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

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

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