Monday, October 09, 2006

Well Jon and I went to see An Inconvenient Truth at the weekend. Everyone should see this film, just like the reviews say. You've heard it before, and it's the in thing now, but my God, it really brings home what's happening right now. Do you know that there's now evidence of polar bears drowning because they can't find solid enough ice to climb up on in time? The graphs that were shown were scary. They weren't guess work. They were fact. But the good thing was that we can do something. We've just bought a gadget that switches off all peripherals that are attached to the computer when it shuts down. Think of the impact if all offices had to use these. Jon has finally agreed to switch off the NTL box and DVD at the wall. They only take a couple of minutes to reboot in the morning and the DVD seems to set its clock using the digital signal. Even little energy saving bulbs have a huge impact globally.

It also talks about restrictions on cars' emissions. The US drags its heels behind even the Chinese because they say it will kill the US car industry to change the way they do things. They say there would be vast unemployment and collapse of the industry. Fair point, except that the two car makers that are seriously struggling compared to EVERY other maker are Ford and GM. Why? They can't sell their cars outside the USA. Maybe Ford in Europe is different? They make little eco cars. GM in particular are in real dire straights.

Really, just go and see it. And think what the world might have been like if we were fighting a war on global warming, instead of terror. Had Al Gore been made president, I think the world would be such a different place now... Bush's position on this, in a leaked memo, is to shift the issue of global warming into theory rather than fact. I think the worst thing is that the changes are going to have a huge impact in our lifetime, let alone that of our children.