Q and I watched 'An Inconvenient Truth' last night narrated by the one, the only Al Gore. Who, by the way, has gotten rather large in the past few years. Wow.
Anyway, I enjoyed it. I usually enjoy documentaries, just like I enjoy nonfiction. I'm a believer in the world being much crazier on its own than anything we can make up.
A few criticisms:
1. I could have done without the Al Gore interjections. What does his run for presidency have to do with global warming? Why do I need to see him stroll through the post 9/11 airport security? I highly doubt he goes through like a normal American, anyway. I thought the material was good enough on its own. I didn't need Al's political opinions thrown in.
2. There's a part where he discusses the melting of Antarctica and Greenland. Very interesting, though I wasn't really surprised Florida, Manhattan and San Francisco would one day be underwater (that is if San Fran doesn't break off during an earthquake, right?). I've heard that before. What I wanted to know is how much the ocean levels in those areas have risen in the past few years. That wasn't ever addressed. Al even went so far as to discuss how much of Antarctica has melted already (the Larsen ice shelf) but never showed how/if this has affected these areas. I'm just curious.
Honestly, I think the thing that struck me the most was seeing how far behind the US is when it comes to reducing our effect on the planet. It's downright shameful. It's not as if we're not leading the way in being environmentally friendly. We're so far behind other countries. How is it that we're so darn great that we can go and take over other countries to make them more like us and 'free' them but we can't even figure out how to reduce our emissions?
In my opinion we have no right being anywhere else until we can blaze ahead of the rest and prove that we have something to offer other countries. When we're the ones lagging so far behind it's just ridiculous. I'm not saying we went into Iraq to help them be more environmentally friendly. I just think we have to have all our eggs in order in the basket before we go around 'helping' others.
I honestly hope more people see this video. I think we're so focused on ourselves, on making money at any cost that we don't even take a minute to think of how we could help the environment - how we could help anything outside our own lives. This country is so wrapped up with big oil that though we have the technology and the ability to make better cars and have cleaner industry we don't do it. It's scary.
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