Getting Warm?
Gore's "Truth" Shall Make Ye Free/Movie Review:/ “An Inconvenient Truth,” /Paramount Pictures, at Trinity
Theater. /
Despite the offer of free popcorn to all who attended, Al Gore’s
documentary on global warming drew only sparse audiences during its
week-long run here. Well, what can you expect with a title like that?
Hard to say which word – “inconvenient” or “truth” – would be more of a
turn-off to summer block-buster crowds.
As theater managers Ken and Ann Hill were spooling up the film for its
Weaverville debut matinee, CDF dispatchers were broadcasting first
reports of last week’s Junction Fire. By opening night, the theater –
along with much of the rest of town – had to be evacuated. Even after
the “all clear” signal the following day, “people just had too much on
their minds, what with the fire and all, to come out for a movie like
this,” as Ann Hill charitably interpreted the low attendance.
If so, then Weavervillians were simply learning, by a different medium,
the same inconvenient truths that Gore is trying to tell us, namely:
o global warming is incontrovertibly real
o it is already wreaking havoc right here, right now
o our lifestyle and policy choices do affect the long-term
macro-climate, and
o ignoring the problem only makes the mayhem worse.
Lest there be any doubt that this is the clear message of the ongoing
increase in wildfires throughout the county and all over the American
West in recent decades, check out the latest paper on the subject in the
top-tier academic journal /Science./ The number of fires has quadrupled
in the last 30 years, with 2005 the worst fire season to date, a record
that looks likely to be overturned this year. The research, jointly
sponsored by Federal and California state agencies, found that rising
temperatures (with concomitantly longer fire seasons and drier fuels)
account for far more of the increased wildfire damage than such other
contributory factors as land-use patterns or fire management practices.
What makes this sort of truth all the more inconvenient is that it’s a
little subtler and trickier to understand than a straightforward,
mechanistic cause-and-effect story. It’s a statistical inference, which
is how science proceeds – and also how Gore proceeds in his film. Much
to his credit, he never pretends to make more than a probabilistic case.
But he builds that case meticulously and compellingly. He pulls no
punches and never talks down to us. At the same time, he does everything
he can – with humor, anecdotes, graphs, pictures and ingenious
animations – to make the evidence intuitively accessible to all.
Especially effective are the segments explaining how an effect like ice
cap shrinkage can accelerate as a self-reinforcing vicious cycle.
For someone derided as a stiff in the 2,000 presidential campaign, the
new, cinematic Gore comes off as relaxed and natural, even warm and
witty. Could it be that he was never really such a geek to begin with?
Or has he ripened during his long sojourn in the political wilderness?
Or maybe now that he’s not a candidate or a party standard-bearer
anymore, he no longer needs to hedge and triangulate on a whole gamut of
questions. At last he’s free of his handlers, free to home in on one
issue that he passionately cares about and to speak out in his own
eloquent and urgent voice.
The urgency is spurred by the incalculable downside of continued
American inaction on the climate crisis. Gore debunks the pretense that
there remains any controversy about the dangers of global warming, at
least in informed opinion (as opposed to the special pleadings of vested
interests). He also refutes the claim that the problem’s so vast that
there’s nothing we can do about it. He lists an array of realistic steps
that can be taken to mitigate the worst effects: everything from
stricter vehicle and powerplant emission standards to massive reforestation.
None of this sounds easy, but – given the appalling alternative – how
can we afford to ignore any available remedies? Unless, of course, you
believe the world is immanently about to end. In which case, you deserve
no say-so in public policy debates since you have no stake in any
earthly future, which is, after all, what public policy is all about.
As Gore points out in his final, ringing, call to action, we already
have in hand a range of options to considerably mitigate the dangers.
All that is needed is the political will. “And in America,” he adds,
“political will is a renewable resource.”
I wish I could share his touching faith. But, since Gore has been
idealistic enough to make such a fervent plea, I guess the least I can
do is to suspend my disbelief long enough to write this review. Maybe
/The Journal/ will even make bold to print it.
“/An Inconvenient Truth/” serves as (yet another) wake up call to
anybody out there who cares to hear. It’s also a poignant reminder of
the caliber of leadership we might have had instead of our current
Bozo-in Chief. How, on the climate crisis as on so many other global
issues, have we become the nub of the world’s problem rather than a
leader towards solutions?
Labels: Reviews
