One of the things that is neither addressed in this blog nor in other forms of risk communication about radiological dispersal devices is the comparative risk between RDDs and other problems either pertaining to national security or with other issues.

Within already published and known forms of risk communication about RDDs, the topic of comparative risk is never fully addressed. Of course, there is always the association between RDDs and nuclear weapons, but the threat or risk of an RDD attack is never compared to the threat or risk of other things such as the issue of global warming or the issue of child obesity (see blog roll for more information on these issues). It seems there is a hierarchy that is created through government spending and the popular media of what holds more risk and how people should assess these risk. But is having the decision made for you really the proper way of doing this? Should the government decide which issue is more important by allocating more funding to one program over the other? By doing so, aren’t they putting themselves at risk by not fully informing their citizens?

There is no easy solution to the problem of comparative risk because there will always be issues to compare with other issues. With no easy way to discern which is more important at any given moment, it is difficult for individuals to decide which issue to learn more about or pay more attention to. It is even difficult to depend upon the private sector to disseminate information due to government funding or the sector’s dependence on public opinion. They may not want to risk their own money, time, and other resources on an issue that the public may not see as a high priority.

Because there is no easy way of deciding which issue is more important than another, it is up to an informed citizenry to help the government and the private sector in deciding this hierarchy. Public opinion can sway groups, legislators, and lobbyists to fund research or programs pertaining to a certain issue. Although it is not guaranteed to give enough funding to an issue, it can help bring, if only temporarily, an issue to the public eye. Until the threat of RDDs is widely known and until the federal government sees that this is the most plausible of threats, we must depend on small groups and researchers to find the information and present it to the public.

In Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, visual media is used almost exclusively to convey to the audience the issue, problems, and solutions to global warming. I found that in the three main spans of the documentary (the issue, problem, and solution spans) that Gore used certain types of visuals to get the point across to his audience.

At the beginning of the documentary when Gore is describing what global warming is, he uses a short cartoon to portray the issue. This cartoon is just one of the many things that Gore employs for comic relief on a very serious issue. I believe Gore used this as an introduction to the issue span. The cartoon gives a quick summary of what causes global warming in a humorous manner using a familiar setting to most audience members. Although the cartoon does not give substantial facts, it does gloss over some points that Gore goes over more in depth throughout the issue and problem spans of the documentary. From this visual aide, Gore expands on the definition of global warming, what causes it, and why most scientists believe that it exists. After expanding on the issue of global warming, Gore uses more visual aides to describe the problems at hand.

Gore focuses the most amount of time on the problem span in the documentary than the other three spans. During this part of the film, he shows a series of images and videos that give the audience visual evidence that global warming is an issue and depict the reasons why it is an issue. Some of these images include time series pictures of glaciers and snow on mountains melting, animals that will be endangered because of changing climates, and victims from Hurricane Katrina.

The one image that I think Gore strategically uses as both portraying the issue/problem of global warming and as a means of pathos is the image of New York City if the polar caps melted and flooded. I think Gore included this image to stir the patriotism in Americans into taking action against global warming. By including this image in this section of the film, Gore is assuming that the audience, namely Americans, value our territory, especially where the World Trade Center Memorial is. By playing on people’s values and patriotism, Gore believes that he will be able to bolster the audience to act. This is an important part of this documentary and allows Gore to lead into the solution span.

In one of the final images of the documentary, Gore shows the audience a pie chart that displays the CO2 levels as of now. He then proceeds to say what the impact would be if everyone in the U.S. changed to a more environmentally-friendly lifestyle. He includes such changes as using ethanol, lowering your thermostat 2-degrees, or changing to a compact fluorescent light bulb to reduce your carbon footprint. With each of these things, the amount of CO2 that is displayed in the graph is lowered until at one point it is below the level of CO2 at which we should be.

Although the main part of the film does not expand on the solutions to global warming, this visual portrays in a small part the solution span of the documentary. Gore does not identify all solutions available in the main part of the documentary, but shows most of them in the credits at the end and gives the audience a website to find out more about what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint. The pie chart allows for a simple visual summation of what the information in the credits and on the website have and it also shows the impact of what these things do to the overall environment. This image is a powerful illustration for the conclusion of the film because it sums everything that he talked about throughout. He has already told the audience what the issue is, what the problems are that affect the issue, and now he is showing what the audience (well, those who are convinced that global warming is a problem) can do to solve the problem.

Of the three spans, I think that Gore uses visual media the best in the problem span. I think this is the section that he felt that he needed to spend the most time on because of the skeptics who say that global warming isn’t a problem. By providing logical conclusions based off of empirical evidence, using pathos to stir the audience into action, and using visuals to capture both of these, I think Gore was able to captivate his audience and hopefully get them to act.

There are three types of visuals that I found that can be both useful to my topic and cause problems with my topic. They are the warning symbol for radioactive materials, the images that FEMA uses in their step-by-step on what to do during an RDD attack, and the image of an radiological dispersal device.

 The first image is usually used for a warning sign if there is radioactive material in the area. The most common area that this symbol can be seen is in a hospital. One of the problems with this symbol is that people associate it with nuclear weapons and may view it as something more serious than it is. One of the ways that I could solve this problem within my project is to give a clearer definition of the symbol as it pertains to my project.

