AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER

Eleven years ago Al Gore starred in the Oscar winning film "An Inconvenient Truth" which took home the Best Documentary and Best Original Song Oscars. That helped him win a Nobel Peace Prize the following year for his warnings about global warming. This wasn't a bad consolation prize after being shooed out of politics in 2001.

A lot of things have happened in the weather since then including the 2008 outbreak of hundreds of tornadoes in the Midwest, the 2009 drought in the Southwest & Great Plains, the 2011 Ohio Valley flooding that nearly wiped out Memphis, 2012's Storm Sand which devastated New York and the east coast, the 2012 drought in the western sates which cost $32 billion in crops, and 2016's Louisiana flooding... just in the United States.

Gore returns in directors Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk follow-up doc which roughly details some of those climate related catastrophes as well as gave Gore the chance to see some of the rest of the world he didn't get to while vice president.

The film goes first to the melting polar ice cap with some spectacular footage of the ice literally exploding as it melts. It then moves to some of the areas that have seen increased tidal flooding like Miami Beach which has seen a 400 percent increase since 2006. They are currently fight the losing battle by raising the streets.

The film jumps to the super typhoon Haiyan that devastated the Philippines in 2013 killing over six thousand people before it starts focusing on Gore's training classes so other people can push his program. This is where viewers might take exception to the mostly self-serving push to join his cause.

A great deal of time is spent with Gore discussing renewable energy alternatives such as solar power. Indeed, though he only briefly mentions wind power, Gore delivers an almost sales pitch spiel on the benefits as well as pointing out cities and countries that are increasing their usage. (There is a moment when I thought Gore would claim he invented solar energy!)

The next destination for Gore are the Paris meetings in 2016 which he attended amidst the terrorist attack on the city. As the conference finally began Gore is positioned as the man who saves the conference by getting India to join the cause by using solar power from Trini Solar. This is only moments before the film reveals Donald Trumps decision to pull out of the Paris Accord.

Much like the original, the film defines the bad guys and hails Gore as the white knight to take on the planet killers. It doesn't include nearly the same amount of science as the original.

"An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power" is a satisfactory documentary that continues a warning message of the need to correct global warming. It doesn't have the effective punch of the original, but is mostly interesting.   -- GEOFF BURTON

GEOFF BURTON

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