An Inconvenient Truth

Mark and I watched “An Inconvenient Truth” last week. It’s a documentary of sorts; it’s Al Gore’s movie about global warming, and it was pretty scary what is projected to happen in the foreseeable future.

What I find most interesting about the experience is that I was a touch bored with the movie while Mark was entirely captivated. See, my BS is in Environmental Engineering, so I’ve known for 20 years the perils due this world if its population—mainly the United States—doesn’t “wake up” soon and limit its emissions of carbon dioxide and other green-house gases.

Since global warming is such a problem, I assumed that everyone in the general public was familiar it: what it is, what causes it, what we can do to lessen it. In fact, I remember Mark saying some years ago that he thought it was just a hoax or just a natural ebb in our environmental health that would naturally fix itself. So I thought he was basing that opinion on some knowledge of the facts.

But in “An Inconvenient Truth” Gore tells about an extensive literature review that was undertaken, the results finding that 0% of scientific papers concerning global warming were in doubt of its seriousness while 52% of articles written by the general media cast a shadow on the authenticity of the problem.

I think that was eye-opening for Mark, that he formed his opinion after reading an article written by someone ignorant on the issue, at best, or by someone spreading propaganda, at worst.

At the end of the movie, text flashed on the screen with ideas to help slow global warming. One of those ideas was to get as many people as you can to watch “An Inconvenient Truth,” and Mark, Mr. Doesn’t-Get-Excited-About-Much, is spreading the word.

Another of the ideas was to pray that our leaders realize the seriousness of the issue before it’s too late and that they legislate change. That’s what I’m doing, besides the creed by which we live:

Reducing what we need
Reusing what we have and
Recycling what we already used.

What can you do?