An Inconvenient Truth

Yesterday, A and I went to see Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth. First off, we paid full matinee price which is really out of our usual cheapie theatre mode. AND IT WAS WORTH EVERY PENNY (won't hear me say that about many movies! :-)). This is one scary movie. The dvd is being released in December and I will buy it to loan out to people. Here is a link to Entertainment Weekly's cover story on Al Gore and the movie.

I voted for Gore in 2000. I wasn't happy about it but I sure wasn't going to vote for Dubya - I wasn't dumb enough to buy what the Repugs were selling. My issues with Gore were that I felt he was too compromised - he wanted the presidency so badly. He was too packaged, too self-aware, too deliberate. I felt he would make dishonest compromises in his desire to win. I now believe that if we had seen the Gore that I saw yesterday in AIT, it wouldn't have mattered that the Repugs stole Florida. Gore would have swept the nation. The man is smart, passionate and convincing. He has convinced both Andrew and I that we need to start making some changes in our lifestyles.

At one point in the film, he discusses why global warming, in spite of the scientific consensus of the situation's urgency, isn't a major political issue. He says that politicians and people don't want to know. If they know and understand the issue, it becomes a moral imperative that action be taken. The actions that will rectify the situations will entail uncomfortable change. It sounds so counter intuitive. Will people ignore an urgent problem because they just don't want to deal with making change? I believe so. I always think about a family member of mine when we were discussing the issue of factory farming and mechanized slaughter houses. She told me she didn't want to know, didn't want to hear what was happening because she liked to eat meat and wanted to continue doing so. Oh, by the way, here is a little website for all you meat eaters to visit, Meet your meat. Are you going to ignore the reality so you can keep living in your comfortable little world? Or are you going to be enough of an intelligent, caring and compassionate person to make a change?
As a parting thought.....can any of us imagine what Shrub might be doing 8 years from now? Watch this film. Try to imagine this man doing what Al Gore is.