By Ben Hoyle, Los Angeles | Ben Webster, Environment Editor
It has been an inconvenient week for Al Gore, the climate change activist and former presidential candidate.
He had hoped that his new film about global warming, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, would whip up the same sort of excitement that swept its predecessor, An Inconvenient Truth, to huge commercial success and an Oscar for best documentary in 2007.
“By filling theatres, we can show Donald Trump and the other climate deniers in the White House that the American people are committed to climate action –– no matter what they do, say, or tweet!” Mr Gore wrote in an email to supporters on Friday.
Instead, on the most lacklustre weekend of the North American summer box office so far, the film limped to takings of $900,000, making it the 15th most popular film in the country.
The disappointing performance was on top of accusations of hypocrisy after claims by the National Centre for Public Policy Research think-tank that Mr Gore used more than 20 times as much energy as the average US household at just one of his three homes.
