This movie by Al Gore and others concerned about the climate crisis we face will not be a success if those of us who also share this concern do not do all in our power to get word out about this to others. My experience of the last two days in that regard below.
I had some time off from work the past couple of days, so I decided to take it upon myself to take a pen, a pad, and some information and go around my town asking people if they knew what climate change is, what causes it, and ask if they had heard of An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore.
I am thoroughly committed to doing all I can to get the word out about this movie, because this issue IS the issue of our times. It defines us as citizens of this world and as human beings, and what we now do in regards to it will determine the kind of world our children will grow up in. As the mother of a teen, this issue is very important to me. Therefore, I would walk the entire length of the Eastern seaboard to spread word of this to as many people as I could if I knew it would make a difference. However, I decided to start in my hometown.
I asked 100 people in the last two days if they knew what climate change was. 35 people said yes, 55 people said no, and 10 said they didn't care. Just the fact that I even got an answer from all 100 of these people and not a brush off amazed me. Anyway, I then asked the 35 people who said yes to the first question if they knew what causes climate change. They all said greenhouse gases and actually seemed to be pretty up on the subject, which was encouraging. To the 55 people who didn't know, I gave them a small flyer I made up telling them what causes climate change, and where they could go to find out more information about it and what they could do to fight it. Some of them may have trashed it after I was out of view, but hey, I did my part.
To all the respondents I then asked if they had heard of An Inconvenient Truth... NONE of them had. I thought, not good. And when I told them it was a movie about the current climate crisis we face and that it was based on lectures being given by Al Gore and asked what they thought of that, the majority of them thought it was just a campaign movie and that Al Gore was doing this just because he wants people to vote for him again. GRRRR. (That is why speculation not based on fact tying this movie to aspirations that he claims he doesn't have really bugs me.) That really brought me down. And one woman even said to me, "What right does he have to make a movie about anything? He LOST the 2000 election." I then saw flames in front of my eyes, but I remained cool, and told her that in fact was false and I could prove it to her. She then walked away. C'est la vie.
So you see, this is what we have to deal with in the real world, not the world of Daily Kos and other blogs where almost everyone who posts is already aware of this issue and this movie. This is also the effect caused by the lack of media coverage and truth about this issue, and the repercussions of a regime which silences the truth.
It is then going to be a gargantuan task to make people across this country realize that this movie is important based on its intrinsic values and the information it is relaying. That's why I firmly believe it cannot be done unless WE become a sort of promotional team for this movie. And just as a side note, many of these people also relayed that while this may be important, they are trying to survive, and have other priorities. That too must be taken into consideration... especially for those who will not even be able to afford seeing this movie.
So while it was encouraging to see that at least a pretty good sized sample at least knew what climate change is, it is disappointing to see based on that small sample that this movie is not as known as it should be. At least, not in my hometown.
So I'll be back out on this Saturday, Earth Day, trying to talk to some other people about this. At least all those I questioned in the last two days told me they would at least give the movie trailer a look. I guess that's a start.