Global Warming Double Bill: Ice Age and An Inconvenient Truth
There are two movies out on DVD this week that both carry on the important conversation about global warming. The first is the animated comedy Ice Age: The Meltdown. The other is Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.
The entire topic of global warming has become a political issue in recent years. There’s one main reason for this. Problems now take precedent over problems later. The problem now is that addressing global warming with any seriousness could devastate economic growth which is the cornerstone of the entire economic system. This doesn’t just hurt big business, it hurts hundreds of millions of people who’s jobs are embedded directly or indirectly in an industrial infrastructure that contributes to global warming.
The problem later is that we hit a tipping point and put ourselves into a position that we can not fix. That affects billions of people - literally, all of us. We see evidence of how a tipping point could be reached in some areas now. For example, the dead zones caused by warmer currents off the coast of Oregon since 2002. In 2006 it got even worse.
The best solution is to compromise and start making gradual but significant changes in how we use energy, the types of energy we use, and how we control pollution. You might ask, why can’t we just solve this? One of the most interesting and engaging articles around is called Maximum Power and it was written by Jay Hanson at dieoff.org (don’t let the name scare you). Jay shows us how we lie to ourselves to make short term gains. He talks about examples where populations used up all their resources and then … just died off, such as the people on Easter Island or the reindeer experiment on St. Matthew Island.
Remember, Earth really is just one big island - we can’t move to Mars or Jupiter if things go bad here. We need to deal with our global problems because sooner or later they’ll deal with us.
Don’t think we need to change? In it’s day, the Tyrannosaurus Rex was unchallenged by any other creature. I haven’t seen any lately.
Ice Age carries on the story of Sid, Diego and Manny (voiced by John Leguizamo, Denis Leary and Ray Romano) and adds some new characters with Queen Latifa as Ellie and the unforgettable possum duo of Crash and Eddie (Sean William Scott and Josh Peck). The movie is a fun way to talk about a very serious topic. Be entertained, but don’t lose the underlying message that Ice Age is sending about global warming. Find out more about it at Amazon: Ice Age - The Meltdown
An Inconvenient Truth is filled with some eye-opening facts and it takes select moments from Al Gore’s travelling slideshow on global warming and pieces them together into a startling scientific view of what industrialization is doing to our planet. The biggest point the movie misses the mark on is how Al Gore calls this a moral issue - after the evidence is layed out, it’s clear that it’s much more than that. It’s an issue that could affect our very survival on the planet. Find out more at Amazon: An Inconvenient Truth
One Response
Laurence Jackson
November 22nd, 2006 at 8:48 pm
1“Ice Age: The Meltdown” and “An Inconvienent Truth” are two great films of this year. Both being very informative and working from different angles which was actually brilliant. The animated film, light-hearted and fun, has brought about awarness to young kids who might not be able to keep up with Mr. Al Gore and his brilliant documentary. Tailored more to the adults in america, every american should see this film. Award commitee recognition has already been given to “Ice Age”, which was recently nominated for the upcoming People’s Choice Awards for Favorite Family Movie. Its now up to you the people to vote, be sure to cast your votes @ http://www.pcavote.com. I got to vote the day the nominations came out because I work with the People’s Choice Community.