An Inconvenient Truth
Jodi and I headed downtown yesterday to see Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth.
Going in, we knew it was based on his long-running slideshow/powerpoint about climate change and we knew that it was highly reviewed. The movie poster indicated that it was “terrifying” and that is the truth.
The point of the film should be no surprise to anyone: over the last 50 years or so we’ve been so escalating our CO2 emissions that it’s measurably (and I mean, REALLY measurably in the big picture) thrown our climate out of balance. Glaciers melting faster than ever before during the human span on earth, etc.
Actual, “sound” science. It tied together with a few other things I’d read lately, like Chris Mooney’s Republican War on Science. (quick refresher – many folks are in denial that this is actually happening, and once it becomes unmistakable that it is through scientific data… these folks attack the scientific data, the scientific process, and even the scientists). And make no mistake about it, “these folks” who are disparaging scientific research are our elected officials.
Back to the movie, one of the key things in the movie that should scare the hell out of everyone was the one-two punch of:
- Greenland and the west Antarctic ice shelf are both on land (not floating in water) and are melting much faster than ever before in recorded history.
- If either, or both, of these melt at their current rate for a while longer… world-wide water levels will rise 10–20 feet or more.
Wow. Since a huge portion of the world-wide population lives near free-flowing ocean water, this is a scary, scary thing. For effect, various population centers around the world were shown before and after the effects of such a water-level rise. Trust me, you don’t want to live right near the water if the water rises even 1–5 feet above normal high tide, let alone 10–20!
So, go see it. And learn from it. And be scared by it. And be motivated to do whatever you can to help save it.
Catherine said,
June 19, 2006 at 8:31 am
Evan,
Al Gore is actually coming to speak at Chautauqua July 24th, and the cinema (where I work) is showing “An Inconvenient Truth” on July 25-27. We’re hoping that his schedule will allow Mr. Gore to come speak at the first showing!
P.S. Yes, you are now the first to have my new email
Jodi said,
June 19, 2006 at 12:06 pm
The fundies in Kansas don’t care if the coastal cities are swallowed up by water – they are all a bunch of damn liberal hippies anyway. Maybe they think the world would be a better place without polar ice caps.
Evan said,
June 19, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Catherine – Yeah, I believe he was here in Seattle during our SIFF for the opening here too (not 100% positive though, and I certainly didn’t make it to that one, unfortunately). Seems like he makes a great speaker if this sort of thing interests you. It’s my big vicarious regret that the 2000 election was done the way it was. Two key mistakes, in my opinion, which would have made a huge difference if they’d gone differently:
1) Lieberman as running mate – yes, let’s have a moderate southern democrat president with a northeastern conservative republi… er… democrat as vice president. Choosing conservative Lieberman as his running mate was perhaps the biggest problem I had with that ticket in 2000.
2) Not being authentic – changing personalities during the debate, blah blah. Those are the obvious examples. Let’s cut to it: Al Gore is a moderate to slightly conservative southern democrat on nearly everything except the environment stuff where he veers green/liberal. That’s fine. It’s who he is. He’s also hella smart, and not afraid to show it. That’s also who he is. It’s a shame his handlers were trying so hard in 2000 to get him to roll up his sleeves and be a frat-boy to compete with Bush. A damn shame.
Evan said,
June 19, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Sheesh Jodi, you’re being pretty hard on Kansas! And to be fair, if the oceans rise 10-20 feet, it’d be pretty strange if we didn’t see a cascade effect of the connected lakes and river systems throughout the world rising pretty severely as well.
The bigger problem is getting folks to SEE that danger, as the very folks who are least likely to think they’ll be affected by it naturally are the same folks who are least likely to listen to scientific reason about it.