By Jessica Reed
We in the UK are eagerly awaiting for the release of 'An Inconvenient truth', the documentary about climate change starring Al Gore. While the movie was a tremendous success at the Sundance & Cannes festivals, it also gave the "Ex-next president of the United States" a brand new PR image to polish: Gore turned into a born-again activist geniuely worried about the big climate issue, turning his back to ambition-driven politics and electoral competitions.
An overwhelming majority of critics agree: the movie is an admirable, spine-chilling piece of work which emphasises the character of urgency of our climate crisis. While some call it the most important movie of the year - a "terrifingly crucial" and "illuminating and distressing" movie, others like the New Yorker speculate on how " interesting [it will be] to watch how skeptics will deal with Gore’s bad news on the environment without making themselves look very small". On all accounts 'An Inconvenient Truth' is an internationally acclaimed success, even if commentators such as Camilla Toulmin -writing for openDemocracy- showed some reservations.
But Gore's crusade doesn't stop here... Last week while attending the Edinburgh he critised 'hypnotic television', which he thinks is currently lowering the level of public debating amongst American citizens. His hopes are now focused on top-down generated content made available on the Internet, a new medium focused on media-democratisation, which he thinks could enable individuals to "rejoin the debate". I am sure hordes of geeks really appreciated the sentiment, but smiled at how 'web 1.0' those revelations sound.
Elsewhere: Al Gore may have not have truly invented 'the Internet', but he largely contributed to the birth of the 'information superhighway' + China Dialogue, a website devoted to new environmental challenges.
