Convenient spin

Climate | Al Gore’s film may win an Oscar, but it won't gain many converts | Mark Bergin

To his credit, Al Gore sheds the wooden persona of the 2000 presidential campaign in his newly released documentary An Inconvenient Truth. In making the case for immediate action to stop global warming, the former vice president is articulate, concise, and even winsome, at times.

But Mr. Gore's radical political agenda and tendency for half-truth have undergone no such makeover.

In what amounts to a filmed slideshow, interspersed with indulgent autobiographical footage and voiceovers, Mr. Gore employs stage tricks, straw men, and well-rehearsed rhetoric to contend that opposition views on climate change are rooted in callous profiteering. The dissents of such distinguished climatologists as hurricane expert Bill Gray of Colorado State University and former NASA scientist Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama in Huntsville are provided no air time.