Go see “An Inconvenient Sequel”.
It’s entertaining, educational, inspiring and even better than “An Inconvenient Truth”.
It will, like its predecessor, win the Oscar for Best Documentary, in 2018, for the quality of the film, the quality of the message and the beautiful showcase of the complete ignorance and scientific idiocy of actions taken by Donald Trump and his team of climate deniers.
But as you watch the massive glaciers melt and icebergs break apart in the stunning Arctic and a “new and improved” Al Gore calmly yet passionately and even emotionally update us on his efforts and the fate of planet Earth, know that this is also about the 2016 sequel to the 2000 Presidential election. Despite winning the popular vote, because of 537 voters in Florida and 1 Supreme Court Justice in 2000, the environmental progress of Bill Clinton was stopped and rolled back for 8 years. Instead of lifelong environmentalist and climate warrior Al Gore, we got oilmen George Bush and Dick Cheney.
And, in a stunning “sequel” 16 years later, despite another environmentally dedicated candidate winning the popular vote, because of 77,000 voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the environmental progress of Barack Obama was stopped and is in the process of being aggressively rolled back for the next 4, or maybe even 8 years. Instead of a climate change believer and solid environmental vote in Hillary Clinton, we got the most powerful, most destructive climate denier and anti-environmentalist in the history of the world.
“An Inconvenient Sequel” makes the consequences of these few votes painfully clear. In the beginning of the movie we follow Vice President Gore’s efforts to develop and send a weather and Earth monitoring satellite called “DISCOVR” into orbit to gather precious data about weather conditions and cycles, including the effects of climate change. Instead of implementing this technology in 2001, George Bush and Dick Cheney cancelled the entire program. And towards the end of the film we go behind the scenes and follow former Vice President Gore’s genuinely heroic efforts in Paris to craft a deal to get India - the last holdout - to sign the historic Paris Climate Accord in December of 2015.
As we know, instead of celebrating and continuing the Climate Accord, on June 1, 2017, Donald Trump pulled America out of the agreement. 537 votes changed the course of history for planet Earth on November 3, 2000. And 16 years later another small number of vote, 77,744, have, yet again, changed the course of history for planet Earth on November 8, 2016.
“An Inconvenient Sequel” is a terrific documentary but, even more significantly, an “inconvenient reminder” that voting counts and that “elections have consequences”. While the film is too late to change the outcome of the 2016 election, perhaps it is just in time to be a wake-up call to the millions of Millennials and others who care deeply about climate change, renewable energy and the environment as a whole.
If so, perhaps we can all get involved in stopping yet another “sequel” in 2018, 2020 and beyond by . . .
1. Encouraging every Millennial and everyone who cares about our environment that we know to go see this film
2. Encouraging every Millennial and everyone who cares about our environment that we know to #RegisterToVote4ClimateAction and, of course,
3. Encouraging every Millennial and everyone who cares about our environment that we know to actually, #Vote4ClimateAction on November 6, 2018! Al Gore may have “lost” by 537 votes in Florida and 1 vote on The United States Supreme Court in 2000 but there may be a silver lining where - by “An Inconvenient Sequel” telling the story of the consequences of those lost votes and those in 2016 - America’s pathetic resistance to getting off the couch on election days may, also, begin to melt away.
