We now stand at the crossroads. At no other point in human
history have the stakes been so high.
We now stand at the crossroads. At no other point in human history have the stakes been so high.
That thought hit me recently after watching “An Inconvenient Truth'” former Vice President Al Gore’s blockbuster film warning what severe climate changes humanity face from global warming.
Those nasty changes to our planet’s weather system and environment will severely impact us here in the South Valley.
Along with a dozen other local folks, on Dec. 16 I watched the DVD version of the documentary in the Morgan Hill home of Daniel Kenney.
It was part of a national event sponsored by Moveon.org to get out the message that the world’s environment now hangs on a thread.
Kenney hosted the movie – essentially a 90-minute lecture given by Gore – along with thousands of other Moveon.org members across America.
A Powerpoint presentation on film might not sound like a stunning cinematic experience, but believe me when I say it’s really riveting. Gore finds entertaining ways to teach the science of global warming while making the case that humans have a moral obligation to fix the growing climate problem.
Because it’s true, “An Inconvenient Truth” is far scarier than any Hollywood horror flick.
It warns viewers that the future of Earth – and the survival of the human race – is jeopardized from the carbon dioxide we’ve been releasing into the atmosphere for the last couple of centuries. But the film also contains hope.
Gore believes people can solve the problem – if we unite together and take immediate action.
Gore first learned about global warming when he was a young college undergrad in the 1960s. Roger Revelle, one of his professors, saw the economic expansion the world experienced after World War II, and he realized oil and coal – the so-called “fossil fuels” – mainly fired this global boom. He thus became the first scientist to measure carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere.
Unfortunately, burning oil and coal releases carbon dioxide molecules into the air. These gas molecules work like a heavy sweater to insulate our planet and trap the sun’s radiant heat.
Over the decades, humans have burned billions of tons of fossil fuels and gradually changed the atmosphere’s chemistry. That’s how we unintentionally caused our planet’s overall temperature to dramatically rise over the decades.
In his film, Gore makes an analogy using a cartoon frog to demonstrate why people have been slow at responding to the planetary emergency we now face.
When the frog is put into a pot of boiling water, it instantly realizes the danger and leaps out to safety.
But when that same frog is placed in a pot of cool water that is gradually heated up, the amphibious critter simply sits there until the liquid is boiling and it’s too late – or until it’s rescued by a cartoon version of Al Gore.
The same principle holds true for people and the peril of global warming. We would all act quickly if we felt the immediate pain of the climate crisis.
But because the danger is not at first easily recognizable, we act slowly – or not at all – to save ourselves.
Gore described some cautionary signals of climate crisis. One of these warnings is the recent and rapid melting of ice sheets and glaciers throughout the world.
This is particularly worrisome as the ice covering Greenland and Antarctica starts to increase its melting. Once all that ice turns into liquid water, the world’s oceans will rise by as much as 20 feet, Gore says, displacing millions of people along coastal regions.
“An Inconvenient Truth” graphically shows what might happen to the San Francisco Bay shoreline if the oceans rise. Communities along the bay’s rim will be severely flooded. Hundreds of thousands of people will be forced to flee. Many of them will certainly move to the South Valley region and thus increase the population and problems here.
Global warming is a serious issue that has huge and unpleasant consequences for everyone on our planet. But luckily, we’ve been able to recognize the problem at a time when we can still solve it. The world’s various nations took a step toward a solution by passing the Kyoto Protocol in 1999 to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The treaty was ratified by 169 countries. Unfortunately, two nations did not ratify it – Australia and the United States.
Interestingly, a few American cities did symbolically “ratify” the Kyoto Protocol to affirm its principle of saving the Earth’s environment. The South County’s Morgan Hill was one of them.
Some American politicians claim the “high cost” of combating global warming will hurt our nation’s economy and cost us jobs.
Silicon Valley, however, is proving these politicians are wrong.
Many Bay Area high-tech companies are leading the way in showing that the color of money is truly green.
On Tuesday, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, made up of the area’s best and brightest business leaders, launched its “clean and green” energy action plan to help tackle global warming.
High-tech companies such as Google know they can save money by installing solar power systems. And, after an initial investment of 1.1 million in energy efficient programs, Adobe Systems reduced annual operating costs for its downtown San Jose headquarters by more than $1 million.
But in the final analysis, fixing the problem of global warming must be about more than just the corporate bottom-line. As Gore stressed in his film, it’s an ethical responsibility.
It must be about deeply caring for our children and grandchildren who will be forced to deal with a catastrophic mess we’ve made of the environment.
I asked Dan Kenney what he’d like to impress upon South Valley residents in regards to the message Al Gore gives in “An Inconvenient Truth.”
“I would like to quote the author Henrik Tikkanen'” he told me. “‘Because we don’t think about future generations, they will never forget us.'”
The time for change is now. Those future generations await what decision we make as we now stand at the crossroads.
Martin Cheek is the author of ‘The Silicon Valley Handbook.’ He can be reached at ma**********@***il.com.
