An Inconvenient Truth
Al Gore's climate change movie, An Inconvenient Truth, finally hits Belfast this weekend. It's much anticipated and the local press and radio has been trotting out local pundits on the pro and con side of the global warming argument. I haven't seen it as yet but intend to go during the coming week.
I am at a loss though to understand the vehemence with which commentators have opposed the climate change arguments put forth by Gore et al. Certainly, there are oil (and other fossil fuel) company goons who are paid to foster doubt on these issues but there are others - perhaps just political conservatives - who disbelieve the evidence just because it comes from the mouth of Al and any other liberal/left-of-centre figures.
The American neo-conservative group Project for a New American Century in an infamous paper Rebuilding America's Defenses have said that a catalysing event, a "new Pearl Harbour", will be needed to build public support behind its (corporatist and colonialist) agenda. Some conspiracy theorists see this event as being the 9/11 attack and an "inside job" by neo-conservative elements. I think that a similar paradigm shift is needed to wake people up to the reality of man-made climate change. In some respects the "new Pearl Harbour" of the left was the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans in 2005. But there will be other disasters that do not need to be organised by shadowy political or religious organisation. Just how many will there be before we can really get the leaders of the right to start worrying for the future of their own children?
I hope that the growing reality of climate change will also bring about a rethink in world politics. I hope people will soon see that it is due to effects policies that play to corporate interests that natural disasters are increasing in intensity and the fragile ecology of the planet (and some say even the human race as a whole) is threatened. Indeed such a paradigm shift has got to happen but just how long it will take and at what price will be paid for delay?
I am at a loss though to understand the vehemence with which commentators have opposed the climate change arguments put forth by Gore et al. Certainly, there are oil (and other fossil fuel) company goons who are paid to foster doubt on these issues but there are others - perhaps just political conservatives - who disbelieve the evidence just because it comes from the mouth of Al and any other liberal/left-of-centre figures.
The American neo-conservative group Project for a New American Century in an infamous paper Rebuilding America's Defenses have said that a catalysing event, a "new Pearl Harbour", will be needed to build public support behind its (corporatist and colonialist) agenda. Some conspiracy theorists see this event as being the 9/11 attack and an "inside job" by neo-conservative elements. I think that a similar paradigm shift is needed to wake people up to the reality of man-made climate change. In some respects the "new Pearl Harbour" of the left was the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans in 2005. But there will be other disasters that do not need to be organised by shadowy political or religious organisation. Just how many will there be before we can really get the leaders of the right to start worrying for the future of their own children?
I hope that the growing reality of climate change will also bring about a rethink in world politics. I hope people will soon see that it is due to effects policies that play to corporate interests that natural disasters are increasing in intensity and the fragile ecology of the planet (and some say even the human race as a whole) is threatened. Indeed such a paradigm shift has got to happen but just how long it will take and at what price will be paid for delay?
posted by voluntarysimpleton at 4:27 AM
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