Thursday, March 22, 2007

Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth


"An Inconvenient Truth" is a brilliant documentary of former Vice-President Al Gore’s Slide Show Presentation. The movie is compelling and definitely eye-opening as to the changes taking place on our planet. Director Davis Guggenheim presented it in a way that is far from boring and I really liked the way he gave us an intimate view of Al Gore and his thirty-year dedication, research, and passion to global warming awareness. Gore has presented his slide show, which is even longer than the movie slide-show presentation, to more than 1,000 audiences around the world. I have considered Al Gore to be an excellent journalist, a visionary, and a man with spirituality. I read his 1992 best-selling book, "Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit" and it, too, was brilliant and prophetic. Don and I mentioned Al Gore’s writing in our book, "Whispers From the Soul." Part of what Al Gore stated in his book’s chapter, "Environmentalism of the Spirit": "By experiencing nature in its fullest–our own and that of all creation–with our senses and with our spiritual imagination, we can glimpse, ‘bright shining as the sun,’ an infinite image of God."

Last week I was listening to talk radio and comments about how Gore was spreading fear with his presentation. That is far from my experience. What it demonstrates is urgency–urgency to do something about the increasing problems and dangers we now face with global warming, and to do something before it is too late to recover.

I would agree that some earth changes may be of a "natural" earth cycle, but it is now very evident from scientific evidence and scientific opinion that humans are responsible for damage being done to our environment, and the resulting effects are escalating at an alarming rate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control, made up of over 1,000 scientists from many countries, have now reported they have found a greater than 90% probability that humans are responsible for the increase in global warming. It appears that many who oppose that finding are connected in some way to special interests such as oil companies or large industrial corporations. The IPCC reports will be presented in June to world leaders at a summit in Belgium. I wonder how Bush will take the news of the reality of global warming? Will he dismiss it as he has other reports in the past?

Take time out to watch "An Inconvenient Truth" and share it with your children and grandchildren. Be sure to take the extra time to watch Al Gores’s update following the making of the DVD, and the commentary by Director Davis Guggenheim, and the one by the four producers. In watching the movie, I think you may agree with me and others that the movie was very deserving of an Academy Award. And I like Melissa Etheridge's orginial song for the movie, "I Need to Wake Up." We all need to wake up.

Former Congressman, Senator, and Vice President, Al Gore stated to Congress yesterday: "Our grandchildren are counting on us."

He’s right. It is up to us.
~ Linda

"What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man,
man belongs to the earth.
All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.
Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."
~ Chief Seattle (1786-1866)

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