Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth' Saves The World?

A Global Warning

The overwhelming consensus of climate experts is that global warming is accelerating. The polar ice caps are melting. Ocean levels are rising. Hurricanes are growing stronger. In "An Inconvenient Truth," both movie and book, Al Gore warns that within ten years Earth may be past the point of no return. If concerted action is not taken to drastically reduce carbon emissions worldwide there may be no way to stop disastrous acceleration and massive climate disruptions.

Will this be ignored as more "sky is falling" environmental handwringing, mere "liberal" rhetoric? Is the American public finally ready to deal with its energy "addiction"?

Roger Ebert Warms To 'Inconvenient Truth'

You already know the world is topsy-turvy when news programs are little more than celebrity gossip but Hollywood movie reviewers are exhorting climate change and energy policy. Here is an excerpt from Roger Ebert's review of "An Inconvenient Truth," June 2, 2006:

Paramount's Classics has committed 5% of their domestic theatrical gross for their film, "AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH," with a minimum guarantee of $500,000 to be donated to a new bipartisan climate effort, Alliance for Climate Protection. Alliance for Climate Protection will use the money for a major national education and organizing campaign to mobilize the public on global warming. The primary goals of the campaign are to motivate a critical mass of the public and influential constituencies to demand action to cut U.S. emissions and to make solving global warming a national political imperative.

Global warming is real.

It is caused by human activity.

Mankind and its governments must begin immediate action to halt and reverse it.

If we do nothing, in about 10 years the planet may reach a "tipping point" and begin a slide toward destruction of our civilization and most of the other species on this planet.

After that point is reached, it would be too late for any action. "There is no controversy about these facts," he says in the film. "Out of 925 recent articles in peer-review scientific journals about global warming, there was no disagreement. Zero."

"The world won't 'end' overnight in 10 years," Gore says. "But a point will have been passed, and there will be an irreversible slide into destruction."

What can we do? Switch to and encourage the development of alternative energy sources: Solar, wind, tidal, and, yes, nuclear. Move quickly toward hybrid and electric cars. Pour money into public transit, and subsidize the fares. Save energy in our houses. I did a funny thing when I came home after seeing "An Inconvenient Truth." I went around the house turning off the lights.

No Nukes Al

The nuclear power industry says theirs is the best "solution" to the carbon emissions problem. Gore counters to Dave Roberts that nuclear energy won't replace oil or coal:

"I doubt nuclear power will play a much larger role than it does now. There are serious problems that have to be solved, and they are not limited to the long-term waste-storage issue and the vulnerability-to-terrorist-attack issue. Let's assume for the sake of argument that both of those problems can be solved. We still have other issues. For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program. And... we'd have to put them in so many places we'd run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale. And we'd run short of uranium, unless they went to a breeder cycle or something like it, which would increase the risk of weapons-grade material being available."

From Grist, May 9, 2006, www.grist.org.

Gore On Election Fraud

Why didn't Gore fight harder during the Florida recount which denied him the presidency in 2000? John Heilemann extracted this compelling admission:

Does he, like many Democrats, think the election was stolen?

Gore pauses a long time and stares into the middle distance. "There may come a time when I speak on that," Gore says, "but it's not now; I need more time to frame it carefully if I do." Gore sighs. "In our system, there's no intermediate step between a definitive Supreme Court decision and violent revolution."

Later, I put the question of Gore's views on the matter to David Boies, his lawyer in the Florida-recount battle. "He thought the court's ruling was wrong and obviously political," Boies says. So he considers the election stolen? "I think he does—and he's right."

From New York Magazine, 5/29/06, www.newyorkmetro.com/news/politics/17065

Robert Redford's Grassroots Environmentalism

"Instead of dwelling on the big picture, let's pull it down to a manageable scale. Let's bring it home, right down into our communities. If each family and community addresses the situation with available solutions—by reducing their energy consumption, carpooling, recycling and voting for informed politicians—together, we can solve this problem."
                         ----Robert Redford, actor and activist

From Mother Earth News, Dec/Jan 2006, reprinted in Adbusters, March/April 2006.

Now Read The Book...

An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, is our candidate for coffee-table "book of the month" among the environmental chic. Yes, it's a basic primer, perhaps overloaded with graphics, maybe too "pretty." Yet it may be environmentalists' last, best chance to warn the U.S. electorate of earth's fragility ---before it's too late.

Global Warming Dissenters

College Republican chapters across the country have been hosting "Global Cooling Day" events to debunk media "myths" about global warming. Party on with sand, girls in bikinis, even free snow cones! As the Pentagon secretly plans to fight resource wars based on likely climate change scenarios, most of these rich kids should be able to spend future spring breaks in balmy Canada! Photo courtesy of College Republican National Committee. (www.crnc.org)

Al Gore claims that there is zero doubt within the scientific community as to the reality of global warming, but that overblown media debates are being manufactured by oil companies and other vested interests. One such eloquent dissenter is Michael Crighton, science fiction writer and moviemaker, ("Westworld," "Jurassic Park.") In his new book State of Fear, Crighton compares global warming to the discredited racist theory of eugenics, using adjectives such as "quirky" and "pseudoscience," and conjuring visions of genocide. Crighton, a medical doctor with no direct expertise in global warming but a penchant for generating publicity, has thus become a prominent anti-global warming expert. He was, in fact, the only "expert" on the topic that George Bush was willing to meet with recently at the White House. Al Gore's public invitation to screen his movie for the president and his staff was roundly ignored.