It’s time to be alert and alarmed. Carbon dioxide emissions are rising. The polar caps are shrinking. Species are disappearing. Davis Guggenheim’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth may well be ‘the decade’s scariest movie yet’ as it demonstrates how our actions affect the planet.

At its core is former USA Vice-President Al Gore’s long-time crusade to raise awareness of global warming. His interest was ignited in college but in 1989, the near death of his six-year-old son changed Gore’s way of thinking about the world’what we take for granted may not be here for our kids. Losing the 2000 US Presidential election provided further fuel in his battle for the environment.

Producers Laurie David and Lawrence Bender attended one of Gore’s free lectures on climate change and signed up Guggenheim (Deadwood) to film the debate’to broaden the reach of Gore’s message. The environmental agenda is clear and the construction simple as An Inconvenient Truth focuses on Gore’s multimedia message.

Lively, passionate and often funny, Gore is engaging as he delivers an impressive presentation on the impact of warming on the Earth. His slide show contains an array of visual images, stunning in their simplicity and easy to grasp. Dramatic images of an Antarctic ice shelf crashing into the ocean, graphs correlating 650-thousand-years of rising carbon dioxide emissions with rising temperatures, and the shock of the receding snowline of Mount Kilimanjaro push home the point. It is disturbing. But Gore also inserts humour into this horror with animations and even a clip from ‘Futurama’.

With Australia one of only two developed nations not to have signed the Kyoto climate change Treaty (USA being the other), Guggenheim’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth is captivating viewing during this year’s Festival. Just don’t drive to see it.