Way off topic...

Not immediately relevant to Howard County, but worth sharing nonetheless.

I went last night to see An Inconvenient Truth, the film profiling Al Gore's efforts to spread the word about climate change. Perhaps you've heard of it?

As someone who has studied (and taught) the science behind global warming and voted for Gore (and would do it again in a heartbeat), I'm obviously not an impartial reviewer. Still, it is a movie that everyone should see, even the converted but especially the non-converted (at least those willing to listen and put their ignorance aside for a couple hours).

In case you didn't know, the documentary follows Gore as he presents his climate change slide show around the world. The slide show is one that he has given 1,000 times for over a decade, and it has been regularly updated with the latest science (in some of the scenes, he presents rarely seen or previously unreleased data, many from as recent as 2005). It also includes several personal asides from Gore that many say make him finally look human. Of course, the awful conventional wisdom about Robot Gore was never really true to begin with, but that's beside the point.

Now, I can sense your trepidation about watching a two-hour slide show about science. But it's actually quite entertaining and tremendously inspiring.

There's been a backlash against environmentalism in general because of the gloom and doom scenarios often used by advocates to pressure government into action. Hysterical is a word I've heard used regularly in this discussion (it was also the same term used to describe and discredit Rachel Carson when she wrote Silent Spring).

To be sure, many of the potential warming scenarios are gloomy, but rather than leaving viewers with feelings of guilt and vilification, we're left feeling hopeful. Hopeful that small individual changes can have major impacts. Hopeful that the greatest country in the world can face and overcome yet another seemingly insurmountable problem. Hopeful that, in the words of James Rouse, "what ought to be can be, with the will to make it so."

The science has been there for many years. The movement to discredit scientists the same way the media has been discredited (LIBERAL BIAS!!!!!!) is one of the most shameful and infuriating aspects of the whole global warming "debate." Scientists, I'm sure, would be the first to admit that they care about the earth, but, somehow, all the work they do and all the findings they've arrived at are suddenly invalid because those who know squat about science think otherwise? I'm convinced that twenty years from now we'll look back at the way this issue was handled and feel utterly disgraced.

I don't want to give too much away, but Gore presents convincing arguments against the commonly-heard criticisms. Especially noteworthy is his take on the false choice between reduced carbon emissions and economic growth, something my not-very-environmentally-friendly macroeconomics professor admitted was an absurd characterization of the issue.

What's more, RealClimate.org, an invaluable and authoritative site on global warming issues, looks at the science Gore uses and finds it pretty much spot-on.

But don't take my word for it. Go see the movie. It's at Muvico and The Charles in Baltimore now but opens at pretty much every theater next week.

Meanwhile, calculate your annual carbon dioxide emmisions here at a site hosted by, of all places, the Texas State Energy Conservation Office.

Also, here's information about US mayors who have decided that we should actually, you know, do something about global warming. I wonder if this is something our county or CA could sign onto.