I’ve just finished watching An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary about global warming by Al Gore.
Toward the start of the documentary, Al Gore presents a little bit of history about himself. One particular anecdote is about two teachers he had when he was at school; one he disliked and the other who he thought was a bit of a hero. The hero teacher presented his class with some pretty staggering information some thirty to forty years ago that sets the tone for the rest of the documentary.
The staggering information that Al Gore learned about all that time ago had to do with the levels of carbon dioxide in the Earths atmosphere. The teacher presented his findings, which were collected over a six to eight year period and when graphed told a very strong story. Since the 1970’s, the human civilisation has had a profound impact on the Earth and if we don’t change what we’re doing now; there isn’t going to be much of an Earth left for our children or theirs.
One thing that I thought was quite interesting that he pointed out was that the petroleum companies are trying to swing the opinion of the public such that global warming is an idea or myth and not fact. Al Gore says that doubt is their weapon and that if they could put enough doubt into everyones mind that they would not worry about it and just keep doing what they are doing at the moment. Funny he should mention that in his speech because last night I read about a think tank (funded by Exxon/Mobil) that are paying $10,000 to essentially debunk global warming.
I really enjoyed the documentary and it opened my eyes to just how far down the rabbit hole the world is at the moment. If you’re interested and you should be, you can rent it from your local video shop.
And other good retailers… *cough* http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=Inconvenient+Truth
I did think it was very well done… although perhaps a bit too doomsday-ish. It may have been slightly better presented if he had allowed the ‘other side’ a bit of a chance to try (and fail) to convince us that GW doesn’t exist, but at least he does provide a few simple steps you can take every day to help do your bit.
Liam,
The thing I thought was so ‘shocking’ about it was that he openly admitted that it had to start with the U.S of A getting their house in order. The U.S of A are not the kind to lay blame at their own feet often; so it was kind of shocking/refreshing to see someone who held such a high position in the country lay the blame squarely on their own doorstep.
Al.