This article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle reviewing Al Gore’s movie and Apocalyptic environmentalism, touches on some important points, including the end times religious core of environmentalism many others have touched on.
Here is an excerpt.
Al Gore's Apocalyptic Environmentalism
Cinnamon Stillwell
Wednesday June 14, 2006
By far, the most terrifying film you'll ever see.It will shake you to your core.A film that has shocked audiences everywhere they've seen it.There's nothing scarier. …
If these lines from a movie trailer make you think you're about to see the next big summer horror blockbuster, then you're in for a surprise. For it turns out that the most terrifying movie of the summer -- the film that has audiences on the edge of their seats, gripping their popcorn tubs in panic and grabbing on to their dates -- is a documentary on the perils of global warming.
Directed by David Guggenheim, "An Inconvenient Truth" is the brainchild of former Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore. Gore figures prominently in the film as narrator and lecturer, gallivanting all over the world to speak to adoring audiences about climate change.
The film is largely in homage to Gore himself, with his many personal tragedies, including losing the 2000 presidential election, as backdrop to his newfound role as prophet of doom. Gore warns us that humankind has only 10 years on its current path before we're all toast.
But despite Gore's dire predictions and the over-the-top trailer, which promises scenes of death and destruction, the film itself is a dull affair. Most of it consists of Gore giving lectures with infantile visual aids, including cartoons that seem designed for 2-year-olds. Now and then he throws in an inspiring quote, providing some touchy-feely, Dr. Phil-like moments.
Then there are the scenes of Gore staring pensively out his limousine window as his gloomy narrative drones on in the background. Much like his nostalgic reveries for his idyllic childhood on an estate/farm, Gore seems to want to hearken back to a simpler time before modern technology came along and messed everything up. Sort of like the Garden of Eden before the Fall.
This is fitting, for Gore often comes across more like a preacher than a politician and global warming more like a religion than a science. He makes a point of framing the debate in terms of morality and ethics rather than politics (although politics inevitably creeps in). He uses the word mission to describe his current path and refers to the alleged ill effects of global warming as "a nature hike through the Book of Revelation."
Like the Book of Revelation, Gore's vision is an apocalyptic one. Scenes of smoggy skylines, gridlocked traffic and smokestacks are interspersed with crashing glaciers, storm-ravaged cities and Third World refugees fleeing on foot. Computer models predict the submerging of continents and the deaths of millions. Every problem on the planet, including overpopulation, war and infectious diseases, is attributed to global warming. If ever there were a vision of the End Times, this would be it. But instead of God's wrath raining down on the planet, it's human beings that are doing the damage. One might call it apocalyptic environmentalism.
