If Not Now, When?

Last evening I had the pleasure of previewing a remarkable film: An Inconvenient Truth, directed by Davis Guggenheim and produced by Lawrence Bender. Bender attended the showing and afterwards answered questions from the small group of TED invitees.

The film is a 100 minute documentary that captures Al Gore's amazing slide show chronicling the climate crisis we call "global warming." I saw Gore deliver most of this material at the TED Conference in February, so I had a vague feeling that the film might feel slightly redundant.

I was wrong for two reasons.

First, there is so much information packed into the presentation that it is simply not possible to absorb it all in one viewing. I picked up many facts and nuances that got by me the first time.

Second, the filmmakers create emotional momentum by interspersing Gore's personal reminisences and scenes of him delivering the presentation to audiences around the world. The overall effect is very powerful.

There's so much to say that it's hard to know where to begin. Maybe near the end.

Gore believes there are three key psychological obstacles preventing Americans (in particular) from demanding action on global warming:

1. There is controversy about the science. - Anyone who only watches TV and reads major news outlets (read: most of us), probably believes global warming is either an unproven hypothesis or a reflection of "cyclical changes" that have occurred before. That's because a study Gore cites found that while every single one of 938 articles published in peer-reviewed journals supported the rise of global temperature as a result of human activity, 53% of pieces presented in popular media expressed skepticism  about warming. So, there is no controversy about the climate crisis science: the planet is warming (10 of the hottest years ever recorded have occurred in the last 14 years); this warming is a result of unprecedented CO₂ levels in the atmosphere due to human behavior ("unprecedented" is not hyperbole, as current levels are higher than any found in polar ice samples going back at least 400,000 years).
2. We have to choose between the economy and the environment. - Hobson would have loved this one. The argument goes as follows: in order to restrict emissions we need to cut power consumption which means losing jobs. In fact, alternative energy innovation and development will create jobs, especially as the economics of $71/bbl oil (as of today, stay tuned) increase fossil-fuel-based energy costs. By the way, the auto industry's leaders have shamefully fought gas mileage standards for decades, only to find themselves in the bizarre position of being unable to sell automobiles in China today because our vehicles cannot meet today's Chinese pollution requirements. So, the economic impact of not producing environmentally sustainable products will soon become an issue for more and more American industries.
3. The problem is too big to fix. - As Gore puts it in the film, "this is when we go directly from denial to despair." Fact is, we have the technology today to reduce CO₂ emissions to 1972 levels, significantly stopping environmental  deterioration. The ClimateCrisis.net website (about to be re-launched with enhanced features) details many things that ordinary people like ourselves can do to reduce our "carbon footprint" and slow warming. Granted, the scenes of huge chunks of ice calving off Arctic, Antarctica and Greenland iceshelves is disconcerting. But not as disconcerting as it would be if we were to do nothing and see something like the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf completely break up.

By the way, I know the article I linked to in the previous sentence is lengthy, but it is EXTREMELY informative. Here's one quote from it:

Climate change models usually predict gradual, continuous change, but real-life impacts are not continuous. Changes can be relatively small, and then suddenly you can move to a new threshold. This ice shelf survived 3,000 years of human civilization, but now it’s gone.

An Inconvenient Truth will be showing at the Cannes Film Festival in May and is scheduled for its New York debut on May 24, with a national roll-out to take place through the July 4 weekend. Last night we heard some of the promotional plans for the film, which we'll be revealing as the release date grows closer. Suffice it to say that you will be hearing a lot of buzz about this movie. I can't urge you to see it strongly enough. If you have any doubts about the severity of the problem we face, they will be erased after seeing this movie.

I'll close with a question Al Gore posed in the film:

If we don't do something about this problem now, sometime in the future our children and grandchildren will ask, "What were they thinking?"

Tags: An Inconvenient Truth TED Conference Al Gore Lawrence Bender

Comments

[China Law Blog]

I have heard Gore holds up China as having better emission standards than the United States. This is a joke.

China is an environmental disaster and it is not because of its laws. It is because of the lack of enforcement of the laws. China’s care emission laws may be better than the United States’, but that is basically irrelevant because there are a huge number of cars there whose emissions would probably not meet anyone’s standards.

[Tom Guarriello]

Thanks, China Law Blog. Gore does hold up China's automobile emission standards as an exemplary. But, as you indicate, unenforced standards aren't much good. And millions of old cars that don't meet modern requirements make all those standards meaningless. Gore's point was that China is "grappling" with the potential environmental disaster that awaits it if that nation allows itself to grow like Topsy. If that grappling is nothing but lies, the problem will be a bigger one than Al Gore having egg on his face.

[منتديات]

good standards meaningless. Gore's point was that China is "grappling" with the potential environmental disaster