On 22nd November 2016, 200 students of classes VIII and IX viewed the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore in which he makes an attempt to alert people at large of the looming planetary crisis as a result of global warming.
Gore discusses the scientific view on global warming, as well as the present and future effects of it. He stresses that global warming is really not a political issue, so much as a moral one. He describes the disastrous consequences of such warming, if the amount of human-generated greenhouse gases are not significantly reduced in the very near future. Gore also presents Antarctic ice coring data showing CO2 levels higher now than in the past 650,000 years.
The film includes segments intended to refute critics who say that global warming is unproven or that warming is insignificant. For example, Gore discusses the possibility of the collapse of a major ice sheet in Greenland or in West Antarctica, either of which could raise global sea levels by approximately 20 feet, flooding coastal areas and producing 100 million refugees. Melting water from Greenland, because of its lower salinity, could then halt the currents that keep northern Europe warm and quickly trigger dramatic local cooling there. The documentary also contains various short animated projections of what could happen to different animal species which are more vulnerable to global warming.
[gallery link="file"]The documentary ends with Gore arguing that if appropriate actions are taken soon, the effects of such warming can be successfully reversed by releasing less CO2 and planting more vegetation to consume the existing CO2.
Gore concludes the film by saying: " Each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive; we can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands, we just need to have the determination to make them happen. We have everything that we need to reduce carbon emissions, everything but political will. But in America, the will to act is a renewable resource."
At the end of the session, a discussion was conducted among the students, on what they felt after seeing the film. Students seemed affected by the predicament and took a pledge to adopt make a more conscious effort in their everyday lives to save our planet.
Ms. Namrata Jit Kaur.
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