my date with Al Gore

Through some magical stroke of good fortune, I was offered free passes to see a V.I.P. screening of Al Gore's environmental film, "An Inconvenient Truth," complete with Q&A session with Al live after the film. As an environmentalist, I had planned on seeing the film anyway, but as a cheapskate this freebie was a dream come true. I’ve been to only a handful of movies in the theater in the past 4 or 5 years, so each time I attend it’s a bona fide special event. I wore sweat pants, of course.

All I can say is that this film is excellent and it’s a “must see” in the true sense of the phrase. How can you not see it? If you have children, you must.

I hope that this movie will finally stir that shitpot that stinks up the media and maybe even the White House. It blows my mind that the current administration can deny global warming is one of the most critical issues of our time, while meanwhile other countries are putting into place new policy and technology that support saving the planet, rather than selling it off to big corporations. In China, the government mandated stronger fuel economy standards and better yet, they more than doubled the tax on oversized gas-guzzling vehicles. Almost half of the cars in Brazil run on ethanol. London taxes all cars that drive in its congested downtown area. Sweden is planning to become the world’s first country with an oil-free economy. In Barcelona, 40% of new buildings use solar power. What does the United States government do? They hide the truth from the American public.

When Bush took office, he hired Philip Cooney, former lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, as chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Jesus, that’s like hiring me as the head of the DEA! Cooney repeatedly edited government climate reports to deliberately hide links between emissions and global warming, and just after he got busted very publicly and resigned, ExxonMobil hired him. Though, in his short stint in “protecting the environment,” it was clear he was a double agent for ExxonMobil the whole time. It’s no secret that Bush's global climate policy was heavily influenced by ExxonMobil.

While Bush, the dickhead, sits waiting around for the rapture, here are ways that you can be part of the solution.