'An Inconvenient Sequel' review: Gore's global warning

When did pollution become political?

Richard M. Nixon began the EPA, and signed the Clean Air Act. Running for president a decade ago, John McCain declared "I believe climate change is real. I think it's devastating. I think we have to act."

Hardly two bleeding-heart liberals.

Yet there's a hard core of conservative activists who see even small nods to environmentalism as heretical. Fossil fuels are good, they insist, or at least vital. Anything that might slow our economy is evil. Period.

Battle lines have been drawn.

And Al Gore stands where he always has, at the barricades.

The first documentary about his climate-change activism, "An Inconvenient Truth," was an unexpected hit in 2006. Now, a decade later, he's back with "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power." And it's a good news/bad news kind of update.

The good news is, the number of people committed to confronting our environmental crises has grown quickly.

The bad news is, the scope of those crises is growing too - perhaps even more quickly.

And it's a race, Gore insists, the planet can't afford to lose.

He's been leading the charge for more than 30 years, and not without opposition. This new movie begins with soundbites from conservative critics of the last film, calling it "nonsense" and "absurd," mocking Gore for suggesting even the 9/11 memorial might one day be under water (which actually came true, briefly, during Hurricane Sandy).

But soon we're back with Gore on a new lecture stage, with his slides and his graphs and his startling examples of a hurting world - droughts in Africa and the Middle East, floods in Florida and Asia, rising temperatures that have destroyed mammoth icebergs and spread tropical diseases. Class is back in session.

Gore has always had a reputation for being stiff and humorless and even a little arrogant, but directors Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk get past some of that by nosily following him everywhere, in what some documentarians call "direct cinema" (and now, too many Americans would identify with "reality TV").

There are no talking-head interviews. There are, though, a lot of unguarded moments and unrehearsed drama - as when, on the eve of the much-awaited Paris agreements, Gore personally leaps in to try and broker a deal that would win over India.

Their government had a good point, too. The West had nearly two centuries of cheap dirty energy to build their nations' economy and infrastructure; now, when it's the developing nations' turn, you tell us to use solar panels? "I'll do (it) after 150 years," India's energy minister declares. "After I've got my people jobs."

It makes for a good debate, and you wish the film devoted even more time to it.

Because, as even Gore admits, you need to be able to explain the issue not just in environmental terms, but in personal ones. At one point he travels to tiny Georgetown, Texas where the staunch Republican mayor has committed his city to using nothing but wind and solar energy. Why? Well, because it's cheaper, the politician admits.

Besides, "the less stuff you put in the air, the better it is," the man asserts. "Common sense. You don't need scientists to debate it."

No, you don't, and this film doesn't waste time pretending to. But then, this isn't a documentary so much as an advocacy film - a movie which exists clearly to push a particular point of view, and dearly hopes to convert audiences into activists.

Those aren't, generally, my favorite kinds of non-fiction films. But despite what the fossil-fuel funded ad campaigns will tell you, there really isn't any wide-spread disagreement over climate change, or any doubt that human activity plays a part. The only real debate should be, What do we do first? At what cost and how quickly?

It's an argument I hope the next movie moves onto.

Ratings note: The film contains some disturbing newsreel footage.

Stephen Whitty may be reached at stephenjwhitty@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @stephenwhitty. Find him on Facebook.