"An Inconvenient Truth" (my review)

Yesterday I saw _An Inconvenient Truth_ and then went to a meeting about volunteering for Katrina cleanup in New Orleans. You connect the dots.

Anyway, here's the review:

In Seamus Deane's novel Reading in the Dark, an English priest comes to a Catholic boys' school in Derry to give a presentation about the Catholic Church's role in battling the menace of international communism. He begins by talking about a local geographical feature, then moves outward by steps until he's reached the sphere of worldwide geopolitics. The students are baffled and derisive; they have no idea what their home has to do with any of the balderdash he's spouting. Later, when one of the students asks one of his regular teachers what all that stuff about Derry was about, the teacher gets very irritated. The speaker, he explains, was trying to get them to see the big picture by starting with something they knew and were familiar with--their local landscape--and moving from that to something they were unfamiliar with. This, he explains, is a pedagaogical technique. While the teacher is ranting, and telling everyone to write down "pedagogical technique," the narrator thinks about what this all means. He's not impressed with the call to arms against Communism; but the structure of the speech seems to offer something important, something he's been looking for. "Global vision," he finally says. "I needed that."

An Inconvenient Truth works the same way, and also offers us global vision--something which, paradoxically, we have lost a grip on as the economic phenomenon of "globalization" becomes ever more striking. Most of the ways in which we experience globalization have to do with making the world smaller--virtualizing it, dematerializing it, neutralizing geography through high-speed telecommunications and same-day shipping. An Inconvenient Truth reintroduces us to the world as planet, as material, as an immense and complex system governed by physical laws that all the technology we can invent will never be able to bend. And it makes the point that global vision--a perspective from which concern over national boundaries, geopolitical conflict, and the fates of specific industries or technologies is effaced by a shared commitment to our common welfare as inhabitants of the same planet--is not a crazy liberals' pipe dream, but a matter of basic survival.

In most ways, An Inconvenient Truth is a pretty simple film. The basic structure is provided by Gore's slide presentation on global warming, which is included (I imagine) in its entirety in the film. That story is occasionally broken up when a particular element of the talk provides a springboard into a diversion about Gore's biography or his efforts to try to get Congress to recognize and act on global warming or the history of the scientific investigation into climate change or his ruminations on the preciousness of life and the earth and the dangers of ignoring the warning signals. The film uses a few basic narrative tricks to create more interest (showing you images of Gore working on a new slide but not explaining it, then showing you the slide in context later on; using footage from several different iterations of the talk; voiceovers; etc). The only voice you ever hear, apart from some audience reaction, is Gore's.

As I write that paragraph it seems like this film should have been extremely boring. But it isn't, and that's because the lack of bells, whistles, MTV-style editing, and whatnot actually allows the film to present, slowly and clearly and at a level which is accessible without being condescending, the evidence that all the scientists and many of the politicians in the world's other nations have used to draw the conclusion that if we keep on the way we're going, we're going to destroy the planet as we know it. And because the film actually makes you believe that the planet is in danger, it doesn't need a lot of fancy camerawork to keep you on the edge of your seat. Because the more you find out, the more badly you want to get to the happy ending.

In feel, the film reminds me a lot of the PBS science shows I used to watch as a kid--particularly Cosmos, which is referenced early when Gore alludes to Carl Sagan. Watching it I found myself occasionally getting nostalgic for the experience of learning about the universe for the first time--black holes, galaxies, the red shift, the big bang, relativity, gravity and time. Thanks to advances in graphic imaging, however, Gore has better graphics. As the film progresses the charts and graphs and images projected on the wall behind him start to take on a kind of life, unfurling along the wall, growing up toward the ceiling, pulsing. The film makes the writing on the wall as vivid, urgent, and compelling to the viewer as it obviously has been to Gore. It has managed to make the graph--the static, inscrutable emblem of crushing boredom and failed pedagogy--cinematic.

And that is one thing I really like about this film--that it does actually teach you. I went in already knowing the basic mechanisms of global warming. But you find out a lot more than you knew about how the process works and what the possible consequences are--and in the process, you learn a lot of stuff about how the earth works as an ecosystem which is, in and of itself, damn cool. Gore starts the program by talking about his discovery of the global warming issue in college, where he took a course from a professor who was one of the first scientists to study trends in the rise of carbon dioxide. The graph this professor showed his class at that moment becomes one of the film's visual motifs, and despite some of the campaign-bio hagiography done around Gore himself the film does convince you that there is, underneath whatever political positioning is going on here, a sincere conviction which is the result of learning something that profoundly affected him. In that sense and on many levels, this film gets beyond all the politicized crap that gets slung in Washington about education and shows us what education means and why it matters. Afterwards, I told Liza that this is exactly why the Republicans generally and the Bush administration and the neocons in particular are always attacking university professors for being too leftist and "liberal." In their perfect world, there would be no professors like that one--people who are willing and able to show their students something they've discovered which makes them question what they already know about the world. And that way, they wouldn't ever have to deal with the kids who grow up to be politicians who want to change the way things work.

