Katherine Ellison’s NY Times op-ed piece today says, “only someone who has been hiding under a rock would need to see the new Al Gore movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” to learn that global warming is real.”
I’ve heard this from others but not witnessed it all that dramatically myself. Is this the experience of list readers, that Crichton and Inhofe and Will and a few others excepted, Americans pretty much know that climate change is happening, is serious, and that we have to act?
I hear many say it is the most important topic for us to address. But I hear many list it as just one of various important topics. And few of us, of course, have internalized that important means that we need to act.
What are family members, coworkers, friends and colleagues, and various others saying about how serious climate change is, about how quickly we need to respond, and what we need to do?
MTV broadcast a half hour “Inconvenient Truth” show pitched to their 18 to 25 (or 16 to 21) key demographic audience. It feature a number (10? 12?0 of things that the viewer could do. It was pitched in the MTV style (in other words in a manner Katherine Ellison wouldn’t watch). It assumed that some teens may never stopped in their ‘Starbucks papercup using, SUV driving, suburbs living, spring break flying, copier using’ life to be sure that global warming is real.
On another note, such diverse limited interest magines as Men’s Health and Nature Photography have global warming stories in their current issues. The former has a snow cover is disappearing from our mountains story. The latter has a permafrost has disappeared from Thelon (the area between the NWT and Nunavut) causing the water to leak out of the ponds. Climate change stories are everywhere but there are still people under a rock. Thanks MTV for talking to the rocks (to alter an old slogan).