An Inconvenient Truth
Mar. 10th, 2007 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eI just finished watching Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. It is an excellent piece of work. It is careful, considered, and neatly lays bare the information needed to understand what big media have done such a reprehensible job of clouding. I implore everyone to watch it.
I notice there has been a piece of crap circulating about Al Gore's mansion using far more electricity than the average house. Most people seem to simply pass it on without looking at it any further.
Who is the group who made these statements about Al Gore's house? Not surprisingly they are an extreme right wing think tank who seem intent on mounting a smear campaign. They said they got the electricity figures from Gore's electricity supplier, but when asked about this, it seems nobody ever approached them asking for such information. Al Gore's place uses renewable sources of energy with solar panels being fitted and buying from renewable sources on the grid. Al Gore also invests heavily in carbon offsets and alternative energy so that he has a net carbon impact of zero.
So when you hear someone unthinkingly echo the accusations, now you know well enough to tell them to go back and find out the whole story. It is easy to be duped by gossip.
I notice there has been a piece of crap circulating about Al Gore's mansion using far more electricity than the average house. Most people seem to simply pass it on without looking at it any further.
Who is the group who made these statements about Al Gore's house? Not surprisingly they are an extreme right wing think tank who seem intent on mounting a smear campaign. They said they got the electricity figures from Gore's electricity supplier, but when asked about this, it seems nobody ever approached them asking for such information. Al Gore's place uses renewable sources of energy with solar panels being fitted and buying from renewable sources on the grid. Al Gore also invests heavily in carbon offsets and alternative energy so that he has a net carbon impact of zero.
So when you hear someone unthinkingly echo the accusations, now you know well enough to tell them to go back and find out the whole story. It is easy to be duped by gossip.
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Re: Let's Hear it for President Gore!
Date: 2007-03-10 10:19 pm (UTC)There are a lot of individuals at the moment who are achieving far more than any government:
- Michael Hart started up Project Gutenberg, and with a veritable army of volunteers has made more books freely available than all the world's government or the world's richest corporations.
- Brewster Kahle, in an attempt to provide universal access to knowledge, has vans touring the poorest regions of the world with a satellite dish on top. They stop in villages and print out books for people, for free.
- Janine Benyus has been publicising changes in technology that let us use low temperature, non-toxic chemistry that mimics life to reduce pollution and energy needs.
- Travis Bradford has been aiming at managers and business people a message of solar power being good economic sense.
- Ethan Zuckerman founded Geek Corps, which is a non-profit organisation that provides technological help to the poorest people.
- ...and there are many more that I can't bring immediately to mind.
This is a strange time in history. Non-profit organisations have quietly risen to become the 8th biggest economy in the world. Enlightened individuals are fixing problems that governments and corporations are a part of -- governments and corporations are unlikely to ever fix those.