Inconvenient Truth, An

A documentary about Al Gore's efforts to publicize global warming. Have I mentioned that I love Al Gore? And not just cause he gave a kick-ass speech a few days ago, but also because he's been giving great speeches for a while now, because he was a great VP, a great candidate for President, and because by all rights he should be our President, right now, at this very moment. Imagine, for a moment, what the world might be like if Al Gore had been our president for the last 5 years.... [ cue John Lennon singing... ]

Also on the subject of global warming, the environmental movement is engaged in some serious internecine warfare. The most visible skirmish is over Cape Wind. RFK, Jr. doesn't want it, for what seem like pretty good reasons, but a huge coalition of environmental groups is angry at him because, they say, he doesn't recognize what an incredibly dire threat global warming is.

See "Cape Fear" on the dispute in general, and then read Bill McKibben:

[T]the environmental movement is reaching an important point of division, between those who truly get global warming, and those who don't.

By get, I don't mean understanding the chemistry of carbon dioxide, or the importance of the Kyoto Protocol, or something like that -- pretty much everyone who thinks of themselves as an environmentalist has reached that point. By get, I mean understanding that the question is of transcending urgency, that it represents the one overarching global civilizational challenge that humans have ever faced. That it's as big as the Bomb.

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It's not that everyone needs to work on global warming around the clock. We desperately need riverkeepers and acid-rain activists and people working on water and endangered species and rainforest preservation and wilderness and all the other things that first got most of us into this movement. It's just that when those efforts come into conflict with the imperative need to act urgently on global warming, they have to take second place.

Why? Because even if we win every other battle, if we lose this one, it won't make any difference at all. You can "keep" every river and bay and lake and mountain and wilderness, but if the temperature goes up 5 degrees globally, it won't matter. The fish that live there won't be able to survive, the trees that anchor the landscape will die, the coral reefs will bleach and crumble. Even an Adirondacks whose ponds are the correct pH is a pretty sad place if it's an Adirondacks without winter, without hemlocks, without trout. Whatever the particular part of the world that we're each working on, it's still a part of the world. Global warming is the whole thing.

None of this is easy. If you've spent your life fighting for birds, it's hard to say "some birds may die in this windmill" (and it's perfectly smart to work with turbine manufacturers and wind developers to minimize that possibility, as many people have). But what we need to say is: every bird, and everything else that we know, is fundamentally at risk in the next few decades. In the name of birds, I want that windmill on my ridge. In the name of wild beauty, I want that windmill out my window.