More than a movie
Essay published in "Your Turn" section of Worcester Magazine, June 29, 2006
By Lance McKeeIn the June issue of Worcester Magazine, Robert Newton wrote a foolish and unfortunate review of Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" in which Newton calls the movie junk science fiction." Robert Newton is not a climatologist. I doubt that he is a scientist of any sort. He would, no doubt, rather write to entertain than read what he calls "the nebulous booga-booga of global warming." His cocky assertions that rising sea levels and the retreating snows of Kilimanjaro are unrelated to combustion of fossil fuels only show that he wasn't listening and he hasn't done his homework. Posing skillfully as an intellectual with a critical mind, he knows he can fool many readers into believing his unsupported assertions are somehow truer than hard scientific evidence.
I'm not a scientist either, but I've done some reading on both the scientific (pro) and pop-sci (con) sides of the question, and I've talked with one of Gore's climate science advisors. I work as a consultant for a man who worked for Gore. I read Gore's book a decade ago. I'm a writer and editor who has worked with scientists, engineers, businessmen and marketers for 22 years and I know baloney when I see it. Gore wasn't lying about the survey showing unanimity of peer-reviewed journal articles supporting the truth of human-induced climate change, and he wasn't lying about the media campaign by the oil industry to create doubt about global warming. Exxon-Mobil will never notice that they owe Robert Newton a small thank-you for spreading their baloney in Worcester, MA.
At the end of his movie review, Robert Newton admits that we are messing up the planet, and he admits that it would be a good thing if we embraced alternative energy. He concludes by saying that "if we mess up the planet so severely, do we not deserve to pass from it anyway...?"
Rhetoric should serve a purpose higher than entertainment. Robert Newton is not a nihilist, or he wouldn't make the moral judgments noted in the preceding paragraph. So I suppose he is merely lacking in self-awareness, courage and purpose. I wonder, does he resent Al Gore because Gore has a clear moral purpose or because Gore has a bigger audience? I wonder if Robert Newton has children or grandchildren or nieces or nephews that he cares about, people too young to be judged responsible for messing up the planet. If he does, why has he discouraged people from seeing "An Inconvenient Truth?" Does he feel no responsibility for his actions? Does he not know his own power as an influencer? Perhaps he thinks he is too weak and unimportant to affect the flow of history. That's a shame, because he does have a gift as a writer, which means he can affect the flow of history. Perhaps he thinks Worcester is too small a place to matter. That's unfortunate for his readers, who do matter and who are a part of history.
I encourage Robert Newton and his readers to study global warming, the energy industry, energy conservation and renewable energy. I predict that within a decade they will benefit personally from living in a community that has prepared itself as well as possible for the hardships that will accompany dramatic climate change and other energy-related changes. The changes are already apparent in their early stages. They include: dramatic increases in the prices of electricity, fuel, and fuel-dependent commodities such as food, cement, and metals; escalating conflicts among nations over energy sources and carbon emissions; increasing disease and dread as wealthy and powerful proponents of centralized energy force public acceptance of new taxpayer-subsidized coal and nuclear power plants; and the economic difficulties that will accompany all of these.
If he does his homework and embraces his responsibilities as a writer, Robert Newton can play an important real-world role. He could be much more than merely amusing.