Please see An Inconvenient Truth

We went to see Al Gore's film An Inconvient Truth last night and it was excellent. I fully recommend it to anyone and will be pestering everyone I know to see it.

For those that aren't aware, it's basically Al Gore presenting a slide show on climate change. This is something he studied at college and has spent most of his political life trying to raise awareness of. When he lost the presidential elections back in 2000 he decided to travel the world presenting his slide show and educating people on the causes, consequences and prevention of climate change as well as a bit of the science and history behind it. The movie is his way of reaching even more people (and hopefully cutting down on his international air travel).

For those that don't know that much about climate change, the movie is very informative. There wasn't a lot in it that I didn't already know from reading books and websites but the movie is much more engaging than a book. The fact that everything he talks about is accompanied by photographs, cartoons, graphs or charts makes it more interesting, more visual and easier to take in. And just so that you're not sitting there with your eyes glazing over thinking "what's he talking about again?", there are personal moments of tragedy and revelation which contributed to Gore's passion for the subject. The movie is aimed at the American public but is very relevant to everyone else too.

The thing is, whether we like it or not, climate change IS happening. I know I've said before that I don't want to use this blog to preach, mainly because I don't want to put people off coming here and reading it, but at the end of the day it's vitally important that everyone understands as much as they can about this subject. Throughout history change has occurred because the people, the general population, have wanted it, have fought for it and have put pressure on those organisations that can actually do something about it. Politicians won't make the changes unless we want them to. Energy companies, airlines, car manufacturers won't make the changes unless we pressure them to. Every purchasing decision we make has a direct influence on climate change in some way. It is up to every single one of us to make all the small changes we can, which will ultimately contribute to a big change, and which will hopefully lessen the consequences of climate change and give us the ability to deal with it when it does happen.

When you do see the film, be sure to stay right to the end as some interesting and useful snippets of advice come up during the credits. This is the important bit as this is what empowers you to actually help the situation. Here is a youtube.com trailer of the movie:



For an alternative (and funny) trailer see: A Terrifying Message from Al Gore

And for an amusing review see: Keep it Green! Cliff Notes Version of An Inconvenient Truth

Interestingly, whilst I was writing this post Toby's brother called to say that the environment minister was being interviewed on Sunrise, Australia's top morning TV show. He was talking about the film and about the issue of climate change. I missed the interview but tuned in in time to hear the presenter give a couple of shocking statistics and to promise to revisit the topic over the next few months. This is brilliant and this means the issue is being brought to the masses. Bring it on!

Tip for the top: Get involved in your energy company's green energy scheme. This is a very easy thing to do but can have a massive overall effect. Toby and I purchase 1000kw of renewable energy per quarter from Energex, which is about how much electricity we use. In effect, this means that all of our energy comes from renewable resources, hardly any of it comes from dirty polluting coal. Most of our renewable energy comes from bio-mass which is a controversial source of renewable energy as some say it isn't actually renewable. Basically, rubbish in landfill gives off methane, which is 20 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2. Instead of letting this energy into the atmosphere, the energy companies convert it into electricity, thus helping the climate in two ways; firstly by preventing the release of that methane, and secondly by replacing (or, more accurately, reducing) the need to burn CO2 producing coal. The energy companies generally get their renewable energy from a number of sources and each scheme will place more emphasis on different types of resources. We pay a little bit extra each bill for the privelege of placing the renewable energy onto the grid, which I personally think is a bit ridiculous: it's like we're being taxed for using clean energy instead of the other way round. But, it's really not a lot of money when you consider the total cost of your bill and I think it's worth it for peace of mind.

Attention all teachers! My second tip for the top today is a request for all teachers to do everything they can to either get their students to see this movie if they're old enough or, for the younger ones, to find some alternative way of educating them on climate change and the small things they can do to help. I know that children can have a massive influence on their parents and can help to educate them, and the principles they learn at school will stay with them for life. I will always remember "Waste not, want not" and to this day can't leave food on my plate. My Grandpa gave up smoking after my Dad came home and told him about the photographs of a tar-filled lung he'd seen at school that day. I remember pestering my parents to choose free-range eggs and showing them pictures of chickens crammed into tiny cages. Children make a difference and they're the next generation, the generation that's really going to have to deal with this crisis, so let's do everything we can to prepare and educate them.

Here are some useful resources to start with:
Energex's climate change for schools site
Climate change education
Global Gateway climate change resources