The leading documentary of global warming called, An Inconvenient Truth, seems to be changing the opinions of everyone concerning global warming. The documentary is actually based around former Vice President, Al Gore’s speech. When I think of Al Gore, I think of all the horrible things my parents said about him. I grew up in a conservative, very Republican household. Where bill Clinton and anyone affiliated with him were considered evil; So Al Gore was just someone else who got criticized a lot in my household. Even when he was running for president against George W. Bush, I was rooting for Bush. How naïve was I? The economy is falling apart; we are in a war that should have never been started; and gas prices are so much now that I can’t drive around to get to school. Bush hasn’t even tried to approach the global warming crisis at hand, but now I know that Gore would’ve.
Thinking back to when I first heard about global warming; I think of a huge man who had this enormous, booming voice that you could hear from down the stairs, and into the cafeteria. My ninth grade biology teacher tried to get us aware of the fact that it was a major problem that needed to be dealt with. He told us how the greenhouse gases worked and how it would affect us. After school that day I went and talked to my mother about this whole new concept, and she agreed with him. Since then I have been aware of the global warming crisis and hoped that scientists and the people in charge, aka the government, would do something to fix it. Unfortunately nothing has happened to help. Now after I graduate, this movie comes out. Al Gore, someone I was taught to despise, is talking about something that I really care about. So I watch the movie, and I am blown away. Al Gore is talking sense. How can this be? Sure he talks about himself a lot, and he get annoying after awhile; but I really soak in his message. I learned a lot from all the facts that he gave to everyone in the documentary. I didn’t know that so many things were happening around the world showing signs of this catastrophe. I will admit something to all of you that read this; I am a tree-hugging, animal loving, wannabe hippy. so as I watch, I learn that more and more animals are becoming extinct; polar bears have been found to have drowned because they can’t find thick enough ice to lay on; pine trees are being ravaged by pine beetles that were once killed off because of the winter months, but no longer are because of rising temperatures; and that the glaciers in the Himalayas are receding so much that they are not longer giving the water needed for some people to survive. This totally boggles my mind that the United States of America, the wannabe world police/saviors; we’re not doing our part to help. We are also the only country in the world that has signed the Kyoto Protocol treaty but we are the only ones that have denied ratifying it.
How does this all tie into Al Gore? He informed me of important lessons to learn; not only for myself, but for my own children as well. So now I am left regretting one thing I thought I would never do; I now wish that we could go back in time and stop war-mongering George W. Bush from winning the presidency. I wish Al Gore had won; maybe he would have made things better. Maybe, maybe not. Who knows for sure? I do know one thing now; I can’t keep wishing for change. If I want something to change; I have to do something that brings about that change. It all starts with one little step into the inconvenient truth.
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