by JULIET WATERS

I worried that reading a book about global warming in the middle of a heat wave might come off as a little masochistic. My brain, however, was too groggy a few weeks ago to process much beyond a book with pretty pictures. Pictures of icebergs, and of the earth comfortably nestled in cool, open outer space. Granted these are melting icebergs on their way to certain extinction, and cool space is even cooler now that the Earth’s atmosphere is trapping most of our crap inside. Turns out, however, I wasn’t alone. As the mercury rose, Al Gore’s book, An Inconvenient Truth, reached #2 on The New York Times bestseller list.

Then it dawned on me that reading the book was a reason to see the movie and experience two hours of air conditioning. Suddenly the truth was looking a lot more convenient. Like similar bestsellers that package heavy subjects in a light, entertaining format—Michael Moore’s rabid but frothy ranting and Jon Stewart’s civics text parody come to mind—An Inconvenient Truth makes the consumer feel effortlessly smarter about subjects that would normally take more brainpower to master. And conserving brainpower, I’m discovering, is really important when the planet is burning.

Gore’s goal with An Inconvenient Truth is to make a “clear and convincing case” that the planet is in a state of emergency. This he does with fairly irrefutable data. Dramatic climate changes in the last 20 years are way out of whack with the history of the climate as we know it. Icebergs and icecaps are melting at an astonishing rate. The snows of Kilimanjaro will be gone by the end of the next decade. 2005 was a disastrous, record-breaking year for storms and heatwaves...

It’s good that he makes a seriously strong case for this. Americans bear the greatest responsibility for the carbon dioxide emissions that are crippling the atmosphere, and if there’s a chance of reversing this trend, Americans are going to have to enact the most dramatic changes in policies, lifestyle and consumption patterns.

It’s also good, because without a strong case, Al Gore’s off-putting self-absorption would be less easy to forgive. Only the most cynical critics or desperate conservatives could argue Gore’s sincerity on this issue. I have a six-year-old, so of course I sympathize with Gore’s teary tale of family tragedy. If you managed to not hear this story back on the presidential campaign trail in 2000, Gore credits his deep family values to the year his school-age son almost died after running into traffic.

In case the heat has really made you too stupid to understand what this has to do with global warming, here’s his implicit message: Gore knows what it feels like to have a little hand slip from his as he helplessly watches tragedy unfold. He doesn’t want to ever feel that way again. He doesn’t want us to ignore him and make dumb and dangerous decisions. We need to put our little hands in his, and this time keep them there.

For those of us who have a low tolerance for the subtle schmarmyness that emanates from Gore no matter his devotion, or the justness of his cause, this is one of those cases where the movie really is better than the book. The documentary at least manages to incorporate enough of Gore’s self-deprecation to balance his only vaguely relevant stories of personal transformation. So his goofy narcissism comes off as charm. The book, however, turns these stories into deeply dull and sentimental sidebars.

These are balanced, at least, with excellent pictures, graphics and important facts. Like the fact that this is the first paperback “produced to offset 100 per cent of the CO2 emissions generated from production activities with renewable energy.” When the weather improves I’ll probably have a better chance at figuring out just what that means exactly. Fortunately it’s about the most complicated thought in this book.

An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore,
Melcher Media, pb, 329pp, $28.95