An Inconvenient Truth vs. the Great Global Warming Swindle Essay

Is our planet headed for irreversible disaster? Every reputable scientist in the world believes it is. Left unchecked, global warming’s negative effects on our natural environment could have catastrophic consequences not only for our planet and wildlife but for mankind as well. What is Global Warming you might question? Well, Global warming is caused when a greenhouse gas known as CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere from by burning fossil fuels and is then trapped causing the global temperature to rise more than normal. Many might be thinking that this is a good thing because then it would be longer summers but it is actually quite frightening. Having our population past 7 billion people today has quite the impact on our planet. Burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal gives us electricity to power our factories and run our vehicles but it does emit tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Even breathing gives off CO2. There is however a natural cause of this as well. The decaying leaves in autumn or forest fires also give off CO2 just as all living things do when they die. The natural levels of CO2 in our atmosphere in the past 600,000 years have been at a non-harmful level, proven by the ice cores collected from the great ice sheets. The argument that was less convincing was the Inconvenient Truth. Although it does have truths into it about how humans are emitting tons of CO2 into the air but Al Gore’s argument ignores some information. The information that is ignored is the natural causes of carbon dioxide emissions as well as the natural fluctuations in temperature that the planet normally has. Even though the burning of fossil fuels has had a small impact on this situation, there still is scientific evidence that humans are not the only cause of Global Warming. There is also the case that Al Gore forgot to mention and that is the fact that the Earth’s climate is not driven by carbon dioxide, man-made or natural. Having CO2 not be the cause of Global Warming, the cause would have to be solar activity, which regulates cloud formation, and  includes solar winds and sun spots. The most concerning part of The Inconvenient Truth is that it uses Al Gore, a recent U.S president as their spokesperson rather than an actual scientist. The reason I believe that Al Gore is used is because he was a country’s leader for a few years so more people would be inclined to believe him rather than the people who were interviewed in The Great Global Warming Swindle. I have found The Great Global Warming Swindle to be more believable because the producers of the film have more resources and data as opposed to The Inconvenient Truth that has just charts. The Great Global Warming Swindle has actual scientists and science professors with information but although they had no data, they seem to be more believable. If Al Gore had actual people come and speak for him that are experts in the field of climatology or otherwise, I would have found his documentary to be more believable. Even though I believe that CO2 is not the cause of Global Warming, it should still be taken into consideration as to how much we put into the atmosphere because it is