Though I am no fan of Al Gore, I very much appreciated seeing An Inconvenient Truth last night. Gore, and the movie, make a very convincing case that, whatever your political affiliations, the problem of global warming should be an immediate and urgent concern.
It was interesting to see how much the presentation felt like things we talk about on Radar: (1) faint signals can give clear indications of future trends; (2) data visualization is as or more important then data collection if the goal is persuasion; and (3) hackers of all kinds are all switching to Mac. (Okay, that last one was a joke, but cripes, the thing was like an hour and forty-five minute Apple ad! Gore is on the Apple board of directors, and it showed.) There were a few points where I felt like I was watching a presentation Tim and Roger might have put together, rather than one from a politician. (I noticed, too, that Larry Lessig was acknowledged in the credits.)
I have to hand it to Gore for doing an amazing job on the film and on the topic, and I’m amazed and happy to see how he gave it, too. It definitely felt like one of the few movies I’ve seen that had at least the potential to change history.
I’d highly recommend seeing it, and if you can see it today (Saturday), that will help drive up the opening weekend ticket sales, which would be a great signal for rising interest and concern about global warming. If for some reason you can’t make it to the theater, here’s a convenient way to “vote” your concern: go to MovieTickets.com or Fandango and buy a ticket or two anyways (particuarly, for shows earlier in the day on Saturday, when they will count in the first released figures). I’d be bummed if you bought a seat someone else would likely fill to see the movie, so I’d suggest staying away from sold-out shows like those at the Embarcadero in San Francisco. Instead, maybe the best thing you could do would be to choose some conservative area — Utah, Orange County, whatever — and buy a seat there. Or if that feels deceptive, buy a seat in Berkeley; the University Theater on Kittredge was (surprisingly, given that the town feels like a Prius dealer’s lot) not sold out last night. Convenient support for an inconvenient truth — let’s hear it for the Internet.
I’m planning to buy a few more tickets now. Don’t worry, I’ll recycle them.
Update: After reading the comments and thinking about it more, I took out the suggestion that you buy tickets somewhere other than where you live. While I’m sure some people would like a bigger deletion, I’m sticking with the rest, but I agree that point was stupid; thanks for the comments.