God (or Gaeia) save us from ourselves...

I'll start with the light stuff. This weekend was fun. Saturday night/Sunday morning I hung out w/ many ol' high (and even elementary!) school buds, and we gorged ourselves on raw cookie dough and watched "Aladdin" and "The Sword in the Stone." Hey hey, my my, 2-D animation shall never die!!!

However, just now I got back from "An Inconvenient Truth." The movie didn't REALLY show me anything too new that I wasn't already aware of to at least some degree, but then again, I am a big tree-hugger. It's very good that others will see this thing. Personally, however, I'm ashamed of myself. I feel I've lost my sense of duty somewhere...

There was a time when I remember these issues were my main concerns. Generally all I could think about was nature and the environment. However, these important subjects were eclipsed by high school (and beyond) hormones and my continuing fascination with filmmaking. And of course in going to LA it is VERY easy to lose touch with one's sense of nature a bit.

This isn't to say I'm ashamed in my love for filmmaking or anything...I believe I will always be passionate about movies, and I'm proud of that. But I also feel that my passion for environmentalism has gotten buried a bit in the shuffle. Is it possible to become a born-again environmentalist? This sounds funny, but hang on one moment...

I remember during college freshman year a Catholic aquaintance of mine (not Eric though!) accused me of "having no religion! Your religion is just dinosaurs and crap!" or something along those lines. I was pretty infuriated since I am a fairly SPIRITUAL guy at least. But at the same time, what IS a religion anyway other than a higher ideal to devote yourself to? Something you put your FAITH into? I don't really know if I believe in a conscious entity that controls us; for me "God" is just the miracle of our own biology and the marvels of how the universe works. Nature (dinosaurs included!) IS what gives me spirtual satisfaction. I hope that I never lose this side of myself, and I must remember to devote myself to the green side more than I have in recent times.

That having been said, "Inconvenient Truth" is not without its problems. Some concepts were glossed over a bit, and the film focuses too much on Al Gore's personal life, slowing things down. The exciting, important stuff is the hard data he's giving, not his own anecdotes. And such tangents will also turn the film off to Republicans, who need to take the warnings of global warming to heart as much as anyone else.

Yet what I found most worrying is the fact that "An Inconvenient Truth" offers little in the way of a solution to save our planet. While certainly the first step in such a plan is to simply inform people of the crisis (of which the film does a very good job) it would also be encouraging to know that we can actually save ourselves. I know that many scientists I have encountered really DO feel that we are doomed and that it is already too late.

However Gore quickly says at the end of the film, "We can stop this!" but I don't know if we can. He fails to give a whole lot of hard data supporting the claim that "EARTH IS NOT BEYOND SAVING!!!" (Batman--or Captain Planet?--voice), and of course this MAY be due to the fact that the point of the film is to address the problem, not the solution. Even so, it worries me.

Still, I guess all we can do is put our faith in humanity on the line. One of my credos is to always try as hard as you can, even when you think you are screwed to the zillionth degree. If in the next several decades we manage to pull ourselves together like we've done multiple times throughout history in other situations, I MAY indeed become a religious person, even in a more "real" sense of the word. Because it's going to take a miracle to dredge us out of the mess we've caused.

Peace out. Seriously.