Movie Review: An Inconvenient Truth
Review by Will Arntz
A hot topic. Literally.
In fact the Hot Topic IS a Hot Topic.
Not realizing quite how hot it is, I blasted off a quick email to our subscribers, urging them to go see the film An Inconvenient Truth. The response to that urging went something like this:
- 40% were thankful for the email
- 30% were offended / outraged by my using our email list for “political” reasons
- 20% replied in a thoughtful manner that “fear based” information was harmful to the creation of a healthy future
- 10% disagreed that Global Warming is a fact and cited some scientific evidence to back their view up
Before I dive into a review of the film as a stand-alone piece of work outside all the controversy, here are a few comments on these responses.
Science always moves forward by hypothesis, experiments, measurements and debates. I really appreciated reading the 10% who cited scientists and who presented information that was interesting and worthwhile. When one cannot read a differing view, then I think one is into dogma.
The next group was distinctly “spiritual” in their approach, and voiced surprise and dismay that the creators of What the BLEEP!? supported a film that “created” fear and potentially the very disasters it outlined, by focusing on the problems. According to this view, addressing a problem is, in fact, manifesting that problem. And using fear as a motivation just brings about that condition.
In my view the film did not have the tone of fear-based motivation. It was indeed sobering, but then again, the future of the planet and everything that lives on it is at stake.
Actually, something happened to me at the peace conference in Bali that relates to this. A young woman approached me and said thank you for making the film. I smiled and said you’re welcome. She said, “If it wasn’t for the film, I’d be dead.”
What?
Turns out she had been diagnosed as having a very fatal cancer and was about to go in for surgery, when she saw BLEEP and decided to heal herself.
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