Al Gore suggests that it can be appropriate to "over-represent" facts in order to prompt solutions

Former presidential candidate Al Gore has been raising a lot of eyebrows with his recently released movie "An Inconvenient Truth," which discusses global warming and its effects, as well as potential solutions.  Due to the contentious nature of the material, conservatives have been attacking his facts, and liberals have been defending them (and as much as I wish that this were an oversimplification of the country's reaction, I don't believe that it is, on the whole).  The truth, as is usually the case, probably lies somewhere in the middle.  What truly disturbs me about the whole scenario, however, is a quote from an interview with Mr. Gore from Grist Magazine.

"In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis."

While Mr. Gore doesn't actually say that his movie uses this technique, the fact that he says this in response to the following question suggests that there might be some connectedness between his thoughts and his movie.

 "There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?"

What is alarming is not the content of the movie itself, but the fact that he, with nonchalance, has represented a distinct pattern of thought in American moral behavior that essentially boils down to "as long as the right thing happens in the end, it doesn't matter how we get there." 

I wonder how he would react to the idea of the government over-representing the terrorist threat in order to pass a piece of legislation (not suggesting that this has or has not happened... it's a hypothetical)? 

The point is that when the "end" or "goal" is something like the environment, many Americans are willing to throw away any moral or ethical claims to controlling the means (see PETA).  But when the goal is something else, suddenly the process matters a lot more than the goal. Let's trry to be both consistent and ethical in our political decisionmaking... that's a process that begins with honesty.