Women's Crossroads

Al Gore’s new documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth” is really a must-see. Like Michael Moore’s documentaries, Gore's film is an unabashed polemic. He is determined to raise public awareness about the impending global climate crisis, and he does an amazing job at making and presenting his case.

The film is based on a slide show presentation that Gore has delivered, he says in the film, “more than a thousand times” in towns and cities across the world. There is also a companion book which has just come out, containing many of the same images from the slide show and film, and going into slightly more depth on some of the issues.

Basically, in all three media, Gore’s message is the same: human activity on the planet is endangering the global ecosystem in ways that may quickly become irreversible.

To me, the scariest image he presents is the chart of carbon dioxide levels over the past 650,000 years (as determined by scientists taking ice core records in Antarctica). Laid out before you is a record of previous Ice Ages and warm spells, which occur at fairly regular intervals every 100,000 years or so. At no time in the past 650,000 years did the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere exceed 300 parts per million.

Today, Gore shows, we are rapidly closing in on 400 parts per million. In less than 50 years, if the current rate of global warming continues unabated, our atmosphere will contain more than 600 parts per million of carbon dioxide.

“There is no fact, date or number [in this chart] that is controversial in any way or in dispute by anybody,” Gore asserts in the book commentary that accompanies this dramatic chart. “To the extent that there is a controversy at all, it is that a few people in some of the less responsible coal, oil, and utility companies say, ‘So what? That’s not going to cause any problem.’ But if we allow this to happen, it would be deeply and unforgivably immoral. It would condemn the coming generations to a catastrophically diminished future.”

Gore’s presentation goes on to show how we can measure demonstrably that global warming is occurring rapidly (a point also shown by Elizabeth Kolbert in her series of New Yorker articles on the topic, now published as a book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe (Bloomsbury, 2006).

He points to 2005 as the hottest year since temperatures were reliably recorded, in 1880, and argues that it is no accident that we’ve seen a surge in violent storms like Katrina as the oceans heat up.

He shows, with satellite images, photographs and charts, that the polar ice caps are indeed rapidly melting, along with all the remaining glaciers and snow-capped peaks in the world. If the current rate of melting ice continues, the oceans will rise 20 feet, deluging many low-lying countries and changing the coastlines of every continent. Millions of people who rely on glacial melt to feed the rivers that provide water for drinking and a multitude of other uses will find themselves acutely short of fresh water within the next 50 years.

Coral reefs will die off, touching off imbalances in the entire ocean-based food chain. “We are facing,” Gore says, “what biologists are beginning to describe as a mass extinction crisis, with a rate of extinction now 1,000 times higher than the normal background rate.”

Diseases and infestations are becoming ever more severe—one dramatic photograph Gore shows is of a few of the “14 million acres of spruce trees in Alaska and British Columbia that have been killed by bark beetles, whose rapid spread was once slowed by colder and longer winters.”

As the film goes on, the news gets worse and worse. You can tell from Gore’s face that he doesn’t enjoy being the bearer of such bad tidings. You can tell that the only reason he’s up there in front of us doing his damnedest to get our attention is because he cares so deeply for the planet and all its denizens, including us, that he feels he has no choice.

Indeed, in the film Gore comes off as more human than he ever appeared during his presidential campaign in 2000, and also more heroic. He is a lonely prophet for our times, and he is someone we need to be listening too.

My only disappointment with Gore's crusade is that he does not go far enough in casting blame on the politicians and corporate leaders who have gotten us into this mess. He talks about the logging of the rain forest and shows us dramatic pictures of clearcuts in places like Washington state or the Amazon, but doesn’t talk about the timber companies that have lobbied hard to maintain their right to clearcut, and played hardball with activists who have sought to bring attention to their destructive activities (see, for example, Julia Butterfly Hill’s foundation website for information, Circle of Life.org).

He talks about destructive mining and agricultural practices, but again, points no fingers at the companies who are the worst culprits. No mention is made of giants like Monsanto, for example, which is behind the spread of GMO seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides through the world.

He does take the Bush administration to task for putting greedy short-term gains above longterm, sustainable energy solutions. Officials in the Bush-Cheney administration, Gore says, “have attempted to silence scientists working for the government who, like James Hansen at NASA, have tried to warn about the extreme danger we are facing. They have appointed ‘skeptics’ recommended by oil companies to key positions, from which they can prevent action against global warming. As our principal negotiators in international forums, these skeptics can prevent agreement on a worldwide response to global warming,” as has happened with the Kyoto Treaty, which Gore helped to draft. The Kyoto Treaty has been ratified by 132 nations, but not by the United States or Australia.

Both the book and the film end on a note of hope, which is most welcome after the depressing and shocking information Gore has presented. Gore shows that with the implementation of fairly simple policy measures, including increased vehicle fuel efficiency, more efficient use of electricity in heating and cooling systems, increased reliance on renewable energy technologies like wind and biofuels, and stronger pollution controls on power plants and industrial activities, we could reduce carbon dioxide emissions to a point below 1970s levels.

What’s needed above all is the political will to accomplish the changes in policy, and that’s where we, the citizens come in. Both book and film end with a long list of what we can do to work towards change. All of this information is available on the accompanying website, Climate Crisis.org.

Truly this is an issue that puts all our other concerns in stark perspective. “This is what’s at stake,” Gore concludes. “Our ability to live on planet Earth—to have a future as a civilization.”

We cannot afford to let things slide any further.

PS: After this renewed and much more intimate exposure to Al Gore Jr., I would vote for him again for President in a heartbeat. Will he run? Could he win? It remains to be seen.

PPS: An interested, related video discussion is available from YouTube.com.