An Inconvenient Truth

Usually my posts refrain from discussing serious issues. But today, I think that I'd like to give voice to a recently gelled conviction. This afternoon, at the local art cinema, Jen and I went to see "An Inconvenient Truth," which, if you haven't heard, is a documentary of Al Gore's slide show on global warming. Before seeing this film, I admittedly hadn't given too much thought to the environment; it's one of those topics, about which I decided to let other people do the thinking. Yes, I've been green... as long as it was easy. It was always a matter of convenience. Give me a large bin with legibly printed labels, and I'll recycle.

Due to my ignorance, what I mostly expected from the film was a counter-argument to the claim that global warming is a ruse made up by leftists to grab votes from easily panic-stricken constituents. So it was a surprise to find that the film only gave 5 minutes to this debate, proving (or more accurately, informing us), once and for all, that it's nothing but a red herring. Not only is it downright misinformed, but it creates just enough confusion and indecision to enable us to ignore the issue all together.

I feel somewhat indebted to Al Gore and this clear, witty, and fetching film for bringing these facts to my attention--mainly, because I'm too lazy and too busy to seek them out for myself. In the past, environmentalism has been nothing but a patchwork of disconnected notions and options. You can go green on your gas bill. Hybrid cars are slowly becoming available. There's the green party, the Sierra Club, and plenty of paper with recycling symbols that you can see when you hold them up to the light. But to be perfectly honest, I never really saw the point. For me, all of these expedients pointed toward some vague, underlying environmental attitude, which you either signed on with or not. It boiled down to individual choice and not a very urgent one at that. This film rid me of that misconception. Environmentalism is not just about being a tree-hugger, but having an awareness of the elephant in the room. People are dying and more will die, and it's our responsibility to do something about it. Luckily, however, the film isn't just a downer. Gore leaves you with a sense that not only is disaster around the corner, but so are fairly common sense solutions, which we keep waylaying in our effort to disprove the existence of an actual threat. This movie does a fine job of bringing the problem of global warming to an unmistakable, irrefutable head, so big that no one leaving the theater could ignore. So I strongly encourage you to see this film; it's horrifying, surpisingly funny, and a welcome kick in the pants.

www.climatecrisis.net