An Oral History of An Inconvenient Truth
A decade ago, climate change was a huge problem with a small audience. Unless you were among a handful of brave policymakers, concerned scientists, or loyal Grist readers, its fair to say the threat of a rapidly warming world took a back seat to High School Musical, MySpace, and whether or not Pluto was a planet (yes, those were all a thing in 2006).
Then, An Inconvenient Truth happened.
Somehow, a film starring a failed presidential candidate and his traveling slideshow triggered a seismic shift in public understanding of climate change. It won Oscars and helped earn Al Gore a share of the Nobel Peace Prize. It injected the issue into policy debates and dinner-table conversations alike.
Did any of this actually save the world? OK, you got us. Ten years after the movies release, climate change is still a growing threat and a polarizing issue, with record-breaking heat unable to stop skeptics from tossing snowballs on the Senate floor. But were also seeing corporate, political, and societal mobilization against the crisis on a scale that would have been hard to imagine 10 years ago, and theres no question the film played a big part in getting us there.
Snip
http://grist.org/feature/an-inconvenient-truth-oral-history/#