Former US Vice President Al Gore’s climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, will be shown in all of Scotland’s Secondary Schools this year thanks to an initiative from ScottishPower and the Scottish Executive. ScottishPower will provide DVD copies of the film to schools for use in S4 to S6 classes. The Scottish Executive, through Learning Teaching Scotland, is developing a package of educational materials to help raise awareness of the challenges we all face from global warming and the film will play a key role.

Stephen Dunn, ScottishPower’s HR and Communications Director, said; “I was greatly impressed by An Inconvenient Truth. Not only does it powerfully explain what is happening to the planet, it also gives hope by simply setting out what we can still do to fight climate change.

ScottishPower is already the biggest generator of onshore wind energy in the UK and is developing biomass and wave generation to reduce emissions and combat global warming – but it is essential that we also help promote understanding of this crucial challenge through initiatives such as this.

A spokesperson for Mr Gore said; “Clearly, one of the hopes that vice president Gore, the producers, and director had in mind was that An Inconvenient Truth would serve as an educational tool. It’s wonderful to see that in practice in Scotland.”

Environment Secretary, Ross Finnie, said: “I am very grateful to Scottish Power for their support in making DVD copies available to Scottish Secondary schools and I am delighted that Learning and Teaching Scotland have agreed to help develop materials to demonstrate how climate change and sustainable development messages can be presented in a new and exciting way to pupils. We aim to pilot materials towards the end of the current academic year and roll-out the full package for the start of the next school year.”

Further information Simon McMillan 0141 566 4875