An Inconvenient Truth
I'm in DC for the ACS National Conference this weekend. The conference officially begins tomorrow, and though there was a student retreat today, I wasn't up for attending any of the student panels, which, I suspect, consisted of little more than Bush-bashing law students. I'm no fan of Bush, but I don't see the profitability of rants.
So instead I went to see Al Gore's documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. The film features Gore showing a PowerPoint presentation replete with animated graphs to a studio audience. Now, lest that last sentence turn you off to the film, I should add that the movie was never boring and that, since 2000, Gore has figured out how to eliminate almost all of the monotony from his voice.
Gore presents overwhelming evidence about the nature, extent, and consequences of the global warming problem. Now, a good critical thinker could call into question quite a bit of Gore's evidence (I don't remember seeing more than 2 graphs with denominations on the axes; plus, Gore jumped from correlation to causation pretty damn fast), but really, I don't think the evidence is the film's problem. Besides, the documentary isn't for climatologists; it's for laypeople.
So if the evidence is good, what's wrong with Gore's argument? A lot, I say. If Gore really wants to solve the global warming problem (a big if), I think he's got to go deeper. People who believe in science as a primary way of knowing things probably already believe that global warming is a problem. Maybe Gore's documentary will increase the urgency of the cause in their eyes for a few weeks, but really, they're already on board. Gore has to convince people with different epistemologies. For example, I grew up learning that God created the earth for man; nothing man can do can destroy the planet. On that view, all the evidence about global warming, nuclear weapons, water, etc. won't matter, because God trumps science. People who hold epistemologies like this one don't put much stock in evidence that suggests their Hummer caused Katrina.
Now, to be fair to Gore, I don't think a 100 minute documentary can possibly change the epistemological views of millions of people with a lot of conviction. But he's got to do better than graph after graph after graph. He's got to use more pictures to strengthen the link between my behavior today and the bad things that will happen to me tomorrow. I'm not even sure whether it's possible, but I'm pretty sure Gore didn't do it.
Last criticism of the documentary: Gore closes the film with a list of things you can do to help solve the problem. Great. Does anybody really believe that their individual behavior makes a difference? We need legislation, not three committed hippies riding their bikes to work.
Thoughts?
So instead I went to see Al Gore's documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. The film features Gore showing a PowerPoint presentation replete with animated graphs to a studio audience. Now, lest that last sentence turn you off to the film, I should add that the movie was never boring and that, since 2000, Gore has figured out how to eliminate almost all of the monotony from his voice.
Gore presents overwhelming evidence about the nature, extent, and consequences of the global warming problem. Now, a good critical thinker could call into question quite a bit of Gore's evidence (I don't remember seeing more than 2 graphs with denominations on the axes; plus, Gore jumped from correlation to causation pretty damn fast), but really, I don't think the evidence is the film's problem. Besides, the documentary isn't for climatologists; it's for laypeople.
So if the evidence is good, what's wrong with Gore's argument? A lot, I say. If Gore really wants to solve the global warming problem (a big if), I think he's got to go deeper. People who believe in science as a primary way of knowing things probably already believe that global warming is a problem. Maybe Gore's documentary will increase the urgency of the cause in their eyes for a few weeks, but really, they're already on board. Gore has to convince people with different epistemologies. For example, I grew up learning that God created the earth for man; nothing man can do can destroy the planet. On that view, all the evidence about global warming, nuclear weapons, water, etc. won't matter, because God trumps science. People who hold epistemologies like this one don't put much stock in evidence that suggests their Hummer caused Katrina.
Now, to be fair to Gore, I don't think a 100 minute documentary can possibly change the epistemological views of millions of people with a lot of conviction. But he's got to do better than graph after graph after graph. He's got to use more pictures to strengthen the link between my behavior today and the bad things that will happen to me tomorrow. I'm not even sure whether it's possible, but I'm pretty sure Gore didn't do it.
Last criticism of the documentary: Gore closes the film with a list of things you can do to help solve the problem. Great. Does anybody really believe that their individual behavior makes a difference? We need legislation, not three committed hippies riding their bikes to work.
Thoughts?
posted by Garrett at 7:02 PM
5 Comments:
I saw the film a few weeks ago when it opened in L.A. There's an independent theater in Santa Monica located right next door to the NRDC main office, so they got first dibs on the showing.
I had not thought about the epistemological points you made, but they are well-taken.
Your last paragraph echoed my response to An Inconvenient Truth. The irony is that the embrace from the left of individualism in that regard seems to inadvertently and covertly bolster the position of those who deny the existence of global warming. What better fuel to the fire of temperature change than an opposition movement that has foursquare adopted a solution that is futile by definition.
And it is futile. Did you read the article in the New Yorker last February about "power distributions?" Odds are, most people already drive relatively low-emission vehicles. Pollution is a "power distribution" where a very small number of individuals are causing a very large amount of the social ill. Thus, trading in your VW for a bike, as you suggest, does much more harm than good. Legislate!
Yeah, I think I did read that article. Was it by Malcolm Gladwell? I liked his frankness: he admitted that his proposed solutions make no sense from an individualistic point of view. If our goal is really to fix the problem, the worst-behaved homeless people need more social resources, desert be damned.
How does one challenge a worldview as dominant, at least in the U.S., as individualism?
If you don't mind my asking, what is your epistemology these days?
Without getting in too deep, I'll just say empiricism while acknowledging there's a strong argument questioning whether facts are severable from values.
damn law student ;)
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