An Inconvenient Truth

Interspersing personal recollections, taped footage of Al Gore's lecture tour and stunning photography showing the effects of global warming across the globe, this is a movie that transcends it's potentially boring subject matter. And it does it with a narrator that has in the past been accused of being wooden and unfunny. It works because Gore is passionate and knowledgeable about global warming and is able to project that so that you feel as passionate as he does. He appears as a man more comfortable in his own skin that I have ever seen him. He's not in someone else's shadow (Clinton). He doesn't have to try to please a constituency or a legislative body (his time in the Senate). And that freedom allows him to come across as an affable professor. I guess it's not surprising that he appears comfortable giving his global warming lecture. He has given it over a 1,000 times over the years.

I think that it is Gore's personal recollections that really help to humanize the subject. He tells how the near death of his son in a car accident and the death by cancer of his sister gave him more focus on what the purpose of his life should be.

From climatecrisis.net:

Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom -- think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his "traveling global warming show," Gore also proves himself to be one of the most misunderstood characters in modern American public life. Here he is seen as never before in the media - funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our "planetary emergency" out to ordinary citizens before it's too late.

The movie not only demonstrates what we are doing to the planet but provides practical, tangible ways in which we can reverse the trend:

Want to do something to help stop global warming?
Here are 10 simple things you can do and how much carbon dioxide you'll save doing them.

Change a light -- Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Drive less -- Walk, bike, carpool or take mass transit more often. You'll save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don't drive!

Recycle more -- You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide per year by recycling just half of your household waste.

Check your tires -- Keeping your tires inflated properly can improve gas mileage by more than 3%. Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere!

Use less hot water -- It takes a lot of energy to heat water. Use less hot water by installing a low flow showerhead (350 pounds of CO2 saved per year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water (500 pounds saved per year).

Avoid products with a lot of packaging -- You can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide if you cut down your garbage by 10%.

Adjust your thermostat -- Moving your thermostat just 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer. You could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment.

Plant a tree -- A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.

Turn off electronic devices -- Simply turning off your television, DVD player, stereo, and computer when you're not using them will save you thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

We have the means to fix our planet but we lack the political will. If something doesn't affect you personally and immediately, you will put it off. That's exactly the type of attitude that we need to defeat. This myopia runs rampant in this administration and our congress. Local governments have actually taken the lead to a certain extent. There is a large list of major U.S. cities that have vowed to respect the Kyoto Treaty when the country as a whole does not (joining only Australia among major countries). And it's shortsighted to think that the economy can't benefit from the development of new technology needed to move us forward. If our government wasn't so in bed with big oil and the auto industry, we might be able to move forward.

This movie does not have a large release. Only one screen in all of Phoenix was showing it. Hopefully, it's positive reviews and great attendance at those showings will get a larger release. I can't stress enough how important it is that you go see this and recommend to everyone else that they do ... conservative, liberal, whatever. It doesn't matter. This is not an issue that only affects some of us. It affects all of us.