An Inconvenient Truth
Directed by David Gugenheim
Summer, 2006
This past week, I went to see a film that has not been getting enough press. I went to see An Inconvenient Truth.
I wasn’t going to go. I didn’t vote for Gore in the last election, and while I had a vague sense of the threat of global warming from my high school geology classes, it wasn’t a topic I felt that strongly about. I care about the environment, sure, but I care about my immediate environment, too, and while saving the planet sounds great, I’m not about to sacrifice my air conditioning or my car. Besides, I’d heard the doom-and-gloom preaching of environmentalists before. I had no interest in sitting through an hour and a half of depressing news about the end of the world.
A friend of mine, though, a sane and level-headed guy in whom I place a great deal of trust, called me on Saturday and begged me to go see it. “Mandy. Please. I’ll buy you a ticket if you want. Or if you go and you don’t like it, I’ll refund whatever you paid. Believe me,” he said. “It’s important.”
Well, if he felt that strongly about it . . .
I dutifully bought my ticket, and found myself in a surprisingly full theater that Monday night. What were all these people coming to see? Bracing myself for an onslaught of despair-inducing monotony, I settled in – and soon found out.The movie was incredible. Even more so, it was important. While I was ambivalent about Gore’s transparent attempt to position himself for his next political move, I now firmly believe it would be utterly foolish not to take the message of his movie seriously. And I’m grateful for how deeply it touched me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that so clearly demonstrated how interconnected we all are. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that made me so strikingly aware of the relationships between not just all human beings, but all of life on Earth. It’s a movie that makes the petty differences we fight wars over seem silly, and small, and sad.
And to that end, it’s a sobering film. I don’t want to put forth the facts about global warming – which, if anything, is far too mild a term for what’s now coming to be known as the climate crisis. That information can be found at the movie’s web site (see below), or by searching the UN site for the term; though doubters might want to know that out of over 900 peer reviewed scientific articles on the topic of global warming, not one so much as questions its reality. (The media painted a different story: over half of all news articles presented the phenomenon as “controversial.”) I will say, though, that these facts beyond compelling, and beyond worrisome, and the damage that’s been wrought already is heartbreaking. The before-and-after shots of the glaciers in Europe, in Scandinavia, and in Canada were unbearably sad . . . once-gorgeous ice fields reduced to desolate plains. The images of some of the world’s largest lakes were even more tragic . . . these beautiful reservoirs totally drained, leaving desert where ports and fishing fleets once stood. And this does not even touch upon the disasters which are a demonstrable result: from the droughts and extreme temperatures worldwide, to nameable tragedies like Katrina, the scientific clout of the film is powerful.
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. – Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot. |
The movie doesn’t blame. There’s no criticism of the Bush administration, no finger-pointing at corporations or the current habits of those of us living in post-industrialized nations. Instead, Gore lays out study-after-unquestionable-study in a reasonable and matter-of-fact manner: melting ice flows, rising ocean temperatures, increasingly extreme weather patterns, and dying coral reefs. Our future is here. Blaming doesn’t help. All we can do is accept where we are, and act from there.
And we have, it seems, plenty of options. An Inconvenient Truth turns out to have a misleading title, because the solution to the problems are not as inconvenient as all that. We have a choice – an obvious one.
Because of this – incredibly! – the film is anything but depressing. It presents an inspiring, and so-easily attainable vision. It holds out a future that benefits not just the planet, but the American (and other Western) economies and humanity as a whole. Gore ends the film with an empowering message of how change is very possible, and that, if we all work together, it’s not just possible to turn things around, but probable.
I should add that it helps that the sincerity of his message is presented in language that’s often humorous. In one memorable scene, a slide from an earlier political discussion on the so-called choice between the environment and the economy is pictures. On the slide is a set of scales: on one side rests a stack of gold bars, and on the other, the entire planet. The sheer absurdity of this false choice was enough to garner out-loud laughs in the audience.
Which leads me to another point; namely, that it was the audience itself that gave me the most hope of all. There was such a wonderful showing of teenager and young adults, and their excited babble outside the theater after the movie would have alone been worth the cost of admission.
“My parents HAVE to see this!” one girl chirped. “I can’t BELIEVE what’s wrong with grown-ups!”
“No kidding,” her friend announced. “My parents leave the lights on constantly! And my mom drives to her friends and she lives only TWO BLOCKS away. I’m going home and making sure they know what they’re doing to MY future.”
“Well. I’m going to start biking.”
I felt so proud of those kids, and so hopeful for their future. I felt as though a generation had been presented with an incredible challenge, and that they were eager to take it on. While we’ve had important causes in the past – from women’s rights to civil rights to the spread of democracy – none of them compare to the vastness of this one. This issue is so much bigger than one country, or one group of people. This issue involves us all. Some seem to think An Inconvenient Truth as evidence that Gore is positioning himself for another run at the White House. I saw it as quite the reverse. The man's passion is NOT this one nation-state; he's concerned about the planet, and about humanity, and I think that (unfortunately!) the American public wants someone who puts the country first. I know that from a holistic perspective, the health of America depends on the health of the globe, but sadly, not all of us have this point of view.
But this is beside the point. Regardless of Gore’s motivations, I’m grateful to my friend for encouraging me to go see the movie. Whatever your political persuasion; whatever your beliefs about the future; however you plan to vote or spend your money; it’s worth seeing. Because An Inconvenient Truth is a gift. The perspective of looking at our beautiful little planet, suspended in space like some fragile blue pearl, is one with which everyone should be blessed. Watch it if you get a chance. And if you don’t like it, call me. I’ll refund your ticket.
