Global Warming and the acknowledgement of Earth’s climate and physical changes, such as massively destructive hurricanes leading to economical consequences, has been known to man for since the 1950’s. Roger Revelle, an American oceanographer, was one of the very first men to take action and preach about the Greenhouse Effect.
In 1957, he and a man named Hans Suess wrote an article that was published in Tellus, a European oceanography journal. Later in 1982, Revelle published another article that went public in the popular magazine Scientific American. Although this article was read by thousands through this widely read magazine, there were no major reactions by the public declaring for environmental change. If hundreds of thousands of people had known about the problems that were occurring right before their eyes due to an over abundance of carbon dioxide in the air, then why is there now an abrupt worry among the not only the nation, but the world?Al Gore who was Vice President of the United States under Bill Clinton for eight years, 1993 to 2001, knew about Global Warming and had studied about then in school as well. While attending school at Boston’s Harvard University at age seventeen, Al Gore met Roger Revelle, further engaging himself in ecology. Al Gore then continued to climb himself to the top and ran for Congress in 1976. With 96% of the votes running unopposed, he was set in the House of Representatives. Although he passed scientific and technical laws, and also convinced Congress to spend 1.6 billion dollars to rid of toxic waste within give years, he still was not able to gain as many votes towards solving major environmental issues. However, in 1985 Gore managed to get 60% of the Tennessee votes towards him becoming a member of the Senate, more than any candidate has received in the state’s history. With his popular position as Senate, he created movies and lectured to large groups of people but unfortunately he wasn't listened to as much as he should have in order for change to occur among environmental issues. Gore continued on this steady path until he ran for President in the year 2000.
In 2000, Al Gore began his campaign for President while being the Vice President. Although Gore lost to his opponent George W. Bush, he continued on with his environmental studies to create his global warming movie An Inconvenient Truth. This movie was released to the United States in 2006 at the Sundance Film Festival, finally creating the awareness needed in order to create an influential movement throughout the world. This film not only won an Oscar in 2007, but also opened up the eyes to a billion people around the world. Since the release of the movie, five countries have included An Inconvenient Truth in its secondary school curriculum, the United State’s House of Representatives and Senate created a Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, and over four million people have heard the Climate Project Presentation of Global Warming.
Before An Inconvenient Truth was released to the public, there was not a strong or thorough explanation to those not educated on the science behind Global Warming. Because of Al Gore’s popularity at the time due to his presidential campaign and decades involved with politics, he was able to shock the world with his power and confidence. Although it is upsetting that the world has waited this long to educate the world about its destructive crisis, hundreds of benefits have resulted because of the inconvenient truth.
