|
December 2006
An Inconvenient Truth
Forget about whether or not you like Al Gore, his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” has initiated a conversation that will dominate politics in the coming decades. The global warming debate used to be over whether we really are disrupting the earth’s climate, but Gore resolves that with a lucid explanation of the now-overwhelming scientific consensus. The new question he raises is: “How bad is it really going to get?” The answer, however you slice it, is “pretty bad.” Drought, disease, loss of drinking water, giant hurricanes, 20-foot sea level rise, etc… it’s all in there.
When you think about which economic class of people will bear the brunt of all these disasters, global warming starts to look like the mother of all economic justice issues. So this month’s Class Action e-news is devoted to exploring anti-classist responses to global warming.
Watch the trailer
Is the Globe Really Warming?
Yes it is, with the year 2005 being the hottest ever on record. Many reviewers have pointed out that never has a film full of statistics and graphs been so gripping. Meaning that it’s a well-made film, and Gore has honed his presentation of the facts of global warming so tightly over the years that he never gets boring (imagine that!). Thanks to some excellent animated graphics, the film is a faster and simpler way to learn the basics of this complicated atmospheric problem than wading through the millions of pages written on the subject. Here is the one take-home statistic though: A study of all 928 peer-reviewed articles on global warming that appeared in major scientific journals over the last 10 years found zero articles disputing that dangerous warming is happening and humans are causing it. So where is this scientific “uncertainty” that the majority of news articles on global warming mention? It has been fabricated by the energy industry, with great success, in a campaign akin to the tobacco industry’s years of misinformation about the dangers of its products.
How Bad Is It Going to Get?
There is a lot of speculation about how much the temperature will go up, and what will be the effects on people and ecosystems. Gore participates in the speculation, suggesting that we could very likely see devastating droughts in Saharan Africa, the loss of glaciers that provide 40% of the world’s drinking water, hundreds of millions of environmental refugees fleeing low-lying countries like Bangladesh, Shanghai, and Calcutta, new diseases and new pests, and much more. (If you check out the bonus materials on the DVD, a recent interview with Gore has him listing even more threats that have become apparent in the year since filming. These include the melting of the permafrost, which would release as much global warming pollution (carbon) into the air as human industry currently does, instantly doubling our problems.)
Speculation of this sort is an easy target for doubters, but the fact is the warming has begun already, and there is no question that we are in for some changes, all of which will come down hardest on low-income communities. Who will be the first refugees? Who will suffer death from heat waves, disease, and drought? Try to imagine Hurricane Katrina multiplied and internationalized. Gore ends the film by (correctly) framing our next step as a moral challenge— given the damage global warming will cause even under best-case scenarios, are we not ethical bound to change our ways now?
Steps toward Climate Justice
This movie is an effective wake up call, but it has been justifiably criticized for being short on solutions. Rumor has it that Steven Spielberg is planning his own global warming documentary, focusing on what is being done to stop it. Other big names who have jumped on the solutions bandwagon include Bill Clinton, who is raising billions of dollars for clean energy, Tony Blair, and Wal-Mart and Shell Oil—both of which recently did about-faces in their stance on climate change.
While it’s nice to see governments and corporations changing their tune, it is safe to assume that our job as citizens will be to highlight the disproportionate impacts of climate change and climate policies on poor people around the world. The goal is not just climate stabilization, but climate justice.
A word of advice— see this movie. Rent it, give it as a gift, or buy a copy to loan to all your friends. Al Gore has done an admirable job dragging this painful and important issue into the national consciousness. See the movie and take action.
Want to learn more about Climate Justice? Go to:
|
