Al Gore was right

Last night I watched An Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore movie.

I’d been telling people that I didn’t need to watch it. After all, I was already on his side, wasn’t I? I remember the day that Bill Clinton announced that Al Gore would be his running mate. It really freaked me out, because I didn’t think much of Clinton (what was I, like 15?), but I really dug Al Gore.

I dug him because in 1990, Earth Day happened and it turned me into a convinced member of the ecological movement. I still credit all the silly TV specials from Earth Day 1990 as turning me into the politicized professional that I am today, 17 years later. Al Gore was the politician people thought of in those days when they talked about environmentalist politicians, so I loved the guy.

But that was seventeen years ago. I’ve moved a long way from the environmental movement. I’ve never worked in it, but I think I’ve also thought about it less and less. I think the real reason that I avoided Al Gore’s movie was because I was afraid he’d blind me with evidence about how bad it was.

He did.

I could hardly handle it to be honest. I cry at movies, but I don’t ever cry at the movies that other people cry at. I don’t cry about tragedy or loss. I cry about heroism. And that was a heroic movie. God. I was so moved by the end of it, by his relentless humility with such extraordinary righteousness at his back. Even now, I tear up thinking about it.Once upon a time, our heroes fought with muskets and swords. Al Gore is fighting with a slide show. That’s what he calls it. He says, “I started showing the slide show again.”

The slide show.It’s just such a self-effacing way to describe the awesome thing he’s done and continues to do. And his slide show, his little PowerPoint, really blew me away. It was really the glaciers that did it. Maybe you don’t buy the facts and the graphs. i always did, but maybe those things don’t speak to you. Fine.

When he shows you the photos of glaciers in the 70s and the way they look today, you have to be crazy not to be astouded by those photos. Crazy.

So, anyway, I’m glad I watched it. It was a little painful for me to see, but I got through it and I did it and it hurt me but I guess it was a hurt I needed.You should see the movie too, if you haven’t. Even if you’re already on the team, you should see it.

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It was a good weekend for me to see it, too. This weekend, I’m getting started on my Earth Day card for 2007 [Earth Day is April 22nd, incidentally]. A few years ago, I felt bad that I didn’t do Christmas Cards, but then I decided that everyone does Christmas cards and I could brighten up people’s lives at a different part of the year. So no one gets Christmas cards from me, but, usually, in the Spring, they get Earth Day cards.

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