This is a Movie That Everyone Must
See!
This
is
a Movie That Everyone Must See!
Let's Pack the Theaters!
Al Gore's new movie
about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, opens this
weekend in Los Angeles. This movie has a very powerful potential
to educate the public and change minds about this important issue.
As environmentalists, we should fill the theaters during opening
weekend-if we sell out shows on opening weekend, the nationwide
release will include more screens, and more people across the country
will have access to the film. Going to see this movie is
just one small thing that Southern California's environmentalists can
do to make a difference!
To learn more about
the movie and to watch the trailer, visit the website http://www.climatecrisis.net
Laemmle Monica Theatre 1332 2nd Street, Santa Monica, CA
90401,
310-394-9741
12:15pm 1:30pm 2:45pm 4:00pm
5:15pm 7:00pm 7:45pm 9:30pm 10:15pm
Arclight Theater, 6360 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood 90028 (323)
464-4226
11:15
AM 11:45 AM 1:00
PM 1:35 PM 2:05
PM 3:10 PM 4:05
PM 4:25 PM 5:20
PM 6:15 PM 7:15
PM 7:40 PM 8:25
PM 9:35 PM 10:10
PM 10:45 PM
And remember to
become carbon neutral! Go to www.CarbonCounter.org,
www.CarbonFund.org,
or Native Energy.com, fill in the form
with your energy use and sign up for a monthly (usually less than $20
per month) or annual contribution from your credit card to fund
measures that will neutralize your carbon output.
Jim
An Inconvenient
Truth: Review by MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Pausing now and then to offer personal asides, Mr. Gore methodically
lays
out the probable consequences of rising temperatures: powerful and
more
destructive hurricanes fueled by warmer ocean waters (2005, the year
of
Katrina, was not just a record year for hurricanes but also saw
unusual
flooding in places like Europe and China); increased soil moisture
evaporation, which means drier land, less productive agriculture and
more
fires; and melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, which would
lead
to rising ocean levels, which in turn would endanger low-lying regions
of
the world from southern Florida to large portions of the
Netherlands.
Mr. Gore does a cogent job of explaining how global warming can
disrupt
delicate ecological balances, resulting in the spread of pests (like
the
pine beetle, whose migration used to be slowed by colder winters),
increases
in the range of disease vectors (including mosquitoes, ticks and
fleas), and
the extinction of a growing number of species.
Already, he claims, a study shows that "polar bears have been
drowning in
significant numbers" as melting Arctic ice forces them to swim
longer and
longer distances, while other studies indicate that the population
of
Emperor penguins "has declined by an estimated 70 percent over
the past 50
years."
For the most part, however, Mr. Gore's stripped-down narrative
emphasizes
facts over emotion, common sense over portentous predictions. Mr. Gore
shows why
environmental health and a healthy economy do not constitute
mutually
exclusive choices,
and he enumerates practical steps that can be taken to
reduce carbon emissions to a point below 1970's levels.
Mr. Gore, who once wrote an introduction to an edition of Rachel
Carson's
classic "Silent Spring" (the 1962 book that not only alerted
readers to the
dangers of
pesticides, but is also credited with spurring the modern
environmental movement), isn't a scientist like Carson and doesn't
possess
her literary gifts; he writes, rather, as a popularizer of other
people's
research and ideas. But in this multimedia day of shorter attention
spans
and high-profile authors, "An Inconvenient Truth" (the book
and the movie)
could play a similar role in galvanizing public opinion about a real
and
present danger. It could goad the public into reading more scholarly
books
on the subject, and it might even push awareness of global warming to
a real
tipping point - and beyond.