Apart from the planet and the graphs, Gore is the film's only character. And the film's not-always-subtle positioning of him as heroic underdog does sometimes grate; but frankly, as you watch the evidence unroll, you can start to sympathize. Sure, Gore is a politician; and sure, 2008 is part of why and how this film got made. But the film includes material from the 2000 election, from Bush's first inauguration, from speeches by Reagan and GHWB, and--because they are responsible in so many ways for so much of the "skeptical" literature about global warming--from the documents generated by Bush's enviornmental and energy "advisors." And it argues that, in fact, it does matter which politician you put in charge of the country. Now we knew that already, of course. But the contrast between the way the film shows Gore approaching the issue of global warming and the way Bush "approaches" it really drives home with bitter clarity the scale of that electoral disaster. I personally am not that inspired by the warmly lit shots of Gore standing on his family's farm in Tennessee gazing meditatively at natural beauty. I don't believe in heroes any more. But I do believe that if Gore had been inagurated in 2000 instead of Bush, the country and the planet would be in better shape. In 2000, we the American Democrats didn't just lose the White House. We, the people on this planet, lost BIG.

One of the useful things this film does is expose the inisidiousness of the "fair and balanced" approach to media coverage of an important issue like this. Toward the end of the film, as Gore starts addressing the "skeptic" argument, he contrasts the picture generated by the mass media with the picture generated by scientific studies in peer-reviewed journals. Of nearly 1000 scientific articles about global warming published in the past few years, 0, count 'em, 0 percent disagree with the conclusion that increased buildup of greenhouse gases is raising the planet's temperature. Of the nearly 700 articles from the US media surveyed, more than half express reservations about that conclusion.

Now, for those who don't hang around academics all day, I want to explain what Gore means by "peer-reviewed," because it's important. A peer-reviewed scientific journal is one where the editors and readers who make decisions about what to publish are themselves credentialed scientists. Peer-reviewed journals put submissions through a screening process whereby they are evaluated by qualified professionals in the field, who recommend for or against publication on the basis of whether the science is sound and whether the conclusions are important. Naturally scientific journals want to publish studies that generate a lot of interest; but they are trying to generate that interest in the scientific community, and in order for scientists to get excited about a conclusion they have to be persuaded by the research behind it.

Peer-reviewed articles are thus held to a different and much more rigorous standard of proof than scientific articles that come out in mainstream media sources, where the only way most editors have of testing the validity of one expert's research is to talk to another expert. The imperative to be "objective," or more accurately to present the appearance of being politically neutral, encourages editors and producers to keep calling up 'experts' until they can find someone willing to argue 'the other side.' But--and this is the point of this part of Gore's presentation--on global warming, within the community of scientific professionals who are competent to evaluate the evidence, there is no other side. The only 'experts' on the 'other side' are the mouthpieces who are paid to be there, either by the Bush administration or by the petroleum and automotive industries. So these media articles that purport to show you "both sides" of the global warming debate are not so much showing you the other side of the issue as generating it.

In one of the season two episodes of Blackadder, the protagonist is forced for various reasons to embark on a long and dangerous sea voyage under the leadership of an insane old salt named Captain Rum. One of the early warning signs is the fact the ship has no crew. Blackadder intimates to Rum that he had always assumed that it was a good idea, if you're going to go to sea for several months, to take a crew with you. "Opinion is divided on the subject," says Rum. "All the other captains say it is, and I say it ain't."

Opinion on global warming is divided in much the same way--just like opinion on "intelligent design," which has zero currency in the scientific community but plenty in the political sphere. You knew that the Bush administration's vigorous attempt to shift the country and the media to a "faith-based" view of the world was going to eventually sink the US; this film reminds us that it can also eventually sink the planet. Despite the film's digressions about population growth and clearance fires in the developing world, it returns to the point that the US is the single biggest generator of greenhouse gases on the planet. The global vision, the international effort to combat climate change, is already there; we just refuse to join it. We can take the lead when it comes to preemptive war, but on this issue, we are apparently determined to be left behind.

