wide audience. Given the levels of contention and politicization of the subject, this was a major concern, as any mishandling of the data would undermine Gore’s essential message. The released film was fact-checked by numerous sources ranging from the Associated Press to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment to even the Skeptic’s Society, all of whom laud the film’s integrity.

BE ADVISED--This film is Rated PG, with dire statistics and stark images warning of runaway global warming.