A British citizen filed suit against his country on the grounds that the decision to distribute and force school children to watch An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary by former Vice President Al Gore, would cause them harm.

In February 2007, the British government's education and environment departments announced plans to distribute over 3,500 DVD copies of Gore's award-winning documentary to secondary schools around the country. Then Education Secretary Alan Johnson said that influencing the opinions of children was crucial to developing a long-term public view on the environment.

The lawyer for the plaintiff told the court that the film was comprised of "just over half scientific material, 30 percent pure politics and about 20 percent sentimental mush – mush there to soften up the viewer for persuasion." The judge decided that the movie could be shown in schools even though he believed it did promote partisan political views but it must be voluntary and there should be no endorsement by teacher or school administrators.