The truth is still inconvenient
IN 2006, Davis Guggenheim directed a documentary film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” about US Vice President Al Gore’s educational campaign to create awareness among people around the world about the dangers of global warming. Seventeen years later, and after Gore made his presentation to thousands of audiences, the truth isn’t just inconvenient — it now hurts.
Background
In 2004, there was a stirring movie, “The Day After Tomorrow.” In the movie, Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) was ignored by UN officials when he presented his environmental concerns. His research proved true when a superstorm developed and set off catastrophic natural disasters throughout the world.
Movie producer Laurie David had just watched the opening of the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” when she also saw Gore’s slide show presentation at a town hall meeting about global warming. Laurie was so inspired by Gore that she immediately met with producer Lawrence Bender and director Guggenheim and convinced them to make a film out of Gore’s slide presentation. The movie, “An Inconvenient Truth” won two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song, and grossed $24 million in the US and $26 million at the international box office.
The documentary film has raised international public awareness of global warming and reenergized the environmental movement. On July 28, 2017, a sequel, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” was released.
In reality, Gore has been making these presentations since 1989, using flip chart illustrations. He admits, “I’ve been trying to tell this story for a long time, and I feel as if I’ve failed to get the message across.”
California Dreaming
On Dec. 8, 1965, The Mamas & the Papas released their hit single, “California Dreamin’,” with the first few lines “All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. I’ve been for a walk, on a winter’s day. I’d be safe and warm, if I was in L.A., California dreamin’, on such a winter’s day.”
On March 3, 2023, Christine Hauser wrote, “Record snowfall and freezing temperatures have altered the landscape and lives of millions of people in California in recent weeks. The mountains behind the iconic Hollywood sign in Los Angeles are dusted in white. Yosemite National Park is closed to the public, and mountain roads are coated with black ice. Vineyards in Napa Valley were dusted with powdery snow. Snow met the sand on a beach in Santa Cruz.”
Gore recalls his grade school years when a classmate asked his geography teacher about the continental drift. The teacher called this concept the “most ridiculous thing [he’d] ever heard.” Sometimes, ignorance of people with influence has brought us to this sorry state.
In the movie, Gore discussed scientific opinion on global warming, saying that it “is really not a political issue, so much as a moral one. He described the consequences “if the amount of human-generated greenhouse gases is not significantly reduced in the very near future.”
The documentary ends with Gore arguing that “if appropriate actions are taken soon, the effects of global warming can be successfully reversed by releasing less CO2 and planting more vegetation to consume existing CO2.”
I asked my friend and high school classmate, Di, who lives in California, to describe how people reacted to the sudden snow shower in early March 2023. She said that many people went out of their houses, took pictures, and enjoyed the cold temperature. Unbeknownst to many, these are signs that things are no longer normal, and global warming is causing the climate change that we are all experiencing.
Gore has shown that the increase in global temperature over the last 100 years is, to a large extent, due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activity, which cause global warming. These human activities include deforestation, burning of fossil fuels, pollution, overpopulation, waste disposal, etc. As the temperature of the Earth increases, the dry areas get drier and the wet areas get wetter. High Earth temperature melts down the ice caps and causes floods in some areas, droughts in others.
The three major causes, Gore thinks, are population, technology and barriers to new thinking.
India Berry posted in “Sustainability” her view of the top 10 causes of global warming:
– Fossil fuel. Industry uses oil, gas and coal to produce electricity. Burning them releases GHG and kills plant life and wildlife in the surrounding environments.
– Deforestation. Clearing woodland and forest, for fuel or to create farms or ranches, reduces the oxygen released by trees and forests.
– Waste. The enormous amount of non-recyclable packaging, the short life cycle of products, and the huge volumes of purchases create more waste than ever before. When wastes decompose, they turn into harmful gases released into the atmosphere.
– Power plants. These power plants burn fossil fuels to operate, and create pollutants in the air, land and water. Coal-fueled power plants account for 46 percent of total global carbon emissions.
– Oil drilling. Roughly 30 percent of the methane and 8 percent of carbon monoxide pollution are caused by oil drilling, as it collects petroleum oil hydrocarbons. Processing them releases toxic gases into the environment.
– Transport vehicles. Cars, planes, boats and trains rely on fossil fuels to run. Burning fossil fuel releases carbon and other pollutants.
– Consumerism. Technology allows for smart manufacturing and enables consumers to purchase anything, anytime. We tend to overproduce, overconsume and turn more products into waste than necessary.
– Farming. Farming takes up green space and destroys surrounding environments. Domesticated animals produce methane and waste that pollute the environment.
– Industrialization. The waste of industrialization ends up in landfills, rivers and seas. Chemicals used in industries pollute the Earth’s air, water and soil.
– OVERfiSHING. As the population increases, so does the food requirement. Fish is among people’s sources of protein. Overfishing reduces marine life and biodiversity in the oceans.
Al Gore’s documentary ends with his admonition, “Each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive. We can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands, and we just have to have the determination to make it happen. We have everything that we need to reduce carbon emissions, everything but political will.”
James Edward Hansen, an American environmental advocate, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and was designated by Time Magazine in 2006 as one of the 100 most influential people on Earth. In 2009, he was arrested during a protest against mountaintop removal mining at Massey Energy Co.
Hansen once said, “Global warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening.”
Ernie Cecilia is the chairman of the Human Capital Committee and the Publication Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham); chairman of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines’ (ECOP’s) TWG on Labor Policy and Social Issues; and past president of the People Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP). He can be reached at erniececilia@gmail.com