Dumes Day Photo’s The Nobel Peace Prize 2007 was awarded to Albert Arnold Gore Jr. and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change and to lay the foundation for the measures that are needed to counter act such change” (nobelpeace.org), through the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore has been on the front lines of the war on global warming, and in his words declares that “we should prepare against other threats besides terrorism” (Gore, 2006). In this documentary Gore cites a variety of scientific methods used to convince the public of the devastating effects of global warming. One of these scientific methods used to support his point is the use of photographs to demonstrate the destruction caused by global warming in places such as Mount Kilimanjaro. In this specific instance he informs the viewer that “within the decade, there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro,” (Gore, 2006) and uses a photo taken 30 years ago compared to a photo taken in 2005 to illustrate this statement. Researchers and Scientists must reframe from using photographs as supporting evidence for their findings on global warming, because photographs have only been in existence since 1826, photographs can be altered, and they evoke powerful emotive effects on the viewer that are not based on facts. After many attempts and many failures, “[t]he first permanent photograph was made in 1826 by Joseph Niephore Niepce using a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris” (Camera, 2008). Joseph had been working on the camera for over 26 years, and by his 47th birthday, he got it right. And from that day forward, the camera took off, capturing all of the events of the last two centuries, eventually finding its way from that first wooden box to the tiniest of cell phones. Up to that point in time, 1826, recollection of the way events took place were left up to the old tales past down from generations to generation. Even thought the first photograph was taken 1826, “[t]he first colour photograph was made by James Clerk Maxwell, with the help of Thomas Sutton, in 1861” (Camera, 2008). The camera was invented just as the Industrial Revolution was taking shape. The industrial Revolution is what is to blame for the rapid growth of Global Warming over the last 200 years. This is interesting because in order to see what the effects of something is on a particular object, you would have to know what it look like prior to the exposure of the event. “The industrial Revolution, the period in the late 18th…” (Industrial Revolution, 2008). With out the Industrial Revolution we might not have the Global Warming of today, however this research paper would have take years to comply, not ten days, and I would be breaking my wrist with a old ink pen. In a 1995, New York Times Best seller, David Kemp outlines the impact we had on our atmosphere once the Industrial revolution happened. “… [T]he Industrial Revolution being a period of great technical achievement and economic development, it also marked the begging of increasingly serious environmental deterioration” (Kemp, 189). Whether or not Global Warming existed is beyond this essay, however the fact that everyone who presents this topic, even “…former next president of the United States…,” (Gore, 2008), add images to support there claim. The idea that you must know the “control” of the object you are studying dates back to when “Socrates developed the Scientific Method in the early 19th Centuries.” To be in line with the rest of the research that has been done on Global Warming, Scientists would have to have Photographs prior to the Industrial revolution to see what the changes where when there was no big industry around. As the earliest noted pictures of nature for studied uses came from Francis Frith, Firth a explore of “Foreign Scenics,” (Galer, 239), became known for his epic voyage: One of the early traveling photographers supplying images for the public appetite for these images was Franics Frith. He published a paper in ‘The Art Journal’ in 1859 entitled “The Art of Photography” (Galer, 239). I believe that you could not legitimately take pictures of a man the day he starts smoking, and take another picture ten years later and justify the physical changes that the picture would display all to smoking without knowing the previous state of the man. You would need at least one from ten years prior to the first inhalation of the nicotine. After all the earth is a leaving organism, and all living thing shall decay over time, maybe we should just accepted the fact that mother earth is going to die no matter what. According to a study conducted by researchers at UC Irvine, the University of Padua, Italy, there is cause for concern that digitally altered photos could alter our perceptions and memories of events (Thompson, 2007). This is not a question regarding the possibility or existence of altered photos. It is unreasonable to think that anyone living in the 21st Century has never had any contact with an altered photo. According to Billy Robertson, a graphic artist and photographer, the process of altering a photo is simple. Alteration of a photo can be completed with minimal skill and equipment. One