Since the movie An Inconvenient Truth, starring Al Gore received so much positive commentary prior to and during the Academy awards, I was prepared to be disappointed, and I was. But not with the movie.The movie was everything that I could have hoped for - informative, fact-filled, humorous, entertaining, moving. I couldn't believe someone could take a slide presentation, even a great slide presentation, and make an entertaining movie but director Davis Guggenheim did a masterful jog. The story line - that human activity has pushed the world to the brink of cataclysmic climate change - is depressing but somehow the movie leaves you with the impression that all is not lost, that we're still in charge of our destiny, and that with immediate and appropriate action we can still maintain the earth as we know it. Of course, the movie also makes it perfectly clear that doing nothing will result in major changes in the world's climate, continental shapes, and even ocean currents.
Al Gore takes on the idea so common in the popular press that "we just don't have all the data we need" and properly puts it in it's place. We'll never have all the data we "need" but we have more than enough to justify changing our habits and our lifestyles. And if we don't, they'll be changed for us by Mother Nature in ways we probably won't be happy with.
Not knowing whether I even wanted to spend the $3.85 to rent the movie from Hollywood Video, I borrowed it for free from the local library. But I feel so positive after seeing it, that I'm going to buy it or ask for it for my birthday.
So how was I disappointed? I was made so aware of the fact that we came so close to having an intelligent, knowledgeable, competent President elected in 2000. I feel really cheated and let down by the American electoral process. And although that wasn't the theme of the movie, it is "an inconvenient truth".
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