"Florida Gov. Jeb Bush met with scientists last week to discuss the possible connection between global warming and increased hurricane activity, but said he’ll pass on seeing Al Gore’s global warming documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth.'
'No, I’m not going to do that,' he replied when asked by a reporter if he’d see the movie.
Bush then offered a short review of the new movie 'X-Men: The Last Stand,' which he called 'excellent.' "
-- NexsMax.com
Typical.
I'm really not surprised. Today I watched Al Gore's cinematic presentation on global warming -- it didn't really give me much more information that I hadn't already read as a copy editor or researched my own on the Internet. But the film was really eye-opening nonetheless. The move was part slideshow, part indictment, part confession -- and it really gave an unexpected look at Gore himself.
I couldn't help but ask myself "What if?" What if he had won 2000? Would the country be in a better place than we are now?
Who knows. But if he had won, I guess he wouldn't have appeared in one of my favorite episodes of "Futurama," a global warming episode called "Crimes of the Hot," which was written by his daughter Kristen, where he was introduced as "the inventor of the environment and first emperor of the moon: Al Gore," and also my favorite all-time quote from him, which you can hear by clicking on my blogger profile and playing the audio clip.
How could this man have lost to W? Hell, he couldn't carry his own state!
As I sat in the movie theater, which was about 95 percent empty, I felt sad that he is not my president, and sad that he isn't running in 2008. He wants to continue his fight against global warming, and that makes me sad, too.
Sad because as well-done as his film is, the only ones who will see it are the ones who don't need educating/convincing. I told people in the newsroom that I had gone to see "An Inconvenient Truth." I was laughed at, and told by several that they would make a point of not seeing the film. And what do they have against Al Gore?
He's a Democrat. Never mind that he's presenting the issue as a moral dilemma rather than a political one. (OK, he does take some shots at the Bush Administration, and even puts in a clip of Oklahoma's own Jim Inhofe, calling global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
And that makes me feel it's just as well Al Gore wasn't elected president in 2000. I wonder whether our country deserves him.
LF: $102.82
11 comments:
Make a point of not seeing it, huh? And they said that as if it was a point of honor? I can imagine people being too apathetic to bother seeing it. But seeing yourself as virtuous for wearing blinders is a bit beyond me. I would hope that at least people associated with a news organization would be a bit curious. There are so many people in this country who insist on seeing global warming as nothing more than some kind of political ploy. As their position becomes increasingly untenable, they just get more strident and narrow-minded.
As to Gore as president, I think it would have just been a case of not-as-bad-as-Bush. Gore does have a real commitment to environmental issues, but I don’t think he has very strong political skills. How would he ever have been able to budge the House or Senate? Clinton never submitted the Kyoto accord for ratification. Gore would not have “unsigned” it, but he probably would not have submitted it either.
By the way, if you are interested in climate change issues, and want to get closer to the science, here is an excellent site:
http://www.realclimate.org/
It was totally appalling, but after being in the newspaper business for a few years, I'm not surprised the highest paid journalists are the ones who job is to give opinions, not report facts.
I think there's a lot of truth about Gore not being as bad as Bush at that point. To me, that was the confession part of "An Inconvenient Truth." He conceeded his own naivity and compromises he made when he could have had stronger convictions. I think he'd be a better candidate in 2008, but I think he's going to stick to what he is saying now and isn't going to run.
And thanks for the link, DW. Unfortunately I'm still a slave to my car because I can't afford a hybrid at this point, and while I'd like to get a scooter, it's not practical for the amount of long-distance driving I have to do on a daily basis. I even looked at biodiesel/veggie oil cars, but I can't afford those right now either.
I’ve never bought the complaints that the media has a pervasive left or right bias. The bigger problem seems to be that it is more in the business of serving up prepackaged press releases by whoever or whatever can afford to fund the spin. And then there are the opinion pieces you mention. They tend to be thin on facts and shoot from the hip. So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that Gore is not keen to get back into the sound-bite world of running for office and is focusing instead on venues that offer enough time to really advance an argument.
Cars. I’m planning soon to replace my very old and poor mileage truck with something maybe 15 years newer. You would think I could get a big jump in mileage as a result. But, no, the improvement is going to be slight and mostly from switching to a smaller size truck. If both the Republicans and Democrats hadn’t dropped the ball back in the early ‘80s, I would now be able to buy a cheap, used, hybrid truck with much better mileage. So perhaps 15 years into the future I’ll finally be able to buy a used one....
I never understood the animosity toward Al Gore, even from so-called liberals — all the remarks about how he was boring and wooden, etc. I found him to be a very smart, articulate, confident public speaker who was quite passionate about many things. He was so hands-down superior to W in discussing political issues that it floored me when commentators would try to figure out who "won" a presidential debate between the two. There was no contest.
I read an article once about how Gore came back from Vietnam and spent a lot of time backpacking across the U.S. with Tipper. They were just kids. But he really loved this country and its natural resources and its people. I mean, he was very similar to Bush in that they were both the rich sons of famous men, but Gore found no appeal in the country-club, old-boy crowd that Bush hung out with and eventually became a puppet for.
Gore Sr. made his son work the tobacco fields growing up. And he served as a war correspondent in Vietnam - a fellow journalist. He even worked for the Tennessean as a reporter for five years.
Back to the tobacco fields: It was actually a poignant point in the film was when he discussed the excuses his family made for growing tobacco after the surgeon general's warning. He felt if they had heeded the warnings, maybe his sister wouldn't have died of lung cancer. He compares that with heeding the signs of global warming.
Hey, look for JN's review of the Gore film in Friday's Pulse!
How 'bout a preview? Did he like it or bash it?
OK, hold on.
I saw the Gore film in an old movie theater here that some people have just revived to run as an independent place. Hope they can make a go of it.
Perhaps the film should have made even more use of the tobacco comparison. Many people probably get more from Gore’s talking about his own family’s involvement with tobacco than they do from the parade of facts that he presents. They prefer the flesh and blood.
The global warming deniers are using an advertising campaign that is very similar to the one that the tobacco industry used to lie about the risks of smoking. This was mentioned in the film, I wonder if Gore gives it more emphasis in his show.
But here is one of my pet peeves: Why do so many people call the far side of the moon the DARK side of the moon? In the picture Gore used, it was obvious that on the day in question half of the far of the moon was light and half was dark.
So anyway, I hope lots of people go see this movie.
Yeah, the tobacco comparison to me was very poignant; that was explaining it at a very personal level. The facts he presented didn't hit me that hard because it wasn't stuff I hadn't really heard before.
However, when he had to get on that raised platform to extend the projected temperatures, that did get a lot of reaction from the other people in the audience.
Hey, I know I am a bit late on this, but I ran across this trailer that the folks from Futurerama made about this movie...Pretty funny...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BjrOi4vF24
-Chris
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