My own private Emocide

Not having heard too much about this movie ahead of time, I was surprised to find myself in a situation that felt like distance learning or an online class. Al Gore gives a 90-minute lecture on the change in our global environment. Mostly clear, concerning in many points, the movie makes a good point in visualizing what has changed in the Earth’s climate over the last 50 years and also shows the connections between various factors. Sometimes it feels like there are almost too many examples to back up the numbers, at other times a little bit of frustration and payback time concerning Gore’s own recent past peeks through (who would blame him). The political stubbornness is shown very well and some examples of lobbies and HR-decisions are just mind-boggling.
I heard about some critical voices about the numbers and scientific cause/result relationships, however, I only found right-wing nutcase-websites that criticized the facts in a way, that is less than compelling (See for instance “shelleytherepublican.com” in her blog-entry from July 6th 2006. One of the highlights: “First of all, let me say that I haven’t seen this movie. I don’t intend to and I urge all my readers to avoid it as well. No doubt whingeing liberals will try and criticize this decision, but I say to them, you don’t need to catch a cancer to know it’s bad for you - and the same goes for drinking up poisonous liberal lies.” Amen.)
Online research showed that there is some kind of criticism about details in the movie, which were not presented 100% clearly, but the general consensus is, that the relationships are portrayed correctly and conclusively.
I recommend anyone to give this a try. I cannot find any political agenda in the way the movie is presented and learning more about science is never a bad idea. Draw your own conclusions and research beyond what is presented to you. On the DVD, the special features are a must, as they give updates and extended information which did not make it into the feature.

4 out of 5 polar caps