The film tries to leaven the sense of doom and despair with humor and with a closing section (which extends into the credits) that lays out specific things that can be done individually and collectively to start reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But it is a wakeup call. I think it will reach more people because of Katrina than it would have a few years ago. Liza was talking afterwards about the analogy the film makes between the 'controversy' generated by the tobacco industry over the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer and the 'controversy' generated by the energy industry and their paid lackeys over climate change. She said that people realized the tobacco companies were full of shit because they were losing their people to lung cancer and it all became personal. I said that I think for a lot of people in the US, Katrina has made it personal. Nobody wants what happened to New Orleans to turn out to have been just the beginning. And that might even be enough to get some people into the theater who don't personally like Al Gore. I don't know. I hope someday more people in this country will realize that the message is more important than the messenger; but I hope for a lot of shit I'm not going to get.

Anyway. Go see it, that's the short story. It will teach you something important, no matter who you are.

The Plaid Adder

yes thank you

updated list of theaters from 06/01/06

http://www.climatecrisis.net/findatheater/ait_theatersbystate.pdf

Having read P.A.'s review, I really want to see it. Closest theaters are Chico and Santa Rosa, both over 1.5 hours away. :-(

include a location in my area.

but not anymore - 06/16/06 is my day to see it _ I can hardly wait :)

Of the differences between Al Gore and GWB. It’s humorous that only the morning before I went to see this movie someone was telling me there is no real difference between the political party’s. This movie clearly illustrates the difference and why the GOP is bad for America… heck the world.

Changed all my lightbulbs to compact fluorescent...seems silly, easy...it is. Saves a LOT of energy.

Also, for a mere $12 a month, I have offset all of the C02 produced by my household and 2 autos. Go to Native Energy to find out more. Basically you are investing in a wind farm, and purchasing energy credits from that farm to offset your own less clean energy use. Makes sense.

Also have been reading about plug-in hybrid technology...more info at Cal Cars. First commercially available plug in hybrid conversion is for the '04 prius, to get 100 to 200 MPG!!! It is being done by E Drive Systems.

I was dissapointed that the film did not mention animal agriculture as a leading cause of global warming pollution. It certainly is, and cutting back on meat & dairy is not only good for the planet, it's good for you as well. Read how Environmentalists are Overlooking Vegetarianism as the Most Effective Tool Against Climate Change in Our Lifetimes for more info.

I heard about plug-in hybrids recently. I recently bought a 2003 Prius, it has enough room for me inside, contrary to what I thought. It's fun to drive and I don't have to pay the oil companies as much!

Yes, vegetarianism helps the environment, it requires far fewer resources to produce vegetarian food (land, energy, water).

It will be the 16th before I can see it.

:kick:

I am going to see it for sure now!

It doesn't show in my area , which is a major city, until 2 weeks from now , and then it will only be in a small arthouse type theater. I was hoping that it would get shown more widely. Do you think it is something average Joe America would like?

Does anyone know if there are any plans for a wider release in regular theaters? Or maybe it is already in regular theaters in your area?

I dragged a skeptic with me who now sees its a problem but cant get his mind past the economic arguments of polution controls. I said at least lets have a fair public debate on how to deal with the issue but with this admin we cannot even have that. He agreed to that much.

Personally, I ran to the store yesterday and bought a bunch of energy efficient lightbulbs.

People who go see it, please stay and watch the credits too.

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Take_Action/
"Take the Nature Challenge!
"Read the top 10 ways to conserve nature. Pick three to do over the next year and take the Challenge. Then challenge our federal party leaders to do the same."

Then go to: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/WOL/
"Sustainability within a Generation"

I heard David Suzuki speak. He said that the US will soon have a "Sustainability within a Generation" organisation using his org's studies and solutions applied in your neck of the woods.

One again, PA sums up the situation, way more eloquently than I can!

Re: what globalization promised it could do, compared to what actually happens (especially in poorer regions) ... a good "sidebar" film to watch, after this one, is "Darwin's Nightmare".

As for graphs ... I once taught a student (who received his first education at a mission school in East Africa) who had no idea of how to draw a graph. This is something which we take for granted in our society (even kids in elementary school learn it). I still remember sitting with him, and working not just on the technical aspects, but on the entire CONCEPT of what a graph is. Well, looking at the way Gore's book uses graphs, I am starting to wonder if this is how that student felt -- the fundamental shift in perception which a good graph can bring, is something which I don't experience very often these days. (See Tufte's "Visual Display of Quantitative Information" for some good examples.) I thought the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report had some nice ones, but this is something else again.

Another very pertinent observation by Plaid Adder. As one cop I know once remarked, "You can't have a good riot until the riot squad shows up". Well, you generally don't get a bitter, vitriolic, bench-clearing brawl until the media start quoting people who are "for" or "against", and before you know it, academics who really ought to know better end up making hasty assessments of each other's research without taking time to review it ... and whether they meant to or not, it gets reported in the press as some pretty vicious ad hominem remarks.

