An Uncomfortable Truth

Last night we watched Al Gore's documentary film about Global Warming, 'An Inconvenient Truth'. It was an interesting and well-presented piece that dispelled the comfort zone of controversy like so much Scotch mist.
Admittedly there were some fudgey bits. Al showed us that the big argument against taking responsibility for the environment at government level is that it will harm the economy and he answered this with the truism that no planet = no economy and then by simply saying that as we move forward with environmental recovery strategies, jobs will be created. That really would have gone no way to silencing a critic and considering that he gave solid figures on the per capita output of pollutants from the US as compared with other major economies, I feel he could have explored how those other economies have achieved lower levels.
I also felt that he way he showed us what would happen if the population of the planet continued growing at the rate it has been over the last fifty years was not entirely objective, because I don't believe it is still growing at that rate.

That being said, what was unequivocal was the fact that it is not scientists who are disagreeing over planetary warming, it is politicians who want us to believe there is dissent among the scientific communities.
The picture was far from a comfortable one and you have to wonder exactly what has to happen before the US administration will acknowledge it and take some steps towards informing people and curbing their excesses, because there is no doubt, Al Gore's film isn't it.
The US may not have ratified Kyoto, but many individual US cities have declared their intentions to take responsibility for setting targets on emissions and other pollution. And who are the people who are going to watch the film? In my opinion those who can more than likely tick all the boxes on Al's list anyway - like us and like the citizens of those already active areas. Well, we don't get to vote in the US elections of course, but aside from that, all the personal measures he recommends, we already do, and I suspect that is true for most of his audience.
Still, he should be praised for making the film and I hope it does have some impact on policy makers as well as individuals. It posed not just an inconvenient truth, but an uncomfortable one too.

My friend the little traffic manager of Iran, has not done so well in his own elections. It seems that his countryfolk favour reform. Of course, according to the news he hasn't yet finished fiddling the figures, the counting of the poll is in the hands of his own people.
But what you have to notice is that not only did 60% of Iranians turn out for the election, but you could see women voting too.

I was naturally pleased to see that police are holding a suspect for the murder of five women in Suffolk. The odd thing about this man is that he has a MySpace profile available for anyone to see, and from it he doesn't appear to be anymore weird than any other weirdo, well, apart from listing Hong Kong Phooey as his hero, but then like I say...any other weirdo.

Cubans are praying for a miracle, I saw them on TV this morning, all weeping and wailing and doing strange things on their knees which looked like slowly pushing small statues of Castro along the ground.
The sad truth is that Castro is an old man, and the end has to come at some point, they need someone else they can believe in.