Dear Editor,

It was disappointing to read Mr F. Oliva’s piece on the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth, on Wednesday 8th November. For anyone to comment on a film they haven’t seen is ridiculous. For a professional journalist to do so and moreover to condemn a film of this nature as “propagandist” is irresponsible and unethical. Al Gore’s film has been praised worldwide as a balanced, well-informed, scientifically sound explanation of the global warming threat.

Ironically, in the film which Mr Oliva had not actually watched before writing his article (indicated in column 2, paragraph 4), Al Gore presents some rather interesting data on the manufactured nature of the so-called “scientific controversy” (over whether or not we are to blame for the global warming phenomenon). In a large sample of peer-reviewed scientific journals, scientists were unanimous as to the human causes of global warming. Yet in a similar survey, over 50% of articles from the popular press chose to ignore this scientific consensus, and instead portrayed the scientific community as fragmented and undecided. This enabled those with political and financial agendas to keep the “inconvenient truth” from the public – a scientific truth which if honestly reported, might have precipitated the public awareness of an issue that is gathering momentum not only at a grassroots level, but also now at a political level.

In recent weeks, Sir Nicholas Stern – former chief economist of the World Bank – released a report that explained how global warming could shrink the global economy by 20% if we don’t act “internationally, strongly and urgently”. Tony Blair endorsed the report, stating that scientific evidence of global warming was “overwhelming” and its consequences “disastrous”. Indeed, Blair’s government signed up An Inconvenient Truth’s Al Gore to advise on the environment!

For those individuals who would like to access the wealth of scientific knowledge on global warming, the ESG strongly recommends a viewing of An Inconvenient Truth as soon as possible – it should help you to form your own opinion on a very important issue.

On behalf of:
Christina Cortes, Conchita Triay, Janet Howitt, Tom Scott, Moses Benrimoj, Catherine Walsh, Owen Smith, Xenia Duarte, Jamie Trinidad, Ernest Teuma, Pat Scott, Henry Pinna, Jonathan Scott, Sandra Kloff, , Jonathan Teuma, Anna Coelho, Lisa Crawford, James Machin