Chrissa and I just finished watching An Inconvenient Truth. Not the most ground-shaking of documentaries because it isn't really a documentary. Not really. It is the film-version of Al Gore's slideshow presentation.
I felt like I was sitting in the audience of an Al Gore lecture.
So was it a good documentary? Nope. But was it interesting? Abosolutely (if you're into college lectures). I walked away feeling more knowledgable about the issue of global warming. I want to be more environmentally friendly, and am willing to vote "green". It seems the ethical thing to do. And I don't hear ethical arguments from the other side--only rejectionism and apathy.
There was a part of the lecture where it showed which U.S. states have passed laws to control CO2 emissions since the Federal government refuses to do anything about it... As the states lit up (California, Oregon, New England states...unsurprisingly) I was really proud of them. It almost made me want to become a Democrat. Almost.
8 years ago
2 comments:
If a documentary is interesting, I'd say that goes a long way toward making it a good documentary.
An Inconvenient Truth is a wake-up call. I was overwhelmed and depressed by its message, but if Gore still thinks there's a chance to yet turn things around, then I guess there's still hope.
It's disheartening that big business's misinformation campaign has put doubt in the public consciousness about the human causes of global warming, and sad that it's the same trick once used by the tobacco companies.
Surely. But a documentary usually follows a traditional format: e.g. actual news films or interviews accompanied by narration. The majority of the time this movie switched from Al Gore was to show graphs and charts directly from his slide presentation.
Since I was on this crusade kick today, I ended up talking about it at work...where about 60% of the office is militantly conservative.
So, of course, I got some flack for being a liberal. All I had to ask was one question: "Explain to me why it's ethical to drive a big car and not limit CO2 emissions." I stumped both guys I was talking to.
I forgot the fall-back argument: that it's not economically feasible to limit energy production or create low mileage cars. Well...we've been screwed for six years by oil companies. And the Japanese and European car companies seem to have learned how to build economic cars. I would guess (and I'm just guessing here) the reason our companies haven't developed cars is because it isn't in their best interest to do so. Maybe that's the cynic in me speaking...
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