Thoughts on "An Inconvenient Truth"

Some of you have already read this post on my myspace blog but I wanted to repost it here too.

Last night I saw "An Inconvenient Truth", the documentary about Al Gore & his powerpoint presentation on global warming. Maybe not becoming president was a good thing because now he's traveling the world & trying to get individuals to take some action about global warming. I really admire his passion on the subject. I wish he'd have showed some of this passion & humor while campaigning for president in 2000.

He admitted that he put too much faith in the democratic process to solve this issue. I knew that he had been interested in environmental issues but I had no idea that he'd been interested in it since the 1960s (before he was a politician). He wasn't pushy or whiney about it either. He just laid of the information & even joked about it at some points. How refreshing!

Even as a tree-hugging environmentalist, Gore's data enriched my knowledge & made me even more determined to do to further decrease my footprint on the planet (note to self: get my bike out of the basement & tune it up; plant more trees particularly in the southern hemisphere; & get solar panels for our house!). He did discuss the cyclical nature of global temperatures. Although it is a natural cycle to have hotter & cooler periods, based on historical data at this point higher our temperature & CO2 levels are higher than any other time. Based on current data, these numbers are expected to increase many times more than previous eras.

He also talked about the reasons people choose to discount the idea of climate change & global warming. One argument opponents often use is "the economy OR the environment". Even as a middle schooler I never could understand this whole idea. If we use up all the resources (fish, trees, etc), what are we going to use in the future? Well, if we total the planet, what are we going to need money for? We can have both economy & the environment. There's money to be made in the environment, either in saving money by using new, cleaner technologies or by new companies creating new or environmental technologies.

Interesting factoid that I just remembered from the film. There's a scene where Gore is talking about average Miles Per Gallon (MPG) for cars. The US has the lowest Miles Per Gallon for its cars in the world. Even China has higher standards! Meaning GM & Ford cannot sell our cars over there.

The issue is not too big for us to do something about. One by one we can do something about this! Gore also said that we can solve the climate crisis, just as we solved the hole in the ozone layer. And he gave examples of how we can do it; these were carried on into the closing credits.

Find out more for yourself. See "An Inconvenient Truth". Visit www.climatecrisis.net to see where it's playing & for ways to cut down your footprint. See the links I have on my website too; many are environmental or sustainability related.