An Ill-Communicated Truth
Just got home from a screening of Al Gore’s new movie on global warming.
The movie itself was fine. It was essentially a playback of the global warming warning slide show Al’s been giving around the globe for years, interspersed with some personal history and footage of political conflict, for context. And to break up the speech, I imagine.
The message wasn’t anything new – global warming is a problem backed by science. Lots and lots and lots and lots of science. You know. Science. The enemy of big business, the current administration, and apparently, Jesus. Gore has an naivety about him that is charming. He’s just so genuinely astonished that not only is the threat of global warming not making much of an impact, but that it is categorically muddled and ignored, for political gain.
The film is a little too long, but Gore is surprisingly engaging and funny, when you consider his wooden reputation.
No, the movie was perfectly fine. It was the Q&A session, afterwards, that has me typing away like a good little enraged blogger, instead of in bed, getting rested for my alarm to go off at 4 a.m.
They assemble a panel – a politician, a volunteer from Greenpeace, another one from the Audubon Society, and a marine biologist from Barcelona, studying at U of M. I saw next to her during the movie and we chatted beforehand. She was bright and passionate.
First question, blond girl in the front section. “In such a corrupt political administration, how can we make the political process work FOR our cause, instead of against it?” Fine. Jackass a few rows behind me loudly replies, “VOTE.” Great. A trite, dismissive answer. Thanks for speaking up, dude.
None of the panelists had a very good answer either, though, and the Audubon Society dude seized the opportunity to ramble, in great length and detail, about a county effort to support the Kyoto treaty. Fine, but… not really what she was asking, I don’t think.
Next question. British woman a few rows behind me, other side of the theater. That really close-cropped shocking red hair that looks like a helmet. When women get their hair dyed that color, does the lipstick that is an exact match of the hair color come free with the dye job, or do they have to search department stores until they get it right? Just wondering, because it appears to be de rigeur.
This cunt asks each panelist to step to the mic and state whether or not their car is more than five years old, whether or not they own a bicycle, whether or not they use public transit, and whether or not they recycle.
Oh, great! An environmental pissing contest! Just try to aim the streams toward that pile of compost over there, okay?
The best part of this answer is that my respect level for my peers skyrocketed when about half the audience got up and left.
There wasn’t much chance to recover after this. Some stupid questions about whether or not schools can get this movie to show their students RIGHT NOW (no, there are these things called “production rights” and “theater releases”) and hey! Every politician and all their aides should see it, too! (This completely ignores Al’s point – the politicos know this shit. They’re deliberately ignoring it. Also, the guy who made this statement said, “At least the aides – surely the politicians would listen to these warnings when it’s coming from THEIR OWN AIDES. Well, no. Aides are for copy-making, email-answering, coffee-brewing, and occasional forays into anal sex. Idiot.) I glanced behind me – redhead bitch and her friend took off after they cleared out the audience, themselves. Assholes.
The panel discussion quickly divulged into lectures about how we should “turn out the lights when you leave the room” and “turn off your computers at night.”
You know. To save energy.
I walked out of that theater hating pretty much everyone in the room, and with an even clearer (now with a crisp, realtime anecdote!) understanding of why these types of movements fail.
I just hope Al and I have time to talk about it more, when I interview him about An Inconvenient Truth tomorrow morning.