Global Warming: a Problem as Environmentalists and Lobbyists - Research Paper Example

The predicate for “An Inconvenient Truth” is the bring to the forefront the issue of global warming, which, although a tired subject through the inability to resolve the issue, shows a favorable alliance with the environmentalists and Hollywood. Although global warming is indeed a problem, some writers, such as Jason Lee Steorts, questions the validity of the claims and their enormity with respect to the environment in general.The issue is questionable to whether it is as large a problem as environmentalists and lobbyists lay claim they are.

The public has been made fully aware of the problem of global warming, but at the heart of this problem is the type and manner of information that is being received. It is extremely hard to look to an unbiased forum to understand what global warming exactly as, but, in general, global warming is described as:Carbon dioxide and other air pollution that is collecting in the atmosphere like a thickening blanket, trapping the sun's heat and causing the planet to warm up. Coal-burning power plants are the largest U.S. source of carbon dioxide pollution -- they produce 2.

5 billion tons every year. Automobiles, the second largest source, create nearly 1.5 billion tons of CO2 annually.Here's the good news: technologies exist today to make cars that run cleaner and burn less gas, modernize power plants and generate electricity from nonpolluting sources, and cut our electricity use through energy efficiency. The challenge is to be sure these solutions are put to use (NRDC, 2006)As Krugman (2006) writes that in “his new movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, Al Gore suggests that there are three reasons it’s hard to get action on global warming.

The first is boiled-frog syndrome: because the effects of greenhouse gases build up gradually, at any given moment it’s easier to do nothing. The second is the perception, nurtured by a careful disinformation campaign, that there’s still a lot of uncertainty about whether man-made global warming is a serious problem. The third is the belief, again fostered by disinformation, that trying to curb global warming would have devastating economic effects” (Krugman, 2006). All this is extremely and poignantly truthful as there is plenty of misguidance of the average person who does not hold a scientific degree or is privy to glacieral studies in such that many people do not understand the mechanics of ice caps, ice sheets, melting rates of icebergs that travel down the waterways.

It would be apparent that this issue is extremely sensitive in both helping people understand what global warming means but sometimes there is a need to over-glamorize a subject and put a level of urgency, for perhaps the wrong reasons the environmental lobbyists are going about it in using scare tactics, but perhaps to have people really research this on their own and draw their own conclusions. This is the method that is preferred by this writer: to make an informed decision by viewing evidence from all sides of the controversy.

Works CitedAn Inconvenient Truth. [Film]. 01 Jun 2006Krugman, P. (2006). “A Test of Our Character”. [Article] 26 May 2006. New York Times.NRDC (National Resource Defense Council). (2006). “Global Warming Basics”. Accessed 12 Jun 2006 from