Inconvenient truth

I'm back at work for the new year and getting ready to go on a learning and service trip with the Miami Scholar Leaders tomorrow. We are going to Memphis to do a variety of things including service at St. Jude Children's Hospital, visiting the National Civil Rights Museum, dropping by Graceland, and meeting with participants in the SmartCity movement that is underway. I'll post on the trip later but I had to offer a post on a film I saw during the holiday break - "Inconvenient Truth."

"Inconvenient Truth" is a documentary of Al Gore's lecture about global warming. It is an extremely sobering and jolting analysis of indicators that the Earth is in a very dangerous downward spiral of environmental conditions. The evidence Gore provides is difficult to dispute, even though some will interpret the film as politically motivated. I bought a copy of the film because I hope to encourage everyone I encounter to view it. We owe it to ourselves to become informed, affirm or dispute the evidence, and then take action. If the film is correct, the advance of global warming is faster than scientists expected and, while many of us thought the effects would not be seen until later generations, there is some evidence that global conditions are already showing the signs.

For more information, go to Inconvenient Truth for specifics, reviews, etc. There are lots of reasons why the U.S.A. doesn't want to recognize the possibility that Al Gore is correct. The U.S.A. and Australia are the only two developed countries who have been unwilling to adopt the Kyoto Accord, an initiative that would require more stringent greenhouse gas emissions controls. The oil producers and auto industry in the U.S.A. would be effected if the U.S.A. signed on to Kyoto. Signing would require them to begin exploring alternative fuels and it would require probably more fuel efficient and smaller autos and trucks. Requiring our U.S.A. manufacturers to face the reality that our industrial ignorance and arrogance only achieve short-sighted economic gain while selling future generations down the drain is one possibility. What other views about emissions control and global warming are available to us?

I would love to hear others' thoughts about "Inconvenient Truth" and the questions it raises. I do not claim expertise in this area but the film certainly got my attention.