"Have you seen it?" "What do you think?"

These questions have come up again and again in conversations about former Vice President Al Gore's documentary on the global warming crisis "An Inconvenient Truth" since its release May 24.

To date it's been in 185 theaters, in blue states and red. Scientists are weighing in on the data it presents, and locally it's inspiring debate and, in some cases, action.

Napa's representative in Congress, Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, said he has not seen the film but that's because he and his wife were among the Congressional audience who saw the presentation which forms much of the film, on Gore's invitation.

In a phone interview, Thompson said, "Jan and I were captivated. It's a brilliant presentation that showed conclusively it's a problem."

The reality and the consequences of global warming, Thompson said, have been too long "pooh-poohed as liberal hysteria."

Now, he said, "I'm hearing (about global warming) from everybody, everywhere I go."

In the First Congressional District, concerns about flooding and climatic changes that could profoundly affect the area's agricultural base are sparking concerns among his constituents. "Agriculture has the most to lose the fastest," because of climate change, he said.

"I hear from people that make wine in the East that it won't be long before they're the premium grape growing region," Thompson said.

Thompson said the presentation not only inspired him and his wife to consider what changes they can make in their own lives -- "Our next car will be a hybrid," he said -- but he is working now to bring Gore to the district to present the slide show at UC Davis this fall. He is also working with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on carbon emission-related legislation.

There remain those who dispute the science on which Gore's message is based, Thompson said, but "most people are starting to understand. We can't change the minds of the people who think the world is flat, but I don't think that's going to slow the rest of us down."

Thompson said he's hearing from people that they would like to see Congress take action, rather being distracted by issues like flag-burning and single-sex marriage. "I'm hearing, 'we want you to work on things that will make (the world) a better place,'" he said. "Americans seem to have gotten it before their leaders."

First screened at the Sundance Film Festival, "An Inconvenient Truth" presents a solid and impassioned plea to take action on the growing global climate crisis.

Director Davis Guggenheim created his film around Gore's "traveling environmental slide show" about an issue that has been with Gore since his college days.

Guggenheim intersperses the compelling presentation with Gore's own journey from his Harvard days when he took a class from Roger Revelle, one of the first scientists to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. When he went to Congress in 1976, Gore, who had served in Vietnam and attended Vanderbilt Divinity School and Law School, initiated the first congressional hearings on global warming.

He's been talking about it ever since.

In 1989, Gore's 6-year-old son was critically injured in a car accident -- a life-changing experience for Gore, a young senator. During his son's convalescence, Gore started writing "Earth in the Balance," the first book written by a sitting senator to hit the New York Times best-seller list since John Kennedy wrote "Profiles in Courage."

As Bill Clinton's vice president he promoted a carbon tax to modify incentives to reduce fossil fuel consumption and decrease greenhouse gas emission, a law that was partially implemented in 1993. He also helped broker the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions, which has yet to be ratified by the U.S.

After losing in his bid for the White House in 2000, Gore has devoted his time to traveling the globe, tracking down information, visiting sites in Africa, Europe, the North Pole and Antarctica where the dramatic effects of a warming climate are visible. He has been presenting a slide show presenting a compelling case that the extreme weather the planet has been experiencing -- droughts, floods, killer heat waves and horrific hurricane seasons -- is the result of man-made changes to the global environment, that the carbon dioxide emissions are linked to rising temperatures already responsible for changes like ice-cap melting, droughts and rising sea levels.

Along with the charts that show the unprecedented spikes in temperatures related to carbon dioxide emissions, one of the most poignant images in the slide show is that of a frog. Gore points out that if a frog is immersed in water, and the temperature is only gradually increased the frog will not react; he'll just quietly cook. Gore's message: We don't want to be that frog.

Since its release, word-of-mouth recommendations have kept interest growing.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, to date "An Inconvenient Truth" is the nation's third-highest grossing documentary (after "Fahrenheit 911 and "Bowling for Columbine"). An exit poll from Paramount Classics indicates 87 percent of the people who view the film say they would recommend it to a friend; the industry average for a successful film, the report said, is 47 percent.

According to an Associated Press story, scientists who have viewed the film are giving it "two thumbs up." Early in the film's run, AP contacted 100 top climate researchers, including skeptics about climate change. The 19 who had seen the film or read Gore's book by the same title agreed "Gore conveyed the science correctly; the world is getting hotter and it is a man-made catastrophe-in-the-making caused by the burning of fossil fuels."

The report quotes William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University as calling the film "excellent. Š He got all the important material and got it right."

Among those who have not seen the film are President Bush who announced he would not watch it. At last count the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA haven't seen it.

Gore has said those who refuse to see it are "are quite literally afraid to know the truth. Because if you accept the truth of what the scientific community is saying, it gives you a moral imperative to start to rein in the 70 million tons of global warming pollution that human civilization is putting into the atmosphere every day."

In the film, Gore is warm, witty and well-informed, trying to reach the broadest possible audience with his message about a problem that, if unchecked or unchanged, will not distinguish by political preference in the consequences. Convinced there is still time to make a difference, Gore's legacy may grow from what he's done since his defeat in 2000.

"An Inconvenient Truth" is playing at Boulevard Cinemas in Petaluma.

On the Web:

www.climatecrisis.net