Inconvenient Truth

I just finished watching "An Inconvenient Truth" for a second time. If you haven't seen it, you really should. Don't sit there and say, " Hey, I already know global warming is occurring and it's caused by humans, I don't need to see it (btw - I refuse to use the word "believe" in global warming. That implies a measure of faith. There is no faith needed. Just look at the data and you will see, global warming is occurring and it's occurring at levels never before seen in nature since the evolution of organisms, like plants, that need CO2 to survive)." You do. Just to reinforce the idea that this occurrence is real and it's time to actually do something about it. The point is coming where we can no longer let other people decide what to do because they, like most of us (me included), are deciding to ignore the problem.

One thing that gets me in this movie is Gore says he thought if he just showed people what is going on, they would galvanize and work together to solve the problem. He's been telling people for 20+ years, it hasn't happened yet. I see that same optimism in myself. If I can just show people this, that, and the other, they will understand and agree with me. Of course, I am not so naive as to actually assume that's true, but at the same time, I haven't completely lost that (youthful?) idealism that it should and would work, if just done right. This causes a lot of frustration for me. I see people doing stupid things, ignoring obvious scientific data staring at them right in the face and I want to scream. Why don't they see the truth of the matter when it's right there? At the same time, they are probably yelling at me and trying to understand why I don't see their truth.

What makes me feel that I am right, is not that I'm right, but that I am willing to change. Yes, as most of you know, I immediately respond very negatively when someone tells me I'm wrong. But on the other hand, I always take what someone says into consideration, and if they are right, I will change. I hate being wrong, but I will (although not obviously) take other people's ideas seriously and think about them. And if good scientific experiments came up with data that showed the world was only 4000 years old, god actually had a child, and people used to live for 300+ years, I would have to take that into consideration. I can't ignore good data. Luckily, there is no, repeat NO, data that supports that hypothesis (it's not a theory. A theory has vast amounts of empirical data behind it and no empirical data to contradict it. If data comes up that contradicts a theory, the theory has to be changed. It's happened, Newton's laws are wrong, Einstein showed that). Since I am, however unwilling, ready to change when presented with evidence, then I am following the evidence, not some internal moral compass that no one else knows or understands. Therefore, I am right, at this time (does that sound arrogant or what.) I wish I knew how to make people understand that. :-)

On a side note, I want to say that I think Gore did more good not getting elected that he could have if he had been elected. Well, maybe not, having anybody as pres. would be better than the current Pres and VP. However, Gore's ordeal showed the weakness of our elections and has caused changes, the weakness of our supreme court, which has caused much loss of faith, and the weakness of our government all together. He's also been able to focus on global warming (thank goodness someone is). Maybe we had to go through our current times to appreciate what we have. Maybe this is my generation’s time to learn what to and not to do. Let's just hope people learn the lesson.