An Inconvenient Truth

So tonight I saw the film An Inconvenient Truth at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis. I expected it to be pretty good. I expected myself to mostly agree with the points of Gore and his film. I expected to feel exactly how I do right now. Selfish, no wait--> Frustrated, umm--> Moved, yeah. And then--> Hopeful?

Hopeful... After seeing a film like An Inconvenient Truth (or even more obscurely, a film like any of Michael Moore's) there's always that glimmer of hope... that feeling that can sometimes last all the way until the lights come up... which is about when I realize that I'm about to enter back into the cruel, indifferent, REAL world where nobody cares about anything enough to do anything, including myself .

Soon enough I cycle back to my natural state of broader/global/moral reflection: selfish and frustrated.

But not this time. Not yet!

Maybe it's just good timing, but I'm still hopeful a full hour after seeing this film! By good timing I mean that I can feel the real possibility of this film's effect on society. Good timing because on the way home from the movie the analysts on NPR were talking about the likely tilt to the left American politics. I feel more faith in the world to do right after seeing this movie.

Maybe that's because it's just a good movie. Gore does a good job of restoring our faith in each other with this film by reminding us what we've done already, what we are doing now. So many bearers of these messages are so eager to throw their truth and their facts and their consequences at you that you end up flying by HOPE on your way from cluelessness to wary frustration. Gore mentions this himself and combats it by reminding us of our previous battles. Like CFCs. Remember them? And the unstoppable, life threatening hole in the Ozone. According to Gore, the measures taken globally, and especially in the US to cut down on CFCs alleviated the problem, which was far beyond the scientists' goal to merely slow it. A battle we won, and never heard much about after the fact, besides it not killing anyone... Weird how we don't publicly celebrate that fact after fearing the possibilities of CFC pollution for years.

Lastly, I liked how Gore took on the opposition to his theories, or lack thereof. Everyone of us, I'm sure, can rattle off some theory on how Global Warming isn't happening; that it's just a natural cycle; whatever. In Gore's research he found that 100% of scientist will say that Global Warming is at least partially attributed to human activity. AND that it is a problem! Personally, I would have taken 75%. That number doesn't really matter. The point though, that OVERWHELMINGLY, the science community agrees on this matter. There's enough evidence to say that it's worth doing something about, and that it doesn't really matter if they ever find the exact contribution of humanity. Any account of Global Warming not being caused by humans is brought to our attention by the media, and is really an excuse for inaction brought on by some energy conglomerate.

Ok, that's getting a little Oliver Stone, but seriously! It seems like a ploy that all of the focus on Global Warming in the media is about 'the cause', because it seems like whatever the cause, if we don't do something we're screwed.

And a cherry on top. This was a good movie. Well paced. Gore was a little corny, but you could tell it was only because he's so damned serious about this. You should see this movie. Go to its website. Tell your friends.