Well here’s a fun film to take Uncle MAGA to. You could blindfold him and say you’ve got a surprise. And after he’s comfortably seated, remove the blindfold and show him two hours of Al Gore. Woo, what fun! Let me speak directly to all the Uncle MAGAs out there for a moment — I know you’ve been told many things and chosen to follow the worst among them, so I’m going to put this in terms you’ll understand completely: the odds that man-made Global Warming is a hoax are the same as the odds that OJ is innocent. Now do you understand why some of us think this is an important issue?
2006 gave us An Inconvenient Truth, possibly the most important movie ever made. As documentaries go, it was little more than an infomercial for modern Earth science. Slide after slide showed climate-related consequences from being the dominant species on the planet and what might happen if humans took no counter measures. It wasn’t political. No, it wasn’t. Objectors to said statement haven’t seen the film. For people like me who were previously unaware of the paths humans have chosen, An Inconvenient Truth was a great and terrible slap-in-the-face.
The film had three major problems:
1) It was alarmist
2) It called for changing our behavior as humans
3) It was hosted by the also-ran in the closest election in modern American history
The original reaction to An Inconvenient Truth represents the nadir of modern American existence. Wait. Scratch that. It would represent the nadir of modern American existence were it not for the election of Donald Trump. Still. A relative nadir and it went like this: the side that is currently 100%-ideology-0%-fact did what it is awesome at doing – taking a non (-partisan) issue, politicizing it, drawing up an enemies list, attacking, and scoring political points in the process. But this was no ordinary hit piece. This wasn’t the garden variety fact-challenged fallacious (but I can see why you think that way) argument like “universal armament makes us safer,” “immigration provides no societal benefit,” and “trickle-down economics will create jobs and wealth for all.” No, fighting Global Warming science takes deliberate misinformation and incredibly short-sighted thinking. Congratulation, Republicans, you won. And you’ve spread the lies deep enough to ensure no reasonable counter-effort will ever be made. All while demonizing people who care a lot more about Americans than you do.
Let me make some things clear right now because this movie sure as heck didn’t: glaciers don’t just melt. Mosquito-borne viruses don’t expand their territory without pause. Last year was the hottest on record. That wasn’t an anomaly, this century speaking. And this year may well eclipse it. Barring changed behavior, the next will likely hotter than that, and so on. Sooner or later, every single living creature will be impacted by Global Warming, Climate Change, whatever you call it. The question for decades has not been, “is this a thing?” The correct question is, “How can we, the species responsible for Climate Change, minimize its impact?” And during that time, every single influential red voter has either passively or actively worked towards making sure Americans never even get to that question.
When the inevitable cost of Global Warming arrives, it can be brought down l squarely on the shoulders of Republican politicians, policy-influential billionaires, and especially Fox News, the primary conduit for partisan idiocy in the United States. You know … when you all die and go to Hell and you have some free time in between torture sessions to reflect why you’re there, be sure to hit upon the part where you deliberately marginalized well-meaning people to serve your own greed, sloth, and fear.
But I digress. Let’s get to this awful film.
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is a complete failure. Unlike the first film, Inconvenient Sequel is decidedly political … all wasted energy. It’s stated purpose to get humans to act on Global Warming will likely have a net negative effect; because Republicans have become so dogmatic and recalcitrant against science, I truly believe this film will actually impede –out of spite- any progress being made against Climate Change. Hence, we get to judge it on its merits as a film, which are sadly lacking.
The filmmakers had to know it was a lost cause presenting An Inconvenient Sequel at a time when all three branches of government were red, so for the love of catharsis or a feeling of “screw you, conservative assholes,” this film had either be a strong scientific update showing what’s happened in the past ten years to modify the alarmist models or a tirade against the villains of Climate Change, like Ted Cruz and James Inhofe (the joker who brought a snowball to the capitol building to “prove” Global Warming is a hoax). Inhofe does appear in the film, but hardly gets his deserved comeuppance.
Donald Trump takes heat in the film, but this is misplaced. Sure, Trump is a villain, now, but he’s a symptom, not a disease. The desire to make sure Global Warming never took root in the collective American conscience existed long before Trump lied his way into politics. Among the throng of C. Montgomery Burns enablers and impersonators who ran on the Republican ticket in 2016, not a single one of them chose a Climate Change platform; that’s a 100% refusal of science from the most powerful political party of (what was) the most influential country in the world. This was your film, fellas … an exposure of those who had the power to do something and failed to take action, or worse, scored from inaction.
Instead, this film feels like the Al Gore travelogue. Yeah, there are some updated charts and a little Global Warming science. Inconvenient Sequel decided, however, to fashion India as the villain to be overcome (India?!) and presented precious little of the mountain of hard data we know exists. Instead, incredibly, the film showed the kind of bad anecdotal science we expect from red staters.
Al Gore visited the flooded streets of Miami, some melting in Greenland, and the flooding of the Freedom Tower site. Look, of all the things to pick – the flooding of the Freedom Tower site? The danger is supposed to be that the site will flood because the oceans rise. However, the Freedom Tower Memorial is currently not under water, so showing the flooding from a storm doesn’t actually match your argument. That’s bullshit. Is Miami currently under water? Not yet. Again, not the best argument to choose.
Here’s the problem – in a country of 300 million people, anecdotal evidence can almost literally prove anything. This is why it’s such a valuable tool for the Right. There are indeed cases in which more guns actually helped a situation; there are indeed immigrants guilty of violent crime. Ok, so I can’t name a single situation where a billionaire caught a tax break an immediately turned around and created more jobs, but point being – none of those things are supported by hard fact, only hand-picked
evidence. This is not good science. This is Ted Cruz science. Climate Change has been studied by many, many scientists around the globe. It exists. It is man-made. State a better case or get off my screen.
Adding to the worst are the constant shots of Al Gore himself emerging time and time again like a whack-a-mole from gas-powered vehicles. Unfortunately, the red state false equivalency file equates Gore’s hypocritical use of petroleum based machines with the potential destruction of the entire planet. None of that is worth two hours of Al Gore.
Climate Change is real. It is man-made, and it will have consequences in our lifetimes; we’re seeing them already. There are many ways of combating Climate Change, but they’ve all become secondary to fossil fools insistent on squeezing the last drop of oil, the last lump of coal and the last bag of gas from the Earth. It’s too bad you can’t farm energy from natural gas bag Al Gore.
♪Sittin’ here waitin’ for legislation
Hopin’ to see solar for all
Instead I got Prez who seems to think
That coal is ready for revival
Feelin’ up some hot Earth baby this winter
We got some hot Earth baby, all right
Don’t need no hot Earth, I’m gonna splinter
No one needs Al Gore tonight♫
Rated PG, 98 Minutes
Director: Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk
Writer: A pissed off Mother Earth
Genre: Making sure the most important story of the century will be ignored
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The family Gore
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Head-in-the-increasingly-scorched-Earth deniers
♪ Parody Inspired by “Hot Stuff”
