Rhetorical Analysis Of Inconvenient Truth

Rhetorical Strategy

The main rhetorical strategy that Inconvenient truth uses is logos. The definition of logos is logic and reason backed up by evidence such as statistics and data. Al Gore does a good job of using logos in such a way that people can really understand the evidence that is being presented to them. He provide many statistics, data, and other types of evidence to make the audience understand the dangers of climate change. Usually if people are given plain facts they lose interest fast, but what Al gore does use humor, easily understandable graphs, and montages to keep the audience engaged. An example of Al Gore using evidence to back up what he is explaining is when he is presenting the keeling curve graph. Keeling curve is a

graph that keeps a record of how much CO2 is in the air going far back as 800,000 years. With this graph you get to see how the CO2 levels never go higher than 300 ppm, except the last 3 to 4 decades where a steep increase occurred and CO2 levels are higher than 400 ppm today. What he than compares to that graph is a record of the temperature, and you can clearly see the correlation between the two graph. When there is more CO2 in the air, the temperature spikes upward and vice versa. He gave us examples where in the graph there was times when there would be a small decrease of CO2, which he then correlated these small changes in CO2 to the ice ages. Once he showed us this graph he got on a cool contraption that lifted him up 5 meters and pointed at today's CO2 levels. Then the contraption lifted him higher until he got to a point that he said to be the CO2 levels in fifty years. Al Gore uses logos to appeal to people who use sound logic to make their decisions. He presents scientific data and graphs to appeal to these types of people while at the same time making it easy for everyone else to understand and also keep them interested.

Ethos is very important to inconvenient truth.. Al Gore who the whole documentary is about, was the vice president of america and had also won the popular vote against George W. Bush. Having won the popular vote in an election, and being a former vice president gives him the credibility to satisfy the type of ethos that deals with someone’s career and background. During his years as a vice president, he launched a number of initiatives that he thought would be effective against global warming. One of those innitive where the kyoto protocol which is an international treaty that was supposed to lower greenhouse gas emissions. This is important because it shows how dedicated he is to this cause. Once he became the vice president he did not slack off, but stayed true to his ideals and kept going with his work to raise awareness about climate change. In the Documentary it says that he felt strongly about global warming ever since his professor in college showed him the keeling curve. From then on he researched and learned from other experts in the field until one day he knew enough to give talks on it. This shows his dedication to combating climate change which is ethically sound, because his work shows him that New York, paris, London, and many others cities will be under water in about fifty years. This will cause an increase in refugees and millions of people will lose their home. In the movie he refers to this as being “not a political issue but so much as a moral issue”. This shows how he see the affects of climate change to be morally wrong, because if it were allowed to happen climate change will affect this planet and everyone on it, even though everyone is not contributing to it. His works thus covers the type of ethos that deals with his opinion being ethically sound, because he sees a problem that could really get out of hand, and he is trying to raise awareness about it.

Pathos is used cleverly throughout the documentary.

Pathos tries to evoke emotions from the viewer by using personal stories and vivid descriptions. Al Gore uses many personal stories and connects them to global warming. When he is talking about his sister’s death he explains how she started smoking very young and died from lung cancer. His family were tobacco farmers, but when his sister died his dad stopped farming tobacco because that was what killed her. It took somebody close to them dying to just realize what they are doing is bad for humans and take action. He compared this to global warming by explaining that all the CO2 in the air is like farming tobacco. Somebody dying is then going to be compared to some disaster that will be a catastrophic event for all humans, but will jolt them back to reality and show them that their actions are unsustainable. Scenes like this cause an emotion in the viewer because it is easy for them to understand the link that links the sister death to global warming and so it plays on the audience emotion to see his side of the problem. Pathos is also used throughout the documentary through the use of visual elements. There are many picture and videos of extreme weather, droughts, and tar sands. Pathos is also conveyed through audio element. His voice has this characteristic that can communicates sadness when he wants to really well, and he uses it when he is talking about the effects of climate change. His use of visual and audio elements

successfully is why this documentary is popular. An example of these two elements being used together is when he is talking about war. When war was first fought weapons consisted of swords and spear. Than we got our hands on guns and rifles, and he explained that it is hard for humans to change their behavior, and so war still occurred even though the weapons were more powerful. When we got our hands on the atomic bomb, we were forced to change our behavior for fear of annihilation. He then compared this analogy to machines that we have today that is used for the production of energy. He stated that back in the old days we used shovels to get to oil. Now we use huge mining shovels that are over 220 meters long. When he was explaining all this, his slide show consisted of pictures that linked to what he is saying and also added to the overall message. For example, when he is talking about the nuclear bomb, he shows a nuclear bomb going off, and you get to see the kind of damage that it does. The pictures adds to what he saying by invoking an emotional response from the viewer that persuades them over to his way of thinking.

