video review: An Inconvenient Truth

An inconvenient truth talks about the effects of climate change and CO2 emissions effects on our environment. In this movie, Al Gore, is trying to spread the word on what human technology and industrialisation has done to our water supply, deforestation, soil erosion and extinction of wildlife. He also talks about the domino effect the melting glaciers have on the wildlife and the weather. There are steps we can take to reduce our carbon footprint and bring the emissions down to below what they were in the 70’s.

There are many sceptics out there who don’t believe that global warming is a problem and that looking back on the history of the earth glaciers have melted and reformed again. Have they not realised that since the beginning of industrialisation our output of co2 and other gases has increased speeding up the process that is meant to happen naturally. And with all that we are taking from the earth, what we are mining, the oil being pumped from the ground, the lakes we’ve drained for our agriculture, the forests we’ve cleared for urbanisation, we are not replenishing, which will in turn diminish if we don’t act soon enough.

Global warming is not only about the earth getting warmer. It is about how every living creature on this earth is being affected. For example, when the oceans get warmer the storms become stronger and more frequent, not only that but there are storms that are forming in areas that never have experienced hurricanes before like off the coast of Brazil. The coral reefs are dying which are homes to many marine and plant life. In the movie, Al talks about the migration of pine beetles and in the winter they are killed off but with winter getting warmer they are eating away at the trees and the pine forests are dying, which also means there are even less trees to filter the co2 gases. Not only that, but if the waters rise many coastal cities will become submerged and millions, maybe billions of people will be displaced.

There are steps we can take to reduce our carbon footprint. Al Gore showed a graph of the predicted gas emissions in the next 50 years if we keep going the way we are. The figures grew exponentially from present day to 50 years in the future. He outlined that if we all, as a global community used energy efficient appliances, reduced the amount of fossil fuels we use currently and use renewable energy we can reduce the predicted figured by a few percent each time. If we not only use less but we replenish our resources we will reduce it even more.  

As industrial designer students, I believe we should all watch this and learn about how each action has a consequence, whether it be good or bad. As designers, we can look to change the world with how we design by using sustainable materials, thinking about the end of the products life and how it will can be disposed or reused. We can look to changing the ways we do things to be more sustainable. Or by designing homes or appliances that will help people be kinder to the environment, or by making it easier for people to do the right thing.