Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is this year's consciousness-raising film, an Oscar-nominated documentary that features Gore's tireless efforts to get his environmentalist message out to audiences around the world. But the film is arguably also this year's most prominent instance of cinematic disinformation--perhaps the most inconvenient truth about An Inconvenient Truth is that it does not come anywhere near providing the full truth about either the environment or environmental activism.
Canada's National Post notes as much in a remarkable review of Phelim McAleer and Ann McIlhenny's Mine Your Own Business, which tells a documentary tale about environmental extremism that raises serious questions about the intellectual honesty of the sort of message Gore and other environmental activists are promoting. "Mr. McAleer exposes what grassroots activism is often all about: well-funded multinational environmental groups such as Greenpeace descending on impoverished villages and depriving them of jobs and a future," Peter Foster, the reviewer, notes. "Mr. McAleer discovered that many, if not most, NGO claims were greatly exaggerated or entirely false."
Foster admits that he had not known about the film until last week, when he heard a devastating CBC segment about it. The segment--which can be listened to here--featured interviews with McAleer (who says he has received two death threats since beginning to promote the film) and Vienna-based Greenpeace officer Herwig Schuster, who spouted a telling concoction of factual misinformation and economic condescension:
He suggested that Gabriel's project was only for 10 years and was thus "not sustainable." In fact, the project is for 17 years. Mr. Schuster suggested that the area would be left with a cyanide-impregnated catastrophe, but Gabriel has provided the most comprehensive assurances that it will leave the site better than when it arrived. Asked to respond to Mr. McAleer's claim that organizations such as Greenpeace are fundamentally anti-development, Mr. Schuster claimed that poor people didn't need air conditioning and "big cars." The Current's guest host, Rick MacInnes-Rae, asked him if it was not up to them what they did with their money. Mr. Schuster self-imploded in a barrage of blather about non-existent local tourism and skiing projects that would be harmed by all that cyanide in the area.
Foster notes that the CBC segment marks an important reversal of its previous position on environmentalism, which reflected the sort of knee-jerk acceptance of environmentalists' talking points that is common in the mainstream media: "What was particularly refreshing about the segment was that it was in marked contrast to a piece on Rosia Montana that aired on The Current three years ago, and which largely swallowed the environmentalists' party line about destroying communities and forcing people out of their homes."
An Inconvenient Truth has received enormous accolades for its own promotion of that party line--and may win the biggest prize the entertainment industry can offer. But viewers should remember that Gore's film is just that--a slickly produced policy piece that presents a one-sided and highly suspect view as the only way for right-minded people to think. Mine Your Own Busines, by contrast, reveals environmentalist propaganda for what it is--and as such offers a truly inconvenient truth.