"An Inconvenient Truth"

I went this afternoon to a showing of Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," and boy am I glad I did. This is a movie that had the potential to be absolutely horrible (yes, that would be the vision of Al Gore giving a slide show about global warming), and yet it was not that at all. It managed to be powerful without preaching, intelligent but not overwhelming, and, perhaps most importantly, not boring in the slightest.

From fuel efficiency standards to the melting of ice shelves and the fragile balance of ocean currents, Gore in this presentation makes a personal, persuasive, and realistic picture of what global warming is doing to our planet and what it will continue to do if we do nothing. The movie is at times very funny, but there were also times when humor was about as far as possible from what I was feeling.

Unfortunately, I'm sure that many people won't see this film because they disagree with Al Gore's stance on global warming. If you are one of those people, I implore you, reconsider - go see the movie. I agree with Roger Ebert, who in his review writes "You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to." I read Ebert's review when I got home tonight, and as I got to the last line I had to chuckle. He writes "I did a funny thing when I came home after seeing 'An Inconvenient Truth.' I went around the house turning off the lights." Why'd I laugh? Because I had, just minutes before, done the exact same thing.