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An Inconvenient Truth

If you haven't seen the Al Gore movie about climate change, you should.

It's an unusual movie (it's mostly a filmed powerpoint presentation). But the argument that global warming is real, dangerous, and risks getting out of control is powerfully made. Scary, in fact.

I'd seen Gore give the presentation live at TED, and he's even better in person.  We also interviewed last night him for a slot on Yahoo! Answers in the UK next week.

The challenge is what to do about it. We're going to try and make our new house a bit greener as part of its rebuilding work. And there are lots of steps outlined at climatecrisis.net which we'll try and be diligent about. But it doesn't feel like much. Particularly when our household probably produces at least 25,000 pounds of carbon a year.

There's a first world war recruitment poster where a child is asking her father "What did you do in the war, Daddy?". When it relates to global warming, I'm not sure I'll be able to answer that question in twenty years time in a meaningful way. And that worries me.

UPDATE:

The UK press reviews have been strong, but have also dug into the political overtones of the movie: what if Gore had won. The double meaning of the title is striking home to some: another inconvenient truth is that the world would be a much better place if Gore had won.

Ashes and Snow

  Ashes and Snow (and Joseph) 
  Originally uploaded by devpd.

Gregory Colbert has spent the last 13 years capturing some astonishing photos and films of animals interacting with humans. The resulting exhibition is travelling the world, and I managed to see it in a spare couple of hours in Santa Monica before a flight home.

It's astonishing. The 'museum' is built out of stacked containers, and inside it is reverential, dark, and pebbled. Very atmospheric. I'd already seen Colbert talk about the project, and had seen some of the video. But seeing it on giant screens, at times frustratingly slow and long, hauntingly beautiful, and shared with dozens of others standing in silence was very moving. Not everything struck a chord, and some sequences seemed a little too 'arty'. But overall it was extraordinary, and yet again I particularly enjoyed its uncompromsing production values and integrity.

You can get some idea of it at Ashes and Snow and when it arrives near you, make the effort to go and see it.