Inconvenient Truth Rhetorical Analysis

853 Words4 Pages
"We have to do something about it. Glaciers are nature’s alarm clock, and it’s time for us to wake up. Can there be any doubt that the culprit is greenhouse gas, produced by man?" Lisa Simpson, an environmental activist, pleads for her class to change their ways for the good of the environment. Her real-world counterpart, Former Vice-President Albert Arnold Gore, is the face of the Global Warming awareness movement. He has attempted to persuade the American public to take action against the emission of “greenhouse gases" in many speeches and books. He has even employed his rhetorical tactics in a well-known documentary film. Gore’s campaign to educate the people has been recorded and compiled, by director David Guggenheim, in An Inconvenient Truth. In the movie, Al Gore speaks to a live audience, presenting a slide show which unravels the subject of Global Warming. Gore utilizes simple syntax, environmentally wary diction, and the three categories in the triangle of rhetorical appeals with a concerned, didactic tone, in order to captivate his audience and convince them to take action. Al Gore establishes ethos by his reputation and the display of an ethical mindset. As a former presidential candidate, his name is well-known to the public. In fact, he was very popular in the eyes of the American people. Although Gore had lost the presidential election in 2000, he had still won the popular vote. Since a majority of the American voters had supported him, he is therefore, trusted by most of the people. Al Gore also provides an example of personal tragedy to provoke sympathy toward his cause. Gore effectively uses his diction to convey a sense of morality, which strengthens his ethos, or credibility. Throughout the film, he continuously displays a theme of responsibility to the future generations and to the Earth. Gore amplifies his moral character in order to gain the
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