How long does it take to read An Inconvenient Truth?
Al Gore
An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore takes about 4 hours 46 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 4 hours 46 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2006. 260 pages, about 71,500 words. Written for children.
10 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 7 hours 57 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 4 hours 46 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 59 minutes |
The page count is the median across 6 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
This young readers' version of the recent documentary film's companion adult volume cuts the page count by about a third but preserves the original's cogent message and many of its striking visuals. After explaining that his interest in the environment predates even his mother's reading of Silent Spring aloud to him as a teenager, Gore proceeds to document steeply rising carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere, and then to link that to accelerating changes in temperature and precipitation patterns worldwide. Using easy-to-grasp graphics and revealing before-and-after photos, he shows how glaciers and ice shelves are disappearing all over the globe with alarming speed, pointing to profound climate changes and increased danger from rising sea levels in the near future. O'Connor rephrases Gore's arguments in briefer, simpler language without compromising their flow, plainly intending to disturb readers rather than frighten them. He writes measured, matter-of-fact prose, letting facts and trends speak for themselves but, suggesting that "what happens locally has worldwide consequences," he closes with the assertion that we will all have to "change the way we live our lives." Like the film, this title may leave readers to look elsewhere for both documentation and for specific plans of action, but as an appeal to reason it's as polished and persuasive as it can be.
Subjects: Climatic changes, Atmospheric Greenhouse effect, Global warming, Environmental protection