 The second image is the step-by-step images that FEMA uses on their website. This document is a visual guide to show what to do in the event of an RDD attack. Not only does this document show images, it also lists steps with each image. This visual is helpful because it explains the images that are given rather than leaving the pictures to be interpreted by the audience. However, I found two problems with this visual. The first is that it is not that accessible to the public. The document is on FEMA’s website where people would have to go searching for it. Most people will not do this or think to do this. The second problem is that this visual guide is similar to the visual guide for a nuclear threat. This may deceive some readers into thinking that the two threats are the same even though it says that a radiation threat is not the same as a nuclear threat.

 The third image is a picture of an RDD. The picture shows the inner workings of the bomb and tells you how the bomb works. This image is helpful because it tells you how the bomb works and its effects. However, the image could also cause problems due to public concerns that RDDs are similar to a nuclear bomb. By seeing the inner workings of the bomb, a person may think that the bomb is just as big a threat as a nuclear bomb. A solution to this problem is to compare the inner workings of a nuclear bomb to the inner workings to an RDD. This way the audience can have visual and textual comparisons of the two bombs and will hopefully be able to determine the bigger threat.

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth uses a multimedia presentation, humor, and emotions to convince those who watch it that global warming is a serious problem that not only affect citizens of the U.S., but affects all those on the planet. Overall, the presentation is successful in portraying the issue and problem of global warming; however, I feel that it is lacking in a solution. At the end of documentary, he shows a graph of CO2 levels and how by doing little things we can cut these levels down to below where they were a few decades ago. This is one of the only moments when he addresses a solution in the documentary, but even in this moment he does not give any specifics to the audience.

One reason he may do this is because he provides additional information at the end of the documentary such as the website for the documentary and another website where you can calculate your carbon footprint and it shows what you can do to reduce it. By doing this, Gore is assuming that his main audience has internet capabilities and is willing to take the time to visit these websites. This is a dangerous assumption to make when you are trying to convince a variety of people with a plethora of interests that global warming is a serious problem that is worth their time to find a solution that fits their needs

A second problem with the presentation is in the type of humor that he uses. Some of it is funny and it eases the tension of such a serious topic, but some of it may reduce the fragile authority that he presents to his audience. For example, his humor poking fun at the 2000 presidential election may be unappealing to those who voted for George W. Bush. It could also be unappealing to those who are on the edge of being convinced into action, but find the issue to be too politicized with Gore’s humor.

Gore’s authority is not solidified at the beginning of the documentary. He establishes his past work with global warming (i.e. work with his professor from college on the issue and congressional hearings on the issue), but by bringing up the election again he may be reducing his authority in the eye’s of parts of the audience. I think he should have chosen one joke about it and not have brought up the election for the rest of the presentation, so as to dedicate the time to the seriousness of the issue and the potential solutions that the audience can engage in.

Parts of the documentary that I think that Gore did a good job on is the lay-out of the documentary, primarily the division of the actual presentation and the documentary part. By splitting the documentary into segments separated by film allows the audience who is watching the film to have a break to absorb what they have seen and heard. If he just had the presentation in the film, I do not think it would have held the audience’s attention for long. Most would be bored with it and not be able to take away as much as they can when the documentary is laid out as it is.

Along with this idea, I think that the visuals that Gore uses also captivate the audience. Instead of using an even split of text and visuals, he chose to utilize the visuals. These spanned from the first picture of the earth to video excerpts of glaciers melting. I think that the heavy use of visuals was a better way of providing the audience with an idea of what the problem is rather than using primarily text. Visuals are easier to grasp than text with an issue like this. However, the text that he does use also helps his argument. The few uses of text are with direct quotes from a variety of people such as Mark Twain and Winston Churchill. By using text for these special instances, it gives the audience a break from the visuals and provides a quote that the audience may be familiar with.

A final point about the film pertains to something that Gore addresses early on in the documentary. He says that people need to reassess how they think of warnings. He continues by saying that we (I’m assuming he means those with power and influence) need to find a way to ensure that warnings are based on scientific fact and are heard by the public and followed. I thought this was an interesting point to make in a film that is addressing a general audience. This seems to be something that he should be addressing to a congressional committee rather than in a documentary.

Nonetheless, I think that he makes a good point. There are many situations where we address risks in a similar manner whether it is an issue such as global warming or an issue like national security. Obviously, these are two very different issues with different aspects and dimensions and risks to it, but it seems they are being addressed in a similar manner. The government holds hearings on the issue, creates legislation, implements legislation, and attempts to inform the public on all of it. In some instances it works, in others it doesn’t. In the instances that it doesn’t, the government seems to freeze and not know what to do in order to fix the problem. They don’t know how to address the risk (for a variety of reasons) in a different manner. I think this is why the state/local government and the private sector hold such a powerful influence on issues. Because they are not the national government and are given more flexibility or are able to devote more time and money to a particular issue, they provide innovations and a fresh perspective on the issue that the national government alone could never achieve. I wish that Gore would have addressed this separately from the documentary so as to further explain what he meant by it rather than mention it in passing.