I have no words...
Jun. 5th, 2006 02:38 amI just need to get this down, and I know that I do not have the the most fabulous writing skills, I cannot place words on a page and change minds... But perhaps my candid opinion is worth something.
Yesiam and I went to see "An Inconvenient Truth" today, Al Gore's documentary on global warming following his journey in developing his slide show presentation on the subject that he has taken around the globe... A presentation he has given over 1000 times.
Watching the film made me sad. Sad because it is so true... we have only ONE planet, and we are treating her very crappily. Scientists all over the world agree that the spike in CO2 emissions and the global temperature are related, and have increased more rapidly in the recent past than the last rise after the last ice age. Frankly, does it really matter when we're going to truly screw ourselves? Whether it is in our lifetime, or our grandchildren's -- we have the technology to at least reduce our emissions and slow this process down. What we need is the initiative.
Gore made an excellent point -- that this is not an impossible task... and we have done something similar in the past two decades... CFCs and the Ozone layer are not as much of an issue now because we took those products off the market. Another point -- that pollution is funded by profit... One cartoon he presented was a scale, bars of gold on one side (which are pretty and shiny and desirable) and on the other side is Earth. Now... if you choose GOLD and sacrifice the Earth, there won't be any gold now, will there?
In 50 years, our grandkids will say "Grandma, why didn't you do anything in 2006 when you knew about this?" How will we respond? I'd rather not have the question asked at all because I hope that we will do something and slow down what is supposed to be a natural process.
I encourage all of you to see the film. Whether or not you believe in the consequences of global warming, the message of action vs inaction is motivating.
I try to think about what I can do to reduce my toll on the world's resources, and I'm going to try to live by my ideals. I am not much of a public speaker, nor do I write excellent speeches... but I believe my ideas are sound, and with debate and discussion could be fleshed out into something convincing -- as long as I have a partner to write it all down, and someone to preach it. If any of you want to be my partners, I think letters to newspapers and congressmen would be wonderful as a start.
I fear our collective complacency will be our end. For example, if you put your hand in a pot of scalding water, you hurry and remove your hand. However, if you place your hand in a pot of luke warm water, and then the burner is turned on... and it slowly gets warmer... and warmer... you get used to it... and barely notice that you are about to get burned, until it is too late. We know it's getting warmer but we just shrug our shoulders and get used to it until we cook ourselves.
If it's not us, it's our future offspring. Think about tomorrow, today... if we don't, there may come a day where there is no tomorrow. We are not invincible, we are tiny specks of life on a planet that exists in a vast universe -- shouldn't we do all we can to keep our corner of the universe inhabitable?
http://www.climatecrisis.net/ for more information
Yesiam and I went to see "An Inconvenient Truth" today, Al Gore's documentary on global warming following his journey in developing his slide show presentation on the subject that he has taken around the globe... A presentation he has given over 1000 times.
Watching the film made me sad. Sad because it is so true... we have only ONE planet, and we are treating her very crappily. Scientists all over the world agree that the spike in CO2 emissions and the global temperature are related, and have increased more rapidly in the recent past than the last rise after the last ice age. Frankly, does it really matter when we're going to truly screw ourselves? Whether it is in our lifetime, or our grandchildren's -- we have the technology to at least reduce our emissions and slow this process down. What we need is the initiative.
Gore made an excellent point -- that this is not an impossible task... and we have done something similar in the past two decades... CFCs and the Ozone layer are not as much of an issue now because we took those products off the market. Another point -- that pollution is funded by profit... One cartoon he presented was a scale, bars of gold on one side (which are pretty and shiny and desirable) and on the other side is Earth. Now... if you choose GOLD and sacrifice the Earth, there won't be any gold now, will there?
In 50 years, our grandkids will say "Grandma, why didn't you do anything in 2006 when you knew about this?" How will we respond? I'd rather not have the question asked at all because I hope that we will do something and slow down what is supposed to be a natural process.
I encourage all of you to see the film. Whether or not you believe in the consequences of global warming, the message of action vs inaction is motivating.
I try to think about what I can do to reduce my toll on the world's resources, and I'm going to try to live by my ideals. I am not much of a public speaker, nor do I write excellent speeches... but I believe my ideas are sound, and with debate and discussion could be fleshed out into something convincing -- as long as I have a partner to write it all down, and someone to preach it. If any of you want to be my partners, I think letters to newspapers and congressmen would be wonderful as a start.
I fear our collective complacency will be our end. For example, if you put your hand in a pot of scalding water, you hurry and remove your hand. However, if you place your hand in a pot of luke warm water, and then the burner is turned on... and it slowly gets warmer... and warmer... you get used to it... and barely notice that you are about to get burned, until it is too late. We know it's getting warmer but we just shrug our shoulders and get used to it until we cook ourselves.
If it's not us, it's our future offspring. Think about tomorrow, today... if we don't, there may come a day where there is no tomorrow. We are not invincible, we are tiny specks of life on a planet that exists in a vast universe -- shouldn't we do all we can to keep our corner of the universe inhabitable?
http://www.climatecrisis.net/ for more information