The Al Gore movie is a smart piece of work. In the film industry climate change only once got so much attention, at the occasion of the box office hit ‘The Day After Tomorrow’. This movie only got an Oscar nomination for visual effects, while ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ received two Oscars, for best feature documentary and best title song (of Melissa Etheridge). Enters climate change in the world of glamour!

The consequences of all this could already be noticed in the months after the movie went into the theatres. The impact of Al Gore’s message about climate change was huge. Gore’s art work was discussed and praised at the highest political levels and no one seems to be opposed to the contents any more. Not even President Bush nor his vice president Cheney (although I’m not sure whether the latter one is convinced …).

Speaking tongue in cheek, you might even notice that one Oscar winning documentary may have a greater impact than the assessed work of thousands of scientists all over the world. A picture paints a thousand words; obviously a moving picture paints even more.

Not all of the contents of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ – following Al Gore on his Climate Change Tour – are really scientifically sound. The movie lays it on thick and paints a doomsday scenario. But by sometimes using overstatements, the message becomes transparent. Especially the timing of the documentary is absolutely brilliant. Until recently, too many people still had to be convinced that action is needed. By catching so much attention from the public, even the most influential sceptic politicians had to modify their conclusions – while struggling with their internal convictions.

So now the awareness is at a high level, the time is right for the next stage: which is to decide what are we going to do about climate change? The inconvenient doomsday scenarios of Al Gore have to be followed up by more ‘comfortable futures’, dominated by new, sustainable technologies, innovations and attitudes.

Let’s give Al Gore’s movie a happy ending.