It seems incredible now, but when An Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006 with its message about global warming, it caused an uproar.

The film — hailed by scientists and condemned by special interest groups — followed former vice-president Al Gore on his personal campaign to raise public awareness of climate issues.

Gore took a lot of heat for his efforts.

Nonetheless, the movie was a huge critical and popular success. It’s the first documentary ever to win two Oscars; it won Gore and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their work in educating the public about global warming.

Now Gore, 69, has released An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, a film about what progress has been made in staging a global energy revolution.

It opens Friday, Aug. 4.

As the movie shows, the fallout from global warming has only got worse, what with disintegrating polar ice and increased extreme weather incidents — not to mention the consequent drought, crop failure and social upheaval.

Back in 2006, one of the most controversial sequences in An Inconvenient Truth was the prediction that rising tides would eventually leave parts of Manhattan under water, including the 9/11 Memorial Site; early in An Inconvenient Sequel there is footage of the site in 2012, being flooded during Hurricane Sandy.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power walks a fine line between hope and despair. The camera follows Gore around the planet as he continues to look at evidence of global warming but also reports on the amazing progress being made as world leaders unite to make positive change in energy consumption.

We spoke to Al Gore when he visited Toronto to promote the movie.

Given that leaving politics led to your work on global warming, should we be glad that the presidential election in 2000 went the way it did?

“Once, when Winston Churchill was a young man and he lost an election, a friend said, ‘Winston, this is a blessing in disguise.’ And he said, ‘Damn good disguise.’ [Laughs]. I’m under no illusion that there’s any position with as much ability to bring good change in the world as that of president. But I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to have served the public interest.”

Why, with all the evidence in front of us, would anyone still be a climate change denier?

“The large carbon polluters have a lot at stake, and they took the playbook from the tobacco companies, who years ago responded to the medical and scientific consensus linking cigarettes with lung cancer and other diseases. They hired actors and dressed them up as doctors and put them in front of cameras to falsely reassure people there was no health problem at all — and 100 million people died. These carbon polluters have hired the very same PR firms and they’re using the same techniques. And that’s why a lot of the climate denial has persisted.”

Your father was a profound influence on your life and career. Who else inspired you to do this sort of work?

“Well, my father and my mother. And I was fortunate, back in the 1960s, to have a college professor who was one of the great scientists in the climate field. He was the first person to measure CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere. And he opened my eyes to this crisis a long time ago. Everything that’s happened since has been consistent with what he predicted. So I would point to the teachers I’ve had.”

That professor was climate change pioneer Roger Revelle?

“I went to the 100th anniversary of his birth at the Scripps Institute. He was deceased by then. His widow was there. I read up even more on him beforehand, and learned that when he was in college, way back early in the last century, he had a professor who opened his eyes and really inspired him. And I thought, ‘Wow, there are all these chains of inspiration and teaching that go back centuries and millennia.’”

Do you have an opinion on where film fits into contemporary life?

“In the noise of the current communications environment, people are distracted and pulled this way and that. And this has created an opportunity for documentary movies to become the queen of media, where it’s the only chance where people sit down in a communal environment and listen, for 90 to 100 minutes, and really get a thoughtful expression of carefully crafted thoughts and images.”

Where does your sense of hope come from? Your energy for this work?

“Well, first, it’s a privilege to have work to do that gives you the feeling that it justifies every ounce of energy you can pour into it. If you’re doing what it feels like you’re supposed to be doing, then that gives you more energy back. You remember the movie Chariots of Fire? One of the runners spoke a line that stayed with me, he said, ‘When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.’ When you’re doing work that feels really valuable, and the best way to spend your time, it gives you a sense of real joy.”

So you’re not keeping a s— list of enemies?

“Um. Somebody once said, ‘Hatred is the poison we give ourselves while we wait for our enemies to die.’ [Laughs] I don’t have much time for that. And if I’m tempted to it, I remember what Winston Churchill once said about the American people: they generally do the right thing, after first exhausting all available alternatives. [Laughs]

You’ve lead a life of public service. What would you consider your legacy?

“I hope I’ll be remembered for something I haven’t completed yet — and that’s solving the climate crisis. Many others are engaged in the same struggle and I hope, 10 years from now, we’ll look back on the decade ahead of us now and say, ‘We really crossed the tipping point. People really awakened to the danger and seized the opportunities to solve it and made life better for everybody.’”

NOTE TO TEACHERS There is a book called An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power that will be released the same day as the movie, August 4.

Everyone can log onto inconvenientsequel.com to discover ways to take action against global warming; teachers will find an ‘Educational Resources’ tab on the website.

Twitter: @LizBraunSun

LBraun@postmedia.com

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THAT ELECTION

He wuz robbed.

On November 7, 2000, Vice-President Al Gore won the popular vote in the U.S. and should have become the country’s 43rd President.

Instead, following recounts in Florida that were eventually halted by the Supreme Court, the election was handed to George W. Bush.

Bad day for Al Gore. Great day for the planet.

The results of that election led Gore directly to his current position as a crusader to fight global warming. Most of his time is occupied with The Climate Reality Project; he’s chairman of the non-profit, which is devoted to solving the climate crisis. He did find the time to write five bestselling books: Earth in the Balance; An Inconvenient Truth; The Assault on Reason; Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, and The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change.

Politics’ loss is our gain.

There have been five elections in America in which the winner of the popular vote did not become president; in four of those cases, the contested election went to the Republican candidate, and in the fifth case, the resultant bitterness led directly to the creation of the Democratic Party. Extrapolate at will.

-Liz Braun

TRUMP AND TRUDEAU

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power handles the Donald Trump problem with finesse. Neither Gore nor anyone else says anything much that’s negative — the film simply lets Trump speak for himself. It’s not a pretty picture.

Gore, like many others, is disappointed by President Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord but heartened to see the response from individual states of the union to continue to fight global warming regardless.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, there’s a snippet in the movie with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is modest and enthusiastic when he stops to introduce himself to Gore and offer words of encouragement.

Says Gore of the Trudeau moment, “We did a pre-screening in Washington, D.C., and when that scene came up, all the congressmen and senators in the audience started applauding.”

Makes us proud to be Canadian.

-Liz Braun