Monday, January 01, 2007
Happy New Year & Go See This Movie....
Unfortunately the weekend is coming to a close, however, it was a lot of fun! This morning we got up and watched the Rose Parade. Devera wasn't as interested in it as I thought she'd be. In fact, it wasn't 30 minutes in and she was already playing with her toys not even paying attention to the floats.
Last night Toby and I watched the ball drop on TV. Dick Clark was hosting for like the 100th year. However, since his stroke he's not hosting it by himself anymore. We also watched Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth". Wow....now that is a worthwhile thing to watch! This is one of the few movies around that can actually change your life in a positive way. It's too bad Al Gore didn't win when he ran for president. I think he just didn't get his point across very well during that campaign. I did vote for him but I also remember thinking, "oh, they are both about the same, it doesn't really matter who wins". It's a lot easier to see something clearer after it's happened but I didn't realize what a great person this guy is. I hadn't heard the story that his father was a tobacco farmer and that his sister died of lung cancer from smoking and then his father got out of the business. He did a good job tying his thoughts about tobacco and the current issue of global warming. Basically he said, "look, when I was growing up we didn't all know that smoking caused cancer, but after it became clearer and clearer it was easy to say we were wrong." Then he said that he wished the current administration would just come out and say, I'm changing course, the planet getting warmer is a big problem and I'm going to solve it.
It was also interesting to see how our own country, the U.S., is by far the worst polluter per person in the world. And while most Americans think of countries like China and Japan as being big polluters, Americans actually produce over twice as much carbon as those countries. We are 30% of the total world's emissions! How embarrassing. He did have some humor too - - it was funny when he showed a picture that Bush Sr. had presented that had a scale with one side showing gold bars and the other side showing the planet and the tagline was something like, we need to balance these out. Gore was quick to point out that without the planet there would be no gold. Also quick to point out that the importance of the planet was slightly higher than that of gold bars. It was funny seeing one of the most stiff speakers in politics show that even he has a humorous side to him.
For me the part that stuck most was when he said, "when your children are older, do you want them to ask you why you were so self-absorbed that you wouldn't even change your consumption patterns to preserve the planet for my generation?" Since my daughter is two years old I could relate to that statement. I would rather say, here were the things I did to try to make the world a better place and be a better person. ....I think I could live with that.
So go out and see the movie - - you won't be disappointed....maybe sad, but not disappointed. In fact, for those of you who haven't seen the movie yet, the first person to see it and reply to this post (I think my blog is set up to do that) with what you thought of the movie will get a focal bead from me....you can even pick the colors that you would like. The only caveat is that you can't have already seen the movie yet...scouts honor.
Last night Toby and I watched the ball drop on TV. Dick Clark was hosting for like the 100th year. However, since his stroke he's not hosting it by himself anymore. We also watched Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth". Wow....now that is a worthwhile thing to watch! This is one of the few movies around that can actually change your life in a positive way. It's too bad Al Gore didn't win when he ran for president. I think he just didn't get his point across very well during that campaign. I did vote for him but I also remember thinking, "oh, they are both about the same, it doesn't really matter who wins". It's a lot easier to see something clearer after it's happened but I didn't realize what a great person this guy is. I hadn't heard the story that his father was a tobacco farmer and that his sister died of lung cancer from smoking and then his father got out of the business. He did a good job tying his thoughts about tobacco and the current issue of global warming. Basically he said, "look, when I was growing up we didn't all know that smoking caused cancer, but after it became clearer and clearer it was easy to say we were wrong." Then he said that he wished the current administration would just come out and say, I'm changing course, the planet getting warmer is a big problem and I'm going to solve it.
It was also interesting to see how our own country, the U.S., is by far the worst polluter per person in the world. And while most Americans think of countries like China and Japan as being big polluters, Americans actually produce over twice as much carbon as those countries. We are 30% of the total world's emissions! How embarrassing. He did have some humor too - - it was funny when he showed a picture that Bush Sr. had presented that had a scale with one side showing gold bars and the other side showing the planet and the tagline was something like, we need to balance these out. Gore was quick to point out that without the planet there would be no gold. Also quick to point out that the importance of the planet was slightly higher than that of gold bars. It was funny seeing one of the most stiff speakers in politics show that even he has a humorous side to him.
For me the part that stuck most was when he said, "when your children are older, do you want them to ask you why you were so self-absorbed that you wouldn't even change your consumption patterns to preserve the planet for my generation?" Since my daughter is two years old I could relate to that statement. I would rather say, here were the things I did to try to make the world a better place and be a better person. ....I think I could live with that.
So go out and see the movie - - you won't be disappointed....maybe sad, but not disappointed. In fact, for those of you who haven't seen the movie yet, the first person to see it and reply to this post (I think my blog is set up to do that) with what you thought of the movie will get a focal bead from me....you can even pick the colors that you would like. The only caveat is that you can't have already seen the movie yet...scouts honor.
| Farmer Dave, 10:17 PM|
1 Comments:
Okay, I already have seen An Inconvenient Truth, so no free beads for me. However, although I'm well versed in global warming, the movie still scared me half to death. I'm old enough (58) to already have seen major changes immediately around me, primarily the human population explosion and the collapse of the blue-collar middle class in the U.S. I know how very quickly catostrophic changes can occur. Global warming is something that is already happening. I fear for the future generations who'll have to live with the results of our foolishness.
