Rating: 3 1/2 stars (out of 4)
Al Gore. I voted against him in 2000. And up until 2 years ago, I'd have agreed with naysayers who might have suggested that we'd have been in serious trouble after 9/11 if we had a President Gore instead of a President Bush. I might have even said that myself. I was wrong. We'd have been better off with San Francisco running back Frank Gore as president rather than Mr. Bush, but perhaps that misses the point about Al Gore. After watching this brilliant documentary, which was admittedly biased, I'd say we really missed out on electing a President Gore. And I'd vote for him if he ran in 2008. He is a serious man addressing an incredibly serious subject with foresight and intelligence and - shocking as it is in politics today - honesty. He also comes across as very self-effacing (a trait not exactly shared by our current president) and funny and most of all, optimistic that we can overcome the horrible tragedies that await our civilization if global warming continues unchecked.
That's actually the most shocking thing I've realized about conservatives since I awakened politically in the last 2 years - they are the most self-defeating, pessimistic, judgmental, and hypocritical human beings in our country. They believe most people are evil, that we can only overcome that evil with force, and that in the end, we're all going to die in some magical prophecied armageddon that will only save the most judgmental and evil among us (apparently) and not the people actually concerned about the poor or the homeless or the environment or the wildlife or those who actually have hopes that humans can aspire to greater things than a higher stock market. All right, I've digressed here, but it's true -- if you're voting Republican still, that's the side you're on. Just wanted to let you know.
The movie? Oh yeah, that's right. It's about global warming, and the reason for my anger with conservatives is that I bought their rhetoric for years about how it was overstated or overblown or just plain didn't exist. Many Republicans, including the outgoing chairman of the Senate committee in charge of the environment (James Inhofe - Idiot, OK) thinks all of global warming is a "hoax" and that as long as God is still up there, he'll save us from ourselves. That's what he said. That's his official stance on the subject. Un-freaking-believable. But when you are told repeatedly that global warming is some leftist agenda by the "environmentalist whackos" who care more about the elk in Alaska than human beings, and the mainstream media does nothing to refute those claims, it's hard not to be convinced. So go watch this movie and learn the truth. It may enlighten you about other things on conservative agendas, and whether or not they are bought and paid for by some corporate constituency (cough health care cough).
The movie is basically a documentary of Al Gore's "slide show" that he's been performing in front of audiences for upwards of 20 years, long before the actual "results" of global warming have become so apparent worldwide in the past 5 years. The most powerful part of the slide show, and the documentary, comes early, when images of mountaintops that were snow-covered in pictures 100 years ago are now barren rocks 100 years later at the same time of year. More powerful are the pictures of great glacial formations from different periods, and how they've all but disappeared. Some famous glacier in North America is all but gone. A lake in Russia that was once the 4th largest in the country is now barren desert. It's pretty shocking and scary. And not at all able to be refuted.
Other memorable portions include graphs showing average temperatures and CO2 levels over the past 5 million or so years. Now, much of conservative Christian theology is based on the Earth only being about 5,000 years old and humans and dinosaurs living together on the planet, so they'll probably have trouble grasping this topic (and any topic involving reality, although oddly, these people are helping to run the most powerful country in the world in 2006), but for everyone with a thinking brain, these studies taken from ice cores show an almost perfect correlation between CO2 levels and temperature. They also show that fluctuations throughout 
history have always been within a certain range, even during supposed global warming stretches in the middle ages often cited by conservative apologists. The shocking part is how much - just in the last 5-10 years - the CO2 levels have shot up. I don't remember the specific figures, but throughout history, they varied between 10 and 150 parts per million or something and never topped 150 ever. In the entire 5 million year history of the earth. They're now at 350. Or at least they were when this was filmed. Temperature rise will follow - and has already started, with temperatures rising several degrees in the past 10 years, and every single one of the top 10 temperatures for a year in the history of Earth being recorded in the past 20 years. These are not good things.
So the earth is getting warmer. Why is that bad? Well, basically, if the trend continues, the glaciers at the polar icecaps will melt (they've already started), oceans will rise, air currents will change, and if you ever saw The Day After Tomorrow, that doesn't begin to look as fictional anymore. The increase in storm activity and record-high temperatures are the very start of the effects. We're already into the first chapters of the book of the end of civilization unless we stop warming the planet. Not good times.
Now, where the film is a bit lacking is in producing details on how we stop this from happening. It makes sense - we have to convince the public that this is a problem before we can get the public to address it - but it did leave me a little wanting. But the basic message is that the technology exists today, without any significant changes to our lifestyles or effects to the economy, to put a stop to the rise of CO2 levels and roll them back to the levels of a decade or so ago (before we were seeing the effects in terms of temperature and storm activity). Did you know, for instance, that MPG standards for cars in China - a 3rd world country that we often blame for the growing environmental crisis - are actually higher than our standards? Most American cars could not even be sold in China. The California plan to reduce emissions by raising MPG standards that is being fought tooth-and-nail by the auto industry is actually only expected to reach China's current levels by 2016. We're nowhere near Japan and other forward-thinking nations. And oh yeah, did you hear about the huge economic crises at GM and Ford due to their reliance on gas-guzzling SUVs, while Toyota and Nissan and Honda are thriving? Any connection?
Longer term solutions, like eliminating the use of carbon fuels, are only glossed upon, but I believe offer a great opportunity for both economic and environmental growth, as well as reducing our interests in the Middle East, basically a win-win-win that is being ignored by the public, or at least by the current oil-enriched government. In short - all right, I know this post wasn't short, but this documentary had me incensed by the end of it that we are letting this happen - is that you need to go rent and watch this movie. There are some suggestions during the final credits for ways in which citizens can do things to help themselves. One of them is to tell friends and family about this issue. So this is what I'm telling you... go watch this movie. You won't be disappointed.
Oh and I just heard that an ice shelf the size of Manhattan broke off somewhere in Canada and is floating out to sea. Not good times.
Amen brother, amen.
Posted by: F GWB | January 01, 2007 at 10:00 PM
Iraq will be the deciding factor among the Democratic candidates in 2008, and Hillary and Edwards were both flat wrong on the subject. More and more it looks like it will be Al Gore's election to lose, please see www.minor-ripper.blogspot.com
Posted by: MinorRipper | January 02, 2007 at 05:51 PM