An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore has made a movie about the threat of global warming. The critics are raving about it, and the ones who are denouncing it as a bunch of hoopla or an attempt by Gore to put himself back in the spotlight are the same conservative extremists who support Ann Coulter and believe that George W. Bush is the next Messaih.

The movie is basically a filmed version of the slideshow presentation that Gore has been giving around the world for years, both before and after he ran for President back in 2000. Interspersed with that are personal anecdotes designed to show a man driven not by the promise of political gain, but by personal conviction and moral motivation. At times, these personal asides get to be a little too much, but the main body of the movie contains an incredible amount of information, most (if not all) of which is incontrovertible. The photos of glaciers today vs. 15-30 years ago cannot be denied, nor can the fact that the largest lake in Africa has dried up completely, and parts of China are showing record flooding while neighboring provinces are experiencing droughts like nothing they've seen before. Gore presents all the data in a clear, concise monologue, with a lot more warmth and personality than most of us have ever had the chance to see. This is not the man targeted by every political cartoonist as an automaton, and wooden non-person with no original thoughts. This is the man we had been told existed, speaking about an issue which deeply and personally concerns him.

I urge everyone who reads this to see this movie. It doesn't matter what your political position is, or what your opinion on global warming is. I believe that only an informed opinion can make a difference, and not to be trite, but the only way to be informed is to go out and get the facts. Roger Ebert said for the first time of any movie, "You owe it to yourself to see it". Someone else, and God help me but I can't remember who, put it best, imho: "If you don't see this movie, and one day you have grandchildren, what reason are you going to give them?" I also feel very strongly about this issue, and my first step is to try and educate anyone who will listen. I want to be able to take my future children to the National Parks, take them hiking in the mountains where you can still see wildlife in their natural habitat; hell, I just want to be able to show them Nature as it was intended to be. Don't you?