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Tuesday, 08 August 2006 16:23 |
| | Meg Hale |
Alright, alright, so I really should have gotten around to seeing ?®An Inconvenient Truth?∆ before now, but really it??s been so hot, who wants to leave the house?
Seriously though, this is among the most amazing works of filmmaking I have seen in a long, long while. Everyone should see it and take their friends to see it and tell everyone they know to see it, and pay attention and absorb and change.
As
I watched it, I was torn as to how to write about it. Since it is more
of an enjoyable lecture, rather than a movie, what could I write about
it that wouldn??t be giving away the material? Would
writer/speaker/former Vice President Al Gore really want me informing
the public about the details of his lecture and potentially decreasing
his ticket sales?
During the end
credits of the film, Gore answered me. Listed were suggestions of how
an individual person can help the fight against global warming. Among
those suggestions were to inform everyone you know about the film and
what it says. Another was to write for your local newspaper on the
subject. However, I cannot possibly describe half of what the film
explains, nor can I do it with half the incomparable spokesmanship that
Gore does it with. You??ll have to see the movie to get that.
The film is the
embodiment of a slide show and lecture that Gore has been giving across
the globe for years. He says at the beginning of the movie that he
wanted to reach a broader audience and thought film would be an
effective media. With 2005 being the worst storm season America has
ever experienced, Gore felt now was the time to do it.
I was worried
that ?®An Inconvenient Truth?∆ would either be so dense in statistics and
technicalities that it would go over my head, or that its message would
be so hopeless that I would not even want to know about it. Neither was
true of the film.
I was amazed at
how easily accessible Gore makes it, with the help of director Davis
Guggenheim. I think small children would have made it through and
understood the better part of this movie. It contained a cartoon by
Matt Groening (?®The Simpsons?∆), great visual aids, real footage that
was stunning without being in any way graphic or disturbing.
Its message is
amazingly far from hopeless. Gore says that the fate of our planet is
not yet determined, but that we must act now to protect it. Within the
next 50 years, we will cross the point of no return environmentally, he
explained, adding that our government is not behind up in the fight
against global warming, citing that America is one of the few nations
not to join the Kyoto Agreement. We must fight the battle ourselves.
I was astounded
at some of the facts of global warming the film listed that I was
unaware of. For instance, did you know that Lake Chad, one of the
largest bodies of water on the African continent, is nearly dried up?
Were you aware that polar bears are drowning because they cannot find
ice drifts to climb onto to get out of the water? You remember all
those postcard-type images of the white snow-capped peaks of Mount
Kilimanjaro? It??s brown now.
I don??t know why
this isn??t on the national news every night. If things don??t change,
Gore??s research shows, deaths from global warming will rise to 300,000
people per year, within the next 25 years. Within the next 50 years, he
says, the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free, Antarctica and Greenland
gone, and the sea level of the planet could rise by over 20 feet,
swallowing up considerable parts of California, Florida and New York.
I watched this
stunning documentary and thought about what the world would be like if
this man, Al Gore, were actually in charge of the well-being of our
environment. Why couldn??t our country have elected him president? Oh
wait... we did!
?®An Inconvenient
Truth?∆ is gripping, bursting with information, funny at parts, moving
at parts. It was an all-around work of art that every American owes it
to themselves to see, or at least to visit the film??s website:
www.climatecrisis.net. This film gets all 6 of my 6 planets. Whatever
you have on your schedule for today, clear it and go see this movie.
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