Nature is the Framework of Your Greenhouse
I decided to watch Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth tonight, so I figured why not write some more while I'm downtown. Au Bon Pain has wireless, but not real dinner food. Yogurt and croissant: temporary stopgap measures. There are veggie chicken patties at home, and bread.
This is a watchable and compelling movie, and unless you already don't like Al Gore you probably won't be put off by the political-autobiography-document element in it. (There are lots of lingering shots of Gore peering thoughtfully into his laptop.) I would recommend seeing it.
Obviously there's not a lot of really deep analysis in the film — mostly it's an elaboration of the "hockey stick" graphs for temperature & CO2 content of the atmosphere, and a relation of the various problems at hand: sea levels rising, ocean currents being interrupted, hurricanes getting worse. Gore speaks forcefully and well.
Gore's tack is an optimistic kind of urgency. He doesn't touch on the extent to which damage is already done, or changes are already inevitable. Obviously we can't radically draw down the carbon that's already in the atmosphere. Ignoring this makes sense, because it's a political film, and he needs to make a point about taking action. On the other hand, this aspect of the situation is why we're probably doomed.
(There was a series of articles in the New Yorker last year about global warming. I didn't read all of them, but I remember a strong emphasis placed on self-perpetuating changes. Gore touches on one example of this: Arctic ice cap shrinkage increases ocean absorption of heat, speeding warming further. My impression is that whatever's going on, we're basically going to have to watch it happen for a few decades at least. I need to learn more about this.)
Gore devotes a good portion of time to describing the danger of Greenland melting. Here's an article from today's LA Times about how Greenland is melting.
One of the tips displayed at the end of the film affirms that "You can work to reduce your own carbon emissions, even to zero." I'm going to go ahead & assume that they aren't talking about the breathing-related emissions here.
I think the personal action to take is to Future-Proof Your Life. Try not to have children; if you already have children, tell yourself they wouldn't have amounted to anything anyway. If in fifty years, everything has gone to hell, say to yourself, "I knew this was gonna happen." And if it hasn't gone to hell, say, "I'm too old and bitter to enjoy this."
Also, a side note: whoever is in charge of music for Oliver Stone's World Trade Center movie needs to get as far away as possible from the buttery string orchestra music used in the preview. People will, you know, probably remember that it's supposed to be sad anyway.
This is a watchable and compelling movie, and unless you already don't like Al Gore you probably won't be put off by the political-autobiography-document element in it. (There are lots of lingering shots of Gore peering thoughtfully into his laptop.) I would recommend seeing it.
Obviously there's not a lot of really deep analysis in the film — mostly it's an elaboration of the "hockey stick" graphs for temperature & CO2 content of the atmosphere, and a relation of the various problems at hand: sea levels rising, ocean currents being interrupted, hurricanes getting worse. Gore speaks forcefully and well.
Gore's tack is an optimistic kind of urgency. He doesn't touch on the extent to which damage is already done, or changes are already inevitable. Obviously we can't radically draw down the carbon that's already in the atmosphere. Ignoring this makes sense, because it's a political film, and he needs to make a point about taking action. On the other hand, this aspect of the situation is why we're probably doomed.
(There was a series of articles in the New Yorker last year about global warming. I didn't read all of them, but I remember a strong emphasis placed on self-perpetuating changes. Gore touches on one example of this: Arctic ice cap shrinkage increases ocean absorption of heat, speeding warming further. My impression is that whatever's going on, we're basically going to have to watch it happen for a few decades at least. I need to learn more about this.)
Gore devotes a good portion of time to describing the danger of Greenland melting. Here's an article from today's LA Times about how Greenland is melting.
One of the tips displayed at the end of the film affirms that "You can work to reduce your own carbon emissions, even to zero." I'm going to go ahead & assume that they aren't talking about the breathing-related emissions here.
I think the personal action to take is to Future-Proof Your Life. Try not to have children; if you already have children, tell yourself they wouldn't have amounted to anything anyway. If in fifty years, everything has gone to hell, say to yourself, "I knew this was gonna happen." And if it hasn't gone to hell, say, "I'm too old and bitter to enjoy this."
Also, a side note: whoever is in charge of music for Oliver Stone's World Trade Center movie needs to get as far away as possible from the buttery string orchestra music used in the preview. People will, you know, probably remember that it's supposed to be sad anyway.
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