would need to have a digital copy of a photo, which can be scanned into the computer if a digital copy is not available, and a computer program designed to digitally enhance, or alter photographs. This process is exemplified in the study conducted by researchers from UC Irvine and the University of Padua, Italy in which they intentionally altered photos of two historical events to test the effect the doctored photos had on viewers (Thompson, 2007). Results showed that the people who viewed the altered photos recalled the historical event as they had seen it in the picture rather than how it had actually occurred. According to psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, who designed the study "It’s potentially a form of human engineering that could be applied to us against our knowledge and against our wishes, and we ought to be vigilant about it. With the addition of a few little upsetting and arousing elements in the Rome protest photo, people remembered this peaceful protest as being more violent than it was, and as a society we have to figure how we can regulate this” (Thompson, 2007). This study shows that photos can be easily altered to prove a cause or a point and therefore should not be used to support research such as global warming. The alteration of photos not only misrepresents truths but it also has the ability to alter the mind set or memory of human beings. The pictures shown in “An Inconvenient Truth” have already been shown to viewers. In October of 2007, a British court ruled that there were nine significant errors in the documentary (Baram, 2007). Explore the possibility that there may have been “significant errors” in the photos used to illustrate the effects of global warming shown by Al Gore. As stated early in the study, photos have the ability to alter how humans remember factual historical events. Taking that into consideration, how great of an effect could it have on people who were not around during the time period in question when all a person has to go on is a photograph shown by a researcher trying to prove a point? This possibility alone should prevent researchers of global warming from using photographs to support their research. There are countless studies on the effects of imagery or photographs, and the effects of the viewer of those images. Propaganda has been a vital part of society ever since the day that there were two different men with to different ideas. One of the studies on imagery controlling the viewers, Photographic Perception: The Myth of the Thousand Words, Christopher Harris, a Professor of Digital Media Communication at Middle Tennessee State University asserts that “photographers are ‘clearly able to transmit positive and negative impressions, deliberately or otherwise.’ The photographer therefore can control and, on occasion, manipulate an image so as to control the impression made by the photograph” (Harris). With this in mind, their could be multiple reasons in the topic of Global Warming that someone might be interested in controlling the out come. We shall leave those reasons for a different day. If knowing that your audience is on the fence, or that they might not jump on board with your findings or argument, and all you would have to do is add some emotional images, then maybe I should put some in this paper. As a scientist or Researcher, you should have enough solid evidence to support your findings with throwing in some pictures that will wrap the audience around your topic. If the audience does not feel like you are trying to “pull a fast one” on them, then they are more likely to look at your evidence logically and not with their heart. If you have to put pictures into your presentation and use them to say “Look at these sad pictures, now believe my finds are right,” then if you are a true Scientist, you should go back and either revise your findings or go out and get some more facts. With Global Warming being on the tip of everyone’s tongue these’s days, and every politician taking their own unique and separate stance on the subject, it is very important that they stick to solid, mathematical, and reviewable findings and not try to rely on emotions. Researchers and Scientists must reframe from using photographs as supporting evidence for their findings on global warming, because photographs have only been in existence since 1826, photographs can be altered, and they evoke powerful emotive effects on the viewer that are not based on facts.

Works Cited
Baram, Marcus. “An Inconvenient Verdict for Al Gore.” ABC News Online. 12 Oct. 2007. .
“Camera.” Wikipedia Online.2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 6 Jan. 2008, .
Galer, Mark. Location Photography. Oxford: OX, Woburn, MA Elsevier, 2002.
Harris, Christopher R. “Photographic Perception: The Myth of the Thousand Words.” Introduction to Visual Journalism Production. .
“Industrial Revolution.” Wikipedia Online.2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 8 Jan. 2008, .
Kemp, David D. Global Environment Issues: A Climatological Approach. London: New York Taylor & Francis, 1994.
Rappaport, Ann, and Sarah H Creeighton. Degrees That Matter: Climate Change and the Universe. Cambridge: Mass MIT Press, 2007.