Tuesday, November 21, 2006

An Inconvenient Truth

If you haven't seen "An Inconvenient Truth" yet, it comes out on DVD today. I hadn't seen it until yesterday when I reviewed the DVD for the paper. I can sum up my reaction in three words:

SEE. THIS. MOVIE.

Even though the idea that global warming is real has pretty much taken hold now, not much is being done about it. It's depressing to see what we've done to our planet and the effects that we don't normally ever think about or witness, but as Al Gore points out, the ramifications of our actions will become more and more apparent in our lifetimes. But there is hope: Much can be done to reverse this trend -- all we lack is the will to do it. And even if we have little control over Congress (though we do have some), we can all take steps in our ordinary lives to help out.

It's not a matter of your political persuasion. This is our planet -- everyone's home. And it's everyone's responsibility.

And Al Gore? Forget what you know about the guy. The stiff, lifeless caricature of a political candidate isn't in this movie. He's persuasive, well-spoken and -- believe it or not -- funny. He makes a frickin' lecture full of graphs and charts interesting, for pete's sake!

So rent the movie, buy it, steal it (OK, don't really steal it), just get your hands on a copy and watch it. And then share it with your friends.

And if you want more information, check out www.climatecrisis.net.

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't get a chance to see it when it came out, but I'm adding it to my Netflix queue. As much as I personally love Al Gore, though, part of me wishes he wasn't the one who made this movie. Today's political climate is so polarizing that I think a lot of people (read: the guests at that party I went to on the Hill) will avoid the movie just because of their bias against him. Which is sad, because most of these people are the same ones who believe global warming doesn't exist, and they need this movie the most.

Anonymous said...

Now, I have not seen the movie, nor am I saying that I don't think that humans have a significant impact on the climate. But as an Atmospheric Scientist, I know that there are many things that we do not understand about our climate. There are many feedbacks on the climate system, and sadly, very few of them are understood at this point. Thus, I am on a crusade to get everyone to stop using the term global warming and switch to a much more (I'll be it more ambiguous) appropriate term, climate change. --Brenda

BriGuy said...

There's a term I've been trying to get people to use instead of Atmospheric Scientist ... it's Pinko Commie.

j/k ;-)