An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore

I just finished reading Al Gore's book, An Inconvenient Truth. It's all about the climate crisis and his efforts to raise awareness and push for legislative reform that will protect the environment. He uses lots of scientific research to support his points, but he presents it all in a colorful, easy to understand way with lots of pictures and graphs to illustrate his points. He's pretty convincing.

One study by Dr. Naomi Oreskes of the University of Calafornia at San Diego that he cited explored the literature published having to do with global warming. Of the 928 articles published in peer-reviewed, scientific journals during the past 10 years, not a single one doubted that humans were the cause of global warming. In contrast, out of the 636 articles published in the popular press (New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times and the Wall Street Journal) during the past 14 years, 53% expressed doubt as to the cause of global warming (p. 262-263). The social scientist in me says that both samples should have been taken from literature published over the past ten years, instead of 10 for one and 14 for the other. But my guess is that the point would still be made. Gore compares the campaign to avoid consensus on global warming to the campaign by tobacco companies to avoid consensus on the harmful effects of smoking or chewing. It is in the best (financial) interest of some industries to not take action to reduce our negative impact on the environment, just like it was/is in the best interest of tobacco companies for the public not to know the harmful effects of smoking.

Gore focuses on the role that the U.S. is not, but could play. The U.S. and Australia are the only two developed countries who have not signed the Kyoto Treaty which would require all nations to take steps to reduce harmful CO2 emissions that are causing the damage. (The U.S. also didn't sign the rights of the child act, but that's another story). Evidently, the campaign to ignore gobal warming is working.

So this is my bit to raise awareness about the climate crisis. I encourage everyone to either read Al Gore's book, or see the movie version that was also made. The last 15 pages of the book are a list of practical things that each one of us can do to reduce the damage we do to the environment. Visit www.climatecrisis.net to find out the total amount of greenhouse gases that you produce and tips to reduce your greenhouse gases. Go green!

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In other news, work continues as normal. Today I'll be working a job fair type event to encourage young people to volunteer with us. Life in Coventry is currently a microcosm of the world, I feel. And I understand now, more than ever, how and why conflict in Northern Ireland persists to this day, and why no one knows exactly how to solve this tricky problem. People are complicated.