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Local News & Opinion
Ref. : Local Newsbriefs Travel
Letters
Ref. : Letters to the editor Open Letters:
03.05 Open Letter to Congressman Bart Stupak Health & Environment
Video National Health Care Systems In Other Countries 03.18 Pressure Drop: Brave Sir Dennis Ran Away 03.12 Slick Barry and the $100-Billion Medicaid/Medicare Fraud Claim 03.09 Kill Bill: Death to Obamacare! 03.09 Obama’s Rhetoric May Be “Fiery,” But His Health Care Reform Is Still Lukewarm Media Watching
03.17 CNN Scrapes Bottom of Right-Wing Barrel With Erickson Hire 03.16 WPost Blames Obama First, on Israel 03.16 Letter to the New York Times' Editor: Stovepiping To Persia 03.12 Cud and Complicity: Burying the Alternatives to Empire's Dominion 03.11 NYT and the ACORN Hoax 03.05 Sorry, Rove, Bush Did Lie About Iraq 03.03 It's Snow News 03.03 The Woeful Washington Post Ref. : The Daily Howler Legal Matters
02.26 America's Supremes: Court Over Constitution US Politics, Policy & Culture
03.11 Power Rangers: Policing the System With the "Fightin' Progressives" 03.09 Thinking About Countings 03.07 Unnatural Acts: Breaking the Fever of Militarism 02.25 Future Shock: A Better World Beyond the Imperium High Crimes?
03.18 The Lawfare Project's Anti-Democratic Agenda 03.16 America's Secret Prisons 03.13 Palestinian Dispossession in East Jerusalem 03.12 Israeli Settlement Expansions Continue 03.11 Brutalizing Palestinian Children 03.08 The Russell Tribunal on Palestine: Barcelona Session 03.05 Targeting Israeli Apartheid 03.01 America's Permanent War Agenda 02.25 Global Sweatshop Wage Slavery Economics & Business Non/Mis/Malfeasance
03.14 The Crisis in America's Telecommunications Network 03.09 The Business of Water: Privatizing An Essential Resource 03.05 Is the Recovery Real? 03.04 IMF-Style Austerity Measures come to America: What “Fiscal Responsibility” Means To You 03.04 Barry C. Lynn's "Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and Economics of Destruction" 03.01 Thinking About Fees International
03.15 Peace Process Hypocrisy: Stillborn from Inception 03.03 Muslim Disunity 03.02 Funding Israeli Militarism, Belligerence and Occupation 02.26 Iran Captures a 'Good' Terrorist We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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FILM REVIEW:This Man Has Something To Tell UsGore's "An Inconvenient Truth"We’re conditioned not to realize that Al Qaeda’s worst attack is like a mosquito bite compared to what Mother Nature can do when aroused.
Calling Davis Guggenheim’s "An Inconvenient Truth" “just a film of a slide lecture” is the ultimate reductivism. Al Gore’s lecture around which the documentary is built is an impressive performance, but also the result of a lifetime of passionate commitment to the environment.We’re conditioned not to realize that Al Qaeda’s worst attack is like a mosquito bite compared to what Mother Nature can do when aroused. As Gore offhandedly puts it, 9/11 was a terrible event, but maybe we ought to worry about other threats besides terrorism. There’s a scientific consensus that climate change is currently dramatic, and that the major element in it is human and therefore reversible. It’s also obvious that the US is the major contributor to global pollution, but is unable to deal with climate-caused disasters when they come, as the material and human damage done in the Gulf region last year by Hurricane Katrina vividly illustrates. Most dire and dramatic of the possible human outcomes of global warming: flooding of urban centers and settled lands resulting in displacement of as many as 100 million people.
Gore says ‘this is a moral issue, not a political issue.” Since it’s become clear that the current US administration favors bad science and fundamentalist Christianity over up-to-date fact, and global warming is nothing if it is not an up-to-date fact, let’s say it’s a scientific and a political issue that overrides politics with its moral imperatives. To do nothing now is to doom future generations to horrible consequences, even extinction.According to Gore, it's a major misconception that there's serious disagreement among scientists about climate change and the human role in it, a myth perpetrated by popular journalism. He cites a check of over 900 scientific articles related to global warming that found zero that questioned its existence; and another check of 500-odd popular articles that showed 53% presenting it as uncertain. (The truth is that some scientists disagree, but they are in a small minority.) Another claim Gore deals with is that the US auto industry is holding its place by having bad emission standards. Given that GM and Chrysler are failing, this argument appears specious. We’re like the frog in water slowly heated up to boiling that doesn’t know to jump out, Gore says.
We’re like the frog in water slowly heated up to boiling that doesn’t know to jump out, Gore says. Though the climate changes in fact are extremely rapid, they aren’t perceived as such, but Gore hopes we will still be jolted, as his father was jolted to stop raising tobacco when his older sister died of lung cancer.As a Congressman, Gore tells us he thought his fellow politicians would see the urgency of ecological destruction. But they didn’t. They tend to set aside any matter that isn’t prominent in the minds of their constituents. Al Gore quotes Upton Sinclair: "It is hard to get a man to understand something, if his living depends on him not understanding it." À propos of this, Gore gives the notable example of the Bush environmental official who altered scientific statements, then, forced to resign, went to work for Exxon Mobil the next day. It’s interesting to contrast Gore’s obvious clarity about science with those other leaders who favor bad science that they don’t understand. A Gore administration would have been very different, one hopes, and his joking introduction, "You know me: I used to be the next President of the United States" is a sad reminder of that. Al Gore quotes Upton Sinclair: "It is hard to get a man to understand something, if his living depends on him not understanding it."
The film opens and closes with a beautiful country scene in summer by a riverbank with everything quiet, verdant and blooming. It ends with the wish that our grandchildren don’t have to look back and wish we’d done something.Despite this film’s accomplished quality--its sharpness and conviction, its smooth flow--it has some obvious drawbacks. One of these is its focus on Gore’s own personal history, and even the fact that Gore himself is unabashedly at the center of it. His unifying presence, and his forthright identity, make everything a political as well as scientific and moral issue. The film might even be seen, and in some circles is being seen, as a push to get him re-nominated by the Democrats for President. But as has been pointed out, the Dems lock-step voted against Kyoto ratification. In fact, Gore comes though as calm, passionate, rational, and smart; he’s not the people-pleaser that Clinton is, but may have more real warmth. Gore has become more outspoken, strong, free, his own man since his “defeat.” And that shows in his appealing speaking here. But still unfortunately, Gore’s reputation as numbingly boring, though belied by this film, may put off some people from watching it. Those who ignore that reputation will be surprised at the wit, humor, and personal honesty of the man--and at his hope. Gore believes that there is hope, but in this film there is more about the basic phenomenon and less about what we can do about it--which is almost presented as an afterthought, since such suggestions for individual action are peppered through the closing credits rather than contained in the body of the future. There could be more about popular campaigns to change policy as well as about the policies of other nations' governments. Overall there is more emphasis on the problem than on the response. And there is the same danger most committed documentaries have: of preaching to the converted, and alienating conservatives and non-believers in the facts, the more because it’s the last Democratic nominee for President presenting them. And yet for Gore to pretend political non-affiliation would be un-candid. It’s essential to his commitment that he should be all he is in his presentation. This is a powerful film, whatever its faults. And that not all will be swayed by it doesn’t make it unimportant, but underlines the need for it. ©Chris Knipp 2006. See Chris Knipp's website for more information about his creative work, and to contact him.
Copyright © 2006 The Baltimore Chronicle.
All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on June 23, 2006. |
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