by Elizabeth Bauchhner

Last Saturday I went to Cinemapolis to see an Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary film about global warming. One of my preconceptions about the film was that it would serve more as a PR piece for Gore—and indeed I did think about that during the film.

However, later I realized that Gore really has been speaking out on this issue since the 1970s, and besides, he's not running for anything right now, so the movie really doesn't have that feeling of direct political overtones.

The movie revolves around live footage of Gore giving what he calls a "slide show"—which is really a multi-media presentation on global warming—and is interspersed with Gore's personal narratives about his boyhood, his family, tragedy, and life's lessons: in short, what made him an environmentalist.

The slide show details all the science pointing to a global warming catastrophe: melting glaciers, disappearance of wildlife, increased hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and drought. 2005 was the hottest year on record. 2005 showed a marked increase in catastrophes around the world, including of course, Katrina.

But the most important message in the film is that we're causing this to happen. We—as in the global population, but especially those of us in the US—are dumping tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere everyday, mostly from our cars and our factories, but also from our appliances in our homes. This carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere around the earth and then traps in heat from the sun.

Conservatives—ironically enough—pass many of his claims off as "junk science." And Gore does not get into the "other side" much at all, though obviously global warming is a non-partisan issue. His film is clearly an advocacy piece and his message is strong: we need to change our lifestyles to stop global warming.

But can it really be done?

This is where I question the science. I don't doubt that our excessive energy use is leading to global warming. Even if Gore's claims were only one-fifth accurate, if only one-fifth of the projected melting of Greenland's ice caps melt, wouldn’t that still be tragic enough? What about one-tenth? So even if the science exaggerates the claims, I don't doubt that we are starting to cook the planet. In fact, the science now shows that the ice is melting faster than projected just a few years ago.

What I do doubt is if we can completely switch our technology in time to stop it from happening and preserve what's left. And even if we could, I doubt the collective will of the people of the United States to drastically change their lifestyles without some top down legislation. This brings me to what I doubt the most: that our congress will step up to the plate and pass legislation requiring real change.

I'm not cynical. I don't think its cynicism when I doubt our collective will. I think I’m simply observing what is happening. Congress spends $87 billion per year extra on the Iraq war, on top of billions we already spend yearly on our defense budget, but they can't bring themselves to pass legislation requiring the automobile industry to make cars with higher mileage standards.

Meanwhile, we North Americans sit around watching TV all day, eating junk food with our air conditioners turned up, leaving the house to drive a mile to the grocery store. 

Still, there are a lot of US citizens working for change and doing their best to save energy—Mayor Carolyn Peterson joined over two hundred other US mayors in signing on to the Kyoto treaty—but we still need some pretty big, top down changes before we'll see real environmental conservation. We need leaders who can get the masses to turn down their thermostats and stop driving so much.

In the end, I think the film could have focused more on solutions, but let's not hold our breath and wait for congress to do something. Let's start with our homes and our own lifestyles.

For ideas, go to:
http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/carboncalculator.asp