美国国家公共电台 NPR 'An Inconvenient Sequel' Is An Effective, Cautiously Optimistic, 'I Told You So'

（单词翻译）

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Ten years ago, Al Gore¹'s documentary, "An Inconvenient² Truth," argued forcefully that climate change should be a mainstream³ concern. The world seemed to hear that argument, though the current U.S. administration appears to have some doubts. Now Gore has an update - "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power." Our critic Bob Mondello says the new movie brings filmmaking savvy⁴ and striking visuals to a familiar story.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE⁵: A close-up of ice melting in brilliant sunshine is the first thing you see in "An Inconvenient Sequel." It's gorgeous - snow crystals glistening⁶, moisture dripping from them into a pool of water so pure and clear it makes you thirsty. But in subsequent shots, as the drips become streams and the streams plunge⁷ over ice cliffs, you realize what you're seeing. A glacier⁸ is melting. And that's not so beautiful.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER")

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: So you see the line?

AL GORE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: On the - on the ridge⁹ here?

GORE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: That green line is where the ice surface was back in the '80s. Not so long ago.

MONDELLO: Al Gore almost seems most at home when he's visiting scientists and statistic¹⁰ gatherers. The man is wonky, no question. But that's what has made his climate change crusade persuasive¹¹ for so many. He gets the figures, says things that initially¹² sound outrageous¹³ and handles the pushback.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER")

GORE: Ten years ago, when the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" came out, the single most criticized scene in that movie was an animated¹⁴ scene showing that the combination of sea level rise and storm surge would put the ocean water into the 9/11 Memorial site, which was then under construction. And people said, that's ridiculous. What a terrible exaggeration.

MONDELLO: Then you see news footage from October 2012.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER")

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Hurricane Sandy slammed into New York City last night, flooding the World Trade Center site.

MONDELLO: Then a somber¹⁵ New York governor reacting to billions of dollars in damage.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER")

ANDREW CUOMO: There is a wake-up call here, and that is climate change and our vulnerability to it. It was true 10 years ago. It was true five years ago. It is undeniable today.

MONDELLO: Lessons learned. Steps taken. Still, much of this film manages to be upbeat and affirmative. The single most exhilarating moment may come from a bar graph. Seriously, I want to cheer. But there is no shortage of human stories on screen. The woman whose shoe gets stuck in pavement that's melted from the heat. The conservative Republican mayor of what's said to be the reddest city in the reddest county in oil-producing Texas bragging¹⁶ that his town is saving money by getting 100 percent of its energy from wind and solar.

And the whole middle section of the film dives deep into the negotiations¹⁷ at the global conference on climate change in Paris. At one point, there's a logjam. India has been complaining that industrialized countries built their economies on cheap fossil fuels for 150 years before investing in solar power. Give India till 2167, a diplomat¹⁸ says, and it'll join the switch, too.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER")

GORE: I've met with their energy and power minister, Piyush Goyal, in Delhi. I asked, what would it take to shift another hundred gigawatts from coal to renewables? His answer was incredibly specific.

MONDELLO: Gore, ever the politician - and in this crowd, also quite the celebrity¹⁹ - starts dickering on the phone and in meetings. And...

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER")

GORE: Virtually every nation in the entire world agreed to get to zero greenhouse emissions²⁰. It is unprecedented²¹.

MONDELLO: Gore's march to a triumphant²² finish, though, gets halted in its tracks.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER")

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP²³: It's time to put America first. That includes a promise to cancel billions in climate change spending. Our plan will end the EPA.

MONDELLO: Eco-evangelist meets denier-in-chief. Directors Jon Shenk and Bonni Cohen take every opportunity to picture the president, who was inaugurated the day after this film premiered at Sundance, as an antagonist²⁴ for their protagonist²⁵. And they've been updating the film since Sundance, which is an effective way to add dramatic tension and make sure that their story about climate is always a story about people. I had a geology prof in college who, whenever he drew a volcano on the blackboard, also drew a village nearby that was going to be buried in lava²⁶ when it erupted. Always got a laugh, but also made a point. Al Gore is like that prof, and "An Inconvenient Sequel" is a hugely effective lecture. I'm Bob Mondello.