movie: an inconvenient truth
I saw the movie An Inconvenient Truth tonight at a movie night that Willo organized… I knew really very little about the movie going into it, except that Al Gore was in it and that it was a documentary…
Here’s the trailer:
Word of warning though.. the trailer makes the movie seem like it’s gonna be SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY exciting (your ticket buys the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge).. but, watching Al Gore talk about global warming is kind of like a very well done college lecture. His presentation was so slick, and Apple must be ecstatic over the amount of product placement they got in the flick (which fits perfectly with their iconoclastic, leftist, I’m cooler than you image). I do think it was a slightly alarmist, but, as he said in the movie, people need a jolt in order to actually do anything about stuff. I mean, ice caps melting, hurricanes, floods, disease, drought and war… Kind of fitting that I saw this movie on 6/6/06… Repent! The end is nigh! But yah, I do recommend that you see the movie since it definitely has encouraged me to do some more reading on the whole issue, and that’s good… As far as alarmist documentaries go, I much prefer Michael Moore’s work, cuz at least we’d be laughing through most of the movie.
Anyway, this movie reminded me that once, in a previous life, I had made hybrid cars and really wanted to make the world a better place.. Hmm. I mean, once in awhile, little glints of my lefty self surface, like when I bought a tree in England a few years ago. But.. I’ve been really feeling myself growing quite libertarian (I think I’ve been reading too many economics books) the past few years.
So, I’ll have to do some more research on this whole thing… I’m not convinced that legislation is necessary to combat this problem — I think that if enough people are made aware of the issue, they’ll start to choose carbon friendly choices… Or, maybe economic pressure (like from rising gas prices) will be enough to make an impact.. Anyway, I’m rambling, but I do feel a little good about the whole thing cuz at least my commute to work doesn’t contribute to global warming..
Oh yah.. in the trailers, there was this movie about this girls’ high school basketball team that looked really good, The Heart of the Game that looked really good.. opens next Friday!
June 7th, 2006 at 1:20 am
Man, if someone had told you on Sept 10, 2001 that al Qaeda could kill 1000s of Americans on US soil by hijacking 4 commercial jets and crashing them into the WTC the Pentagon you would have called that person “alarmist”.
Just because foreseeing a catastrophe is beyond the capacity of your imagination does not mean it cannot happen.
June 7th, 2006 at 7:43 am
Sure, maybe I would have dismissed such claims as “alarmist” as well on September 10th.. But that’s my point — the most jolting part of the movie was that global widescale effects of warming would catastrophically occur during my lifetime… Sure, I find that hard to believe, but if anything, it was enough of a jolt to get me to go and look for more research…
Here’s what I’ve found so far, please add any good resources that you’ve found here as well:
Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” Movie: Fact or Hype? (National Geographic)
Are there really more hurricanes? (New Scientist)
The Real Inconvenient Truth (JunkScience.com)
Anyway.. I think what’s important is that the dialogue has been started… And just remember, if it’s on the Interweb, it must be true!
June 7th, 2006 at 8:30 am
The official announcement of my blog…
Today is the official announcement of my blog. I actually started blogging three months ago, when I was doing interviews for my recent column about blogging. It became clear that anyone who is very serious about their career should have……
June 8th, 2006 at 1:37 am
Oh great.. now, folks from the right wing have labelled Al Gore’s movie as “propaganda” and are comparing him to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels..
Come on now, is this really going to turn into a mudslinging fight? Approaching this issue requires levelheaded insight into the data and if a crapstorm starts, that’s gonna obscure the real, hard work that needs to be done..
If anything, this attack cries desperation, and lends *more* credibility to Gore’s arguements…
Wahoo.
June 16th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
You’re exactly right! It *does* require top-down political will, but the only that can be achieved is through broad and thorough awareness about the issue. Yet, this is perhaps the single most important issue of our lifetime, and lots of people aren’t noticing!
There’s a new site dedicated to spreading An Inconvenient Truth and to get people out to the theaters (people can watch it for free). I don’t think it’s too late; tomorrow it opens in 400 more theaters as it expands across the country.
Anyway, I’d really appreciate if you took a look. I welcome your thoughts. The site is at http://sharethetruth.us and it *just* launched. It is NOT for profit whatsoever.
Thank you!
eric