The Role of Documentaries in Climate Awareness: Visual Storytelling

In 2006, former vice president of the United States and climate activist Al Gore released the Nobel Prize documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth” that moved the millions of people who viewed it. Gore’s main objective was to touch upon the large threat climate change posed for the Earth and to fight climate skepticism; touching upon the catastrophic effects that could occur as a lack of action. The use of avid storytelling accompanied with a few visual aids and detailed explanations was able to influence a generation of professionals, launch sustainable careers, and generally improve awareness for the general public (Davies). This feat goes to show that visual storytelling itself is a powerful tool to capture and captivate the viewer’s attention, and highly effective to convey the importance of climate awareness.

Documentaries themselves are defined as a film, television or even radio programme that provides facts regarding a specific subject (Cambridge Dictionary). However, they serve more than just an informational program; documentaries have the ability to combine visual and auditory aspects in a way that captivate and simplify information for viewers. This form of visual storytelling has, in the past, been highly effective to raise environmental awareness as they are able to ensure scientific data and information is accessible to the general public. There is an additional emotional aspect provided by a documentary as well that can have a long-lasting impact on the viewers that watch it, and that said emotional impact or even shock value could act as a catalyst for change. Individuals are oftentimes so used to hearing statistics regarding climate change and its impacts, that they forget to look beyond the face value of that number, and this is where the usage of visual evidence comes into play. Humans are naturally visually creatures, hence it can be more memorable, fostering a deeper emotional experience and connection to the issue being discussed (Sustainability Directory).

Circling back to Al Gore’s documentary, some may wonder: how did it influence people’s opinions, if it did at all? Documentaries can have different impacts, depending on the environment and viewers; in the case of “An Inconvenient Truth” researchers in 2011 found that a long-term behavioural change may not occur simply because these efforts for awareness may reach those who were already informed about the issue; however that doesn’t mean it had no impact at all. In fact, researchers still found that in the short-term, “An Inconvenient Truth” led individuals to purchase voluntary carbon offsets—which is a mechanism used to finance greenhouse gases emission reduction (Jacobsen). We can conclude from the research at hand that perhaps while documentaries themselves are not able to fully sustain tangible change in the years following, they can have significant influence on the public opinion and trends.

Bibliography:

Cambridge Dictionary. “Documentary.” @CambridgeWords, dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/documentary. Accessed 28 Aug. 2025.

Davies, John. “How “an Inconvenient Truth” Influenced a Generation of Professionals.” Trellis, 24 May 2016, trellis.net/article/how-inconvenient-truth-influenced-generation-professionals/. Accessed 28 Aug. 2025.

Jacobsen, Grant D. “The al Gore Effect: An Inconvenient Truth and Voluntary Carbon

Offsets.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, vol. 61, no. 1, Elsevier BV, Oct. 2010, pp. 67–78, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2010.08.002. Accessed 28 Aug. 2025.

Sustainability Directory. “What Role Do Documentaries Play in Sustainability?.”

Sustainability Directory, 30 Mar. 2025, climate.sustainability-directory.com/question/what-role-do-documentaries-play-in-sustainability/#:~:text=Educating%20the%20Public,to%20adopt%20more%20sustainable%20lifestyles. Accessed 28 Aug. 2025.

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