An Inconvenient Truth
I went to see An Inconvenient Truth last night. I had heard that the proper preparation was two cups of coffee beforehand, and a stiff belt afterward.
I had my usual brace of Salem Beer Works cask-conditioned beforehand and frozen yogurt afterward. Although I went with a great deal of skepticism, the last thing I'd call the film was boring. The next to last thing I'd call it is frightening.
As usual, I'm different.
A great many people with partisan agendas, from both sides, have used global climate change as a political pull toy for the past generation, mostly without doing a damn thing but deny on the one hand and despair on the other, and mostly without really understanding it. While the partisans were wiggling under their respective rocks, I was being introduced to the science of the issue, 20 years ago. What I saw does not surprise me, save that the truth is better documented than it was when last I was closely involved with it.
The corporate denial of the most spectacular challenge (hence opportunity) in homo sapiens' history proves another inconvenient truth once more. Had today's corporations and this administration been in charge in 1941, half the country would be speaking Japanese today, the other half German.
Progressives are hardly less culpable. "We're all gonna die!" is just as inadequate a response to a challenge as denial. It is fairly common, and somehow satisfies those who whine it.
If either is the best we can do, we have no right to go on cluttering up the galaxy.
If we, as a species, would like to stand up for a future, we need to shut down dogmatic partisanship on this issue, implement fixes that mainly already exist, and develop others which are hypothetical. Can't doesn't cut it: we need also to rise superior to the epidemic of gutlessness that has paralysed American public life for a decade or more.
See this film. If you are a Republican , tell your punditocracy to fuck itself and see it. If you are any form of progressive and you haven't seen it, see it. If you've seen it once, laden with preconceptions about Gore and ignorance of the climate problem, see it again.
When you have, get busy. My home has been doing more with less since the 1980s and it really doesn't hurt. One little bit at a time, starting now.
I had my usual brace of Salem Beer Works cask-conditioned beforehand and frozen yogurt afterward. Although I went with a great deal of skepticism, the last thing I'd call the film was boring. The next to last thing I'd call it is frightening.
As usual, I'm different.
A great many people with partisan agendas, from both sides, have used global climate change as a political pull toy for the past generation, mostly without doing a damn thing but deny on the one hand and despair on the other, and mostly without really understanding it. While the partisans were wiggling under their respective rocks, I was being introduced to the science of the issue, 20 years ago. What I saw does not surprise me, save that the truth is better documented than it was when last I was closely involved with it.
The corporate denial of the most spectacular challenge (hence opportunity) in homo sapiens' history proves another inconvenient truth once more. Had today's corporations and this administration been in charge in 1941, half the country would be speaking Japanese today, the other half German.
Progressives are hardly less culpable. "We're all gonna die!" is just as inadequate a response to a challenge as denial. It is fairly common, and somehow satisfies those who whine it.
If either is the best we can do, we have no right to go on cluttering up the galaxy.
If we, as a species, would like to stand up for a future, we need to shut down dogmatic partisanship on this issue, implement fixes that mainly already exist, and develop others which are hypothetical. Can't doesn't cut it: we need also to rise superior to the epidemic of gutlessness that has paralysed American public life for a decade or more.
See this film. If you are a Republican , tell your punditocracy to fuck itself and see it. If you are any form of progressive and you haven't seen it, see it. If you've seen it once, laden with preconceptions about Gore and ignorance of the climate problem, see it again.
When you have, get busy. My home has been doing more with less since the 1980s and it really doesn't hurt. One little bit at a time, starting now.
posted by Uncle | 00:42
1 Comments:
It's a sickness, but part of me enjoys the tag team on the Boomers from WWII/Korean War era and then 20-somethings. Oh, those Boomer bums just want everything, and they take all the jobs.
Yet, if we are to do something about the planet killing mess the older folk have forced on us, it will fall to the Boomers to clean it up, clear it up, and pay for it. May George the Lesser be the last of our generation who sides with the Dark Forces on this issue. It's past time to stop the madness.
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