And again about the stats. The very best graphs and charts are supposed to make you see things you hadn't seen before, and change how you think about a problem. Thanks to the quantitative overload of the past century, we've been bludgeoned into a stupor by a flood of tables and figures which are often bogus, poorly-designed, and used to obscure ideas rather than clarify them. Familiarity breeds contempt, and no wonder people tend to turn off whenever they see stats -- we've been told that "you have to put graphs in that report", whether or not they are relevant. I was ready to junk the pie chart and never use it again (thanks to the awful options in Excel, designed for business not science). Until I saw one of the original examples by Florence Nightingale, of all people. The horror, even rage, in this figure -- she was trying to tell people in Britain that the soldiers they'd sent overseas, their loved ones, were dying for stupid, preventable reasons (see how the blue areas, which show deaths by disease, shrink after basic sanitary precautions were taken ....)

http://www.florence-nightingale-avenging-angel.co.uk/Coxcomb.htm
(click to view -- the original pic is rather large -- or open a browser window and copy "http://florence-nightingale-avenging-angel.co.uk/Coxcomb" into it, adding ".gif" on the end)

"The Government would not allow her to publish her most damning statistics which showed that hospital conditions were the main cause of death. In this published diagram, therefore, she tried to support her case for better hygiene by using published Army figures to show that the death rate decreased after the Sanitary Commissioners cleaned up the hospitals."




Maybe this graph will change the world, too.



http://www.magazine.noaa.gov/stories/mag140.htm




(This 3-D one has more data, but isn't as searing and elegant as the example above ...)

and the time put into creating it; I'm really looking forward to seeing it now. I knew the film would be showing at a local theater, but I was under the impression it was opening May 23rd. As I passed the theater each day and it never showed up on the movie list, I got kind of bummed and thought it was skipped. Glad to see that it will be there on the 9th!

Even though I knew the basics, this movie is the definition of a wake-up call.
Graphs - graphs! - leading to gasps and disbelief in the audience.
And the pictures of what would happen to the world if sea-level rose just 20 feet; Hollywood doesn't have anything that scary.
See it, talk about it, read more about the info.

Incidentally, I don't know if anyone posted this here, but the website associated with the movie, and the one shown in the end credits, is http://www.climatecrisis.net
LOTS of information, really good stuff, plus theater listings, actions you can take, etc.

(I have not seen the film, so I'm going on what I remember.)

Gore said that originally (in his slide show presentations) the frog in the pot of water that was gradually heated to boiling died. And then in his presentations he found that kids and young people only asked about the frog and were very depressed. He said he decided the frog would have to be saved so that young people could be encouraged to believe in and work toward a possible future.

Anyone who has seen the movie have a comment about this??

I think he makes a perceptive comment there. In a major crisis, it's not uncommon for people to focus in on one particular case -- makes it seem more manageable and something they could actually do something about. Like people phoning CNN to ask about adopting one particular dog seen in the Katrina footage. So I'm not surprised that the audience (not just kids) would think about that hypothetical frog.

Over the past few years I've taught environmental science at a college, and this semester my colleagues and I were sent a memo by the chair ... apparently they had been contacted by Health Services on campus about several students (they didn't say how many, but more than just one or two) who'd been complaining about depression, citing information they'd heard in our lectures. (I have been trying to mention examples of what we can do to fix problems, along with success stories like the ozone layer and improved energy efficiency, to avoid bumming out not just the students but me, as well. After Katrina I told them about the teenager who drove a busload of survivors to Houston, and used that as an example of what can be done if we work together. However, a couple of my colleagues are a lot more pessimistic, so it's possible that they inadvertently sent people into a vortex of despair.)

Along with changing the frog story, Gore also includes a whole section detailing solutions, at the end of the book. He has stated that he doesn't want to panic people or induce apathy by overwhelming them -- and he does seem to be trying to motivate the readers and viewers.

By the way, others have released more comprehensive action guides (not to say that Gore's suggestions aren't good, but he probably didn't have enough space to lay things out in more detail). This one looks at steps that can be taken by individuals, governments, businesses, and groups ranging from churches to PTA meetings.

http://www.earthfuture.com/stormyweather/

It's a cute little piece of animation. The frog sits there and the temperature goes up, and Gore says, "And the temperature will continue to rise until the frog...is rescued!"

A hand reaches into the beaker, grabs the frog, and sets him down on a little beach chair with a fruity umbrella drink and some sunglasses. The audience laughs. Gore says, "It's important to rescue the frog." That line must be a reference to the story you're talking about.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder