MARTINZ, SHERNIE P.

BSIT 1-A
NSTP

What Have I learned after watching the “The Inconvenient Truth” and its second part “An Inconvenient
Sequel: Truth To Power”

Our world has been suffering for years and it keeps on experiencing the same thing up to this
very moment. It is obvious that mankind has forgotten to take care of our nature. Thousands of
campaigns were established in order for us to realize what we are doing to our Mother Earth.
Advocacies were raised but never completed. How are we suppose to live a happy and healthy life if our
primary means of living is facing total adversity?
Former Vice President Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (also known as Al Gore)held a discussion in front of
an audience entitled, “An Inconvenient Truth” but in a form of a film. This movie tackles about how
humans messed up the planet and won the Oscar’s Best Documentary Feature in 2007. The main topic
of the movie is about global warming which leads to the disturbing changes to the environment. In this
movie, it has been highlighted that most of the ice caps and glaciers not only in Greenland but as well as
in West Antarctica are alarmingly melting. Since then, sea level has risen significantly and left isolated
nations with no choice but to evacuate. The most criticized scene of this movie is that if global warming
will continue, the combination of sea level rise and storm surge would put the ocean water into the 9/11
Memorial Site in New York City which was under construction at that time. People said that it was
ridiculous and a terrible exaggeration. But with the arrival of Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, the
world was shocked and came up with a realization that climate change is real after the said location was
filled with atleast 7 feet of water.
The sequel entitled, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” calls for help and persuade
world leaders to instead invest on renewable energy. Chile was commended in focusing in solar projects
which produced more than 13.3 GW of solar power, including those that were under construction. In
between this plea, former US President Donald Trump took steps to abolish the EPA (Environmental
Protection Agency) which left hundreds of citizens unemployed. It is factual that without the EPA, it will
be harder to stop the vast air pollution that crosses state borders. Pollution will be totally out of control
not only in the US, but in the neighboring nations which will influence the rest of the countries in the
globe. A major eye-opener scene of this movie is about the rage of super typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)
here in the Philippines in 2013. There were 4.1 million climate refugees and thousands of lives were
killed. Haiyan was known to be one of the strongest cyclones in terms of wind speed at landfall
recorded in history.
Former Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Keshav Javadekar
gave his heartfelt gratitude to Al Gore for his contributions in making people realize what’s in it
for them if we give less care to the world. The Paris Agreement in December 2015 would never
happen without Former President Barack Obama, along with the other leaders at that time, as
mentioned by Al Gore. This agreement covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and
finance. Its long-term temperature goal is to keep the rise in mean global temperature to well
below 2 °C (3.6 °F) above pre-industrial levels, and preferably limit the increase to 1.5 °C
(2.7 °F), recognizing that this would substantially reduce the impacts of climate change.
Emissions should be reduced as soon as possible and reach net-zero by the middle of the 21st
century. In addition, it aims to increase the ability of parties to adapt to climate change impacts,
and mobilize sufficient finance. Under the Agreement, each country must determine, plan,
and regularly report on its contributions. No mechanism forces a country to set
specific emissions targets, but each target should go beyond previous targets. In contrast to the
1997 Kyoto Protocol, the distinction between developed and developing countries is blurred, so
that the latter also have to submit plans for emission reductions.
These two movies have one goal in common: it is to make the world a better place. We
can be heroes in our own ways by simply saving mother nature. The disasters that we are
experiencing are all because of own wrongdoings and it’s not yet too late to wake up. Let’s
keep in mind and apply t our everyday lives what Al Gore said as he closes the first film: “Each
one of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices to change that with
the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive; we can make choices to bring our
individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands, we just have to have the
determination to make it happen. We have everything that we need to reduce carbon
emissions, everything but political will. But in America, the will to act is a renewable resource”.