barry burton
An Inconvient Movie To See In Alabama
On Thursday night Brett, Hava, and I went to Rojo for dinner. As an added bonus, there was a band playing. I recognized at least one guy in the band from Auburn (it was either the guy who lived in front of the Till’s little house, or his brother; I can never tell them apart). Then we saw Alex. It had been a year, so I guess we were due. :) Once inside, we saw a girl sitting alone at a 4-top get asked if should could move to a 2-top so that a large party could be seated at her table. It was painful to watch and I suddenly realized why I dislike going to restaurants by myself. Back to Rojo, it has a cool atmosphere and really good food. So if you get the chance, you should go. On the way out, I stopped to talk to Alex. He has a girlfriend, who I met, but I unfortunately have already forgotten her name. He was also with Preston, who is cool, and some other guy, whose name I also forget. He is probably cool, but the important thing is that he asked Brett, Hava, and I if we were the band that had just been playing. He was serious.
Then we drove to the Vestavia Rave. We saw Cara there, and talked for a bit. Old friends are fun. If the website for An Inconvenient Truth is to be trusted, this theater is the solitary Birmingham theater and one of only two in Alabama that is actually playing the movie [interestingly, there are no theaters listed for Mississippi :)]. Even so, the movie didn’t open at the Rave until a full month after it opened in most cities. So tracking it down to see was a bit of work, but find it we did. It was a 9:30 showing on a Thursday night, but there were only 3 other people watching with us.
An Inconvenient Truth itself was fairly good. I would have liked a little more hard science, but I think the movie was supposed to be based more on ethos than logos. He did of course try to show that his premises were drawn from what the general scientific community accepted, and he also tried to show that there were no reasons to disbelieve respected scientists (i.e. no vast conspiracy aimed at disrupting the status quo), but most of his argument rested on the assumption that peer-reviewed scientific journals can be trusted. This seems like a safe assumption to me, but I wonder if people who disagree with his conclusion will agree with this assumption. The question then being whether the movie could cause someone who was previously unconcerned with global warming to see it as a problem.
However, it really seemed that the movie’s goal was to convince those who already believed global warming to be an issue, as well as perhaps those who were on the fence, to take action. To convince these people, that based on what they already believed, that they had a moral obligation to make changes. He also did have much insight into current carbon emissions policies around the world, which could be summed up that the United States is doing a whole lot less than most everyone else (Kyoto?). The only thing I really disliked about the movie were the many non-scaled, unit-less charts and graphs. I understand that getting in depth into the science is unpalatable for most people, but the units on graphs should at least be kept so that those who want to get into the details a bit can do so.
For the most part, the movie was simply a video of Gore giving the global warming presentation that he has been doing since he lost the election. Interspersed throughout this are scenes of him traveling, working on the presentation, talking to scientists, giving the presentation to different groups around the world, and sharing personal anecdotes from his family’s farm in Tennessee. There were quite a few scenes of Gore working on the presentation, and it started to feel a little like an Apple advertisement. He constantly carried around a Powerbook that he did all of the work on, and he was often shown working in Keynote, making the slideshow. This is mostly interesting because he is on their board of directors. :) Not that there is anything wrong with promoting something he likes. It is probably worth mentioning that the video of Gore giving the presentation reveals the most warm, vibrant, charismatic side of the man that I have ever seen.
Thankfully, the movie avoided the whole “over the top claims made in an effort to strengthen the argument to the point of irrefutability” thing that so many documentary movies of late have stooped to. The movie ended with this really sweet animated typography that described various and sundry actions and changes an individual could undertake themselves to reduce carbon emissions (write your congressmen, get a hybrid if you can, drive as little as possible regardless, … ). I don’t think it said this explicitly, but basically the overarching themes were that if you don’t keep your eye on congress, Detroit will, and that suburban sprawl needlessly produces way too much carbon emissions.
In short, the movie was interesting, educational, and light on dogmatism, so I would definitely recommend seeing it if you get a chance. Actually, I would recommend making a chance. Enjoy.
