Go see 'An Inconvenient Truth'

Posted by Matthew Wheeland at 4:56 PM on June 1, 2006.

I recently had the chance to go see "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's new global warming documentary, thanks to the good folks at the Sierra Club, and it's as powerful as the reviewers have said. If you already follow the climate crisis -- as Gore labels the impending catastrophe -- then the film marshals powerful evidence to support the truth of the situation. If you haven't been following the onslaught of news about how quickly our climate is changing, then this film will be a splash of cold water in your face.

Now, I've long believed that at this point in time, with all the evidence arrayed on the side of truth, whether or not you accept the reality of global warming has become a matter of faith. (Especially for people who somehow manage to convince themselves that it's not happening.)

But even though I've already seen the film once, I still intend to go see "An Inconvenient Truth" this weekend, and I urge everyone else to do so as well. As the peerless folks at Worldchanging put it:

If every person who reads this blog went to see AIT on the opening weekend, and brought three friends, this film would very likely open as the number one film in the country -- and that means other theaters will show it, and more people will talk about it, and climate change may well wind up where it ought to be: at the top of our national agenda.

... [As Al Gore said at a recent screening,] the same frozen moral perspective that prevents us from addressing climate change makes us see all sorts of other planetary challenges -- from poverty to HIV/AIDS to genocide to corruption -- as insolvable problems, rather than as artifacts of a broken political system, problems we lack only the will, not the means, to solve. Somewhere, the ice jam has got to melt. Some time, we have to warm to the possibility of a future which is sustainable, prosperous and fair to all.

The film opens in select cities in 13 states tomorrow, including some big ones: New York City, Washington, D.C., Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago. Google's got an easy link to find a screening near you.

Matthew Wheeland is AlterNet's managing editor.