Last night we watched the movie An Inconvenient Truth at our place with Brad and Tiffany. TMom sent it to us after viewing it, so we decided to give it a shot. Not your typical romantic Friday night date, but, hey, our brain cells increased as Al Gore showed us a plethora of graphs which all indicated steadily rising temperatures, sea levels, and carbon dioxide levels, worldwide. I already knew that this was happening, and always felt depressed about the whole thing. Al really made it hit home with his in-depth explanations and his personal stories to go along with them. I found it fascinating (let me see if I get this right) that when the sun’s rays hit the North Pole, 90% of them are reflected off the ice, back up into the air. But when the rays hit water, 90% of them are absorbed, so the water gets hotter as the ice melts, which melts more ice, which causes more of the sun’s rays to be absorbed into the ocean, causing warmer waters. Does that make sense? It’s kind of crazy.
A criticism of the documentary is that he spent about five minutes of it going over his loss to President Bush in the presidential elections. I did not think that had anything to do with all this, but I’m sure it made the Republicans feel a tinge of guilt for not voting for him so he could save the earth. Also, he should have spent less time discussing the problem and more time discussing the adjustments we could all make to be part of the solution. Some of these suggestions, which were just listed at the very end of the movie, were to buy Energy Star appliances, insulate your home better (windows, etc.), walk/ride a bike or get a vehicle with better gas mileage…. basically you have to have plenty of money to make a big difference all at once. But small contributions can be made by using less gas and electricity and also recycling!!! Utah definitely needs to jump on the bandwagon for that last one, seeing as how 2 people in our whole neighborhood actually pay the 5 bucks a month it costs to recycle. Why does it cost money to recycle here? It isn’t much money, but apparently people either don’t see recycling as a priority, or they don’t want to put forth the extra cash each month to help in this whole save the earth thing. I mean, it’s kind of a big deal because at least in our household, the vast majority of our waste (meaning garbage, in this case) is recyclable! Luckily, our next door neighbors are kind enough to let us just throw all our recyclables into their can, so we get to save the earth without spending that dreaded extra 5 bucks a month.
Anyway, what do you think?