Filming techniques

In Inconvenient truth, montage is the most used film making technique.

Montage was combined with pathos to create really sad images that was designed to shock or induce fear into the viewer. This made it easy to persuade the audience because now they are in a more emotional state. The montages were of pictures and videos of different disasters are designed to shock and induce fear in the viewer so that they can hopefully be impacted enough to take action. Different pictures of extreme weather affecting people, flooding houses, and so on were shown to capture the audience's sympathy. Pictures of hurricane Katrina and the damage it caused and people recovering from it was one example of a disaster based video. He also had animated look alike of major cities like New York and Paris that were flooding. These kind of images makes one realize how dangerous climate change is and will therefore make harder for them to ignore or not take action. Another type of montage used in inconvenient truth audio elements. In the documentary, voices of different people are heard so as to give perspective from different types of view. One of those voices was Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans who is outrage that hurricane Katrina could have never happened. It is now know that due to global warming storms and hurricanes will be larger and faster because the oceans are warming up. When wind currents go over warm water, the pick up heat which make the storms grow bigger and faster. Now that it is

easier for storms to grow bigger more of them will become hurricanes, and that is why Mayor Nagin was mad, because it could have been avoided. Clips like these add to the audiences over all understanding and really helps the see different stand points on this issue.

Emotional appeal was a frequent persuasive device in inconvenient truth. Emotional appeal is designed to sway the audience’s stance on an issue by getting through to them not logically but through emotion. This is usually involves personal stories or sad images to try and get an emotional response, but that is not the only way to persuade someone by using emotional appeal. Reaction shots and parallel editing were utilized ingeniously in inconvenient truth to get an emotional response. Reaction shots are shots of a person face as they are about to show emotion. It is applied to inconvenient truth by showing the audience the reaction of a person going through a disaster caused by global warming. Reaction shots are a great way to coax an emotion out of the viewer because you get to see the person expression clearly. Reaction shots work well because you can relate with the character in the film, if for some reason you were in that same situation you would most likely respond in that same way. It basically plays on the viewer empathy and works if you want to persuade someone through emotional appeal. Parallel editing was the other filmmaking technique used often in inconvenient truth. Parallel editing is used to compare two things. Inconvenient truth made use of it by have before and after photos. Al Gore showed pictures of Glacier Nation Park back in 1932 when it was filled with snow, then in 1988 snow when another photo was taken, and snow was a rare sight. He did this for many other locations including Mount Kilimanjaro and the effect on the audience was the same, shock. Parallel editing put into perspective the kind of damage that climate change has had on our environment that happens over a long period of time. It caught the audience off guard and induces feeling of sadness because it reveals to the audience the extent of the problem. Once the viewer has responded with emotion it is an easy step to persuade them over to your way of thinking. Emotion appeal is a powerful tool to persuade people, and inconvenient truth uses it very well, through parallel editing and reaction shot to make a compelling documentary.

The other side to the issue
As it is for every issue there are people on either side of the argument and global warming is no different. Most skeptics of climate change argue that either climate change is not real or that it is too late to do anything about it. Climate change is real and it is a fact known by all, but as inconvenient truth explained a small group opposed because they stand to lose, if we were to change our habits. Al Gore gave us some numbers in inconvenient truth, it was was a poll about how many scientist believe that global warming is real, and they asked over a 1000 scientist. Out of the 1000, zero said that climate change was not real, and it makes sense we have large amount of data such as temperature reports, CO2 analyzers, rising sea levels , and among other things that all point a global warming to be real. This small group of deniers are people who work for big companies that benefit from selling the product that contribute to global warming. In the movie Al gore gave an example of the guy who worked at the bush administration, and was head of environmental policies. He would edit out all the reports that scientist would write so that they would sound unsure of whether or not global warming was real. When the scandal came to light and was fired, he got a job the next day at ExxonMobil an oil company. It is people like this that you see on media all time, arguing that global warming is not real, when all the science point the other, but media reaches far, and that is how doubt is formed about this subject. The other arguments that the skeptics used was that it was too late to change course, but this is also false. Inconvenient truth has showed that we could reverse the amount of CO2 in the air if we use electricity and devices effecntly, use elctric cars, transport effiencey renewables.