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An Inconvenient Sequel - Truth to Power

Now that Donald Trump has thrown the United States in with the other two banana republics – Syria and Nicaragua – which are the only countries on Earth which are not going to follow the Paris Climate Accords, the world needs a little more Al Gore.

You remember Gore don’t you? Long time congressman and senator? Former US Vice President? Won the 2000 US Presidential campaign by over 500,000 popular and 20 electoral college votes, only to have it stolen from him by the Supreme Court? Tireless climate change advocate? Fluke movie star in 2006 when he filmed his environmental power point presentation and showed it in theaters as An Inconvenient Truth?

Well, it’s over a decade later, and the truth is no more convenient. The battle against climate change has made many positive steps in that time, only to have many of these moves forward recently stripped back. In the meantime, weather patterns are even more violently attacking the earth. The Arctic ice shelves are melting. Storms are getting more severe. 97% of all scientists (read, all scientists who are not employed by the Koch Brothers or big oil) agree that climate change is a dangerous reality.

In An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, Gore continues his impassioned plea for Mother Nature, showing more of the causes and effects of global warming in simple layman terms. With tons of footage of climate tragedies – floods, hurricanes, melting ice caps – Gore tells us not only about the problems that face us, but some ways in which we can still save the Earth.

Over recent years as an environmental warrior, Gore has become a more passionate, involved, and even sometimes funny speaker. One complaint about his political years, which was somewhat accurate, is that he sometimes came off as aloof. Now, as what he calls “a recovering politician,” Gore has loosened up, becoming good company and a smart advocate. Yet, he can still pull from the politician bag of tricks when need be, like his nearly-evangelical howl, “The next generation would be justified in looking back at us and asking: What were you thinking?”

However, it is not all bad news. Gore shows many ways that the world can push back on the tipping point – particularly the exploding industries of clean energy, wind and solar, which will not only make for safer energy but also open up millions of jobs.

Opponents have a long history of mocking Gore’s achievements and calling them false by exaggerating things he said, when they were true. For example, he never claimed to have invented the Internet, as so many right-wingers have mocked him for. However, in the Senate, Gore was vitally involved in the creation of the military computer network ARPANET, which later mutated into the Internet.

The claim in the original An Inconvenient Truth movie that the opposition most viciously mocked was a computer-generated prediction that Manhattan Island would be flooded, with water covering up the then-empty site of the World Trade Center, which is several blocks away from the bottom of the island. An Inconvenient Sequel has the final word, showing news footage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 in which just that happened – the water rose onto the island, covering the streets around it and flooding the site.

As Gore shows in the film, the climate is not a partisan issue in any other country in the world, other than the United States. Even longtime pollution abusers like China and India – which agreed to join with the rest of the world in environmental regulations and have since become actively involved in revolutionarily changing their energy policies.

However, even though the man who is sitting in the White House has thumbed his nose at the rest of the world by saying he was withdrawing from the Paris Accords, we can take some solace at the widespread pushback against this action in the United States. Governors, mayors, local municipalities, citizens, even energy companies have all come out saying that even if the US official policy is not to follow the Paris Accords, they will continue to keep the agreements the world has made.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is a howl into the winds of change. An Inconvenient Sequel is one of the most important movies you will see this year. Your life may literally depend on it.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2017 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: August 4, 2017.

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