After watching An Inconvenient Truth, is the moral imperative to make big changes inescapable? What's God want

Question

Or can we afford to just ignore the problem and pray it goes away? Or should we be wanting armageddon? What does God want? Hell, here on Earth? Should we as a society be looking forward to watching hundreds of millions (and maybe billions) of people die from hurricanes, fires, flooding, drought, starvation, and/or panic stricken people fighting each other for a chance to live? Should we be looking forward to living in temperatures as high as 70 deg C (158 deg F), or living on boat houses because our homes are underwater? Have we wronged the Earth (sinned) so badly as to deserve this? Am I evil? Are you evil? Are we all doomed?

I must admit, no movie I've ever seen, even the scariest true story horror film about a guy from my home town carving people up, no movie ever scared me this much, or kept me frightened for this long (bar one, since I'm being honest, which was R 18+ rated that I saw at the age of 9 at a badly managed birthday party).

Is our moral imperative inescapable?

Daisykristina: Perhaps you need to watch the film again. Al Gore sits in the coach/economy section of a public aircraft, which is a relatively cheap, fast means of transport he needs to use to get from city to city so he can do his powerpoint presentation. The ecological cost of his travelling around is offset several times over by the message he offers to the attendees of his presentation, and instead of relying on that he brought out a film which has been mass produced to do the work for him. How is that hipocritical???

mzJakes and Rixie: It's good to see this is a fair and balanced forum, where even critics and/or people with a financially vested interest in repositioning global warming as theory rather than fact can still have their say. It makes me more worried when reminded that a person will have a great deal of difficulty understanding something when his or her salary depends upon their not understanding it, because it means that conscience is still for sale to the highest bidder, and personal suvival is still more important than a greater good. I welcome you both to my question page.

mzJakes: The important parts of the film are not in contention. No scientist, anywhere in the world, has contested with any evidence any of the key facts in the film.
For example, if the thermohaline current shuts off, Europe will be in ice age conditions. How many deaths is that?
No economist has suggested that the US economy would slow at all, far less "grind to a halt".

It doesn't matter a great deal why it was slightly warmer 1300 years ago. It was only for a short period, and had nothing to do with CO2 levels in the atmosphere. It could have been a super-volcano.

The same graphic shows that when CO2 goes up, temp goes up, and CO2 has never been higher in the last 650 000 years.

The same scientists are STILL concerned about a new ice age, and we know it has everything to do with human activity. If we stop, those scientists that provide the predictions say that the temp and CO2 will continue to rise, and that we may have already passed the point of no return, but don't we have to at least try to save ourselves?

We know as fact that Earth is warming, and that it is our doing, and there are things we can do to TRY and reverse it, but it will take courage and humility and wisdom. Mostly it will take commitment and hope, because we are already neck deep in ... and it will get much worse in our lifetime, if/before it gets better.

Answer 1

It frightens me as well, perhaps because I live in the middle of the country above the levels they are discussing. I have thought about what is going to happen to us as the huge populations from the coast begin moving further and further inward. Will they be seen as trespassing criminals and shot? How will we feed every one or provide medicine?

I am a Christian, but other than to consider my Christian duty should this begin to happen, I do not equate it with religion (we are not being punished for being evil)...but with greed and politics
and people ignoring the obvious.
tp

Answer 2

I think it depends on how old your kids are. I would not let my 8 year old watch it because they believe what they get at school. Global warming is a fact just like we know one day in the far distant future our star will go Super Nova 1,000's of years (I'm not sure how many zero's goes here). The inconvenient truth is based on particular area's and has no proof that the world is warming to a point that we will notice a change in the next 600 years or more. I will let my 16 year old watch it because he is very analytical and will search for a answer that HE wants to follow based on facts not propaganda Documentaries. I do believe the world is warming up but the only proof I have ever been able to find says the increments are so minuet that it would take a very, very long time to even register the change. I also believe that we (people on earth) will adapt to the very small changes. Just like the eskimos adapted to live in Extreme cold and the tribes of Africa adapt to the extreme heat. bottomLine I would challange any school system that would allow a Documentary that was designed to exploit the truth and try to scare someone into believing something thats not proven.... Good job getting involved in your kids Education... Now lets educate the few misguided teachers. Teachers don't get upset, I have have only ran into two in 16 years (private and public) raising 3 kids. I have had great experiences with our teachers. BTW: The sky is falling.....and the earth is really Flat....

Answer 3

This claptrap, which will likely win the academy award, is the most disingenuous, intellectually dishonest fable ever foisted upon humanity.

Not only are there a huge number of factual errors, there are also convenient omissions....for example, Gore quotes a study that in Britain alone, global warming will result in 2000 heat related deaths per year. The same report also states, and Gore chose not to include, that at the same time 20,000 cold related deaths in the UK will be averted....a net gain of 18,000 lives.

He also neglects to mention that there is no one who even makes a vague claim that, should all the Kyoto protocols be adopted, that it would make any improvement at all!!! And the net result is that the greatest economy in the world would grind to a halt!!!

Gore also neglects to mention that 1300 years ago, the earth was warmer than it is today by several degrees. In an age where the world's total population was less than 10% of what it is today, where there were no smokestack industries, no SUV's, nothing of the kind....WHAT MADE IT SO DAMNED HOT!!!!

The answer is that the earth goes through long cycles of warming and cooling....heck, just 30 years ago the same scientists were concerned about a new ice age....and it has little or nothing to do with human activity....and besides, what makes Gore and his ilk so sure that anything humanity does will reverse the process. Mankind may be the dominant species on the planet, but all in all we're nothing compared to the enormity of the entire eco-system.

The earth may be warming, but it's not our doing and there's nothing we can do to stop it, if it's truly a long term (talking centuries to millenia here) trend. All we can do is learn to live with it.

The Inconvenient Truth is actually A VERY CONVENIENT LIE, especially for those who wish to seize power in the future.

Answer 4

Of course we should act. Those who refer to the end of the world or the return of Christ as an excuse for not acting, are seriously deficient in their Christian conscience. Some use that excuse for not helping the poor. But if they were poor, they wouldn't see much value in that excuse! The same principle applies to taking care of our environment, which is a God-given responsiblity (see God's charge to Adam and Eve at the end of Genesis 2).

Answer 5

Yes, it is. I'm trying to do something every week to make a difference.

The suggestions at the end of the film help too.

But I'll admit I just cried for a while, sitting in the theater with other weeping people, after I saw it. I hope we pull our collective head out of our collective asse soon.

Answer 6

I'm sorry, but Al Gore is the biggest hypocrite in that film. You got to love how he goes off about how terrible it is that we're polluting the air while his private jet engines are roaring in the background.

No, I don't think we're supposed to look forward to calamities with joy, we're just supposed to do the best we can with the situation we've been given.

edit - I could keep going about his hypocrisy on the topic. Did you know records show that he didn't sign up to pay the few extra bucks a month to have his (massive) home powered by green energy?

Answer 7

What is scary to me is what a wacko Al Gore is and that people still listen to him. I must admit that being from TN and growing up in a town that his family lived in has formed my opinon of him some what, but aside from that his radical one sided veiw drives me nuts.
Having said that, I absolutly thing we should take care of our planet. God left it in our care and I respect that. Do I think driving SUVs are going to kill us all? NO Since cows polute more that any human activity. Does that mean we should kill all the cows?
If Al Gore is so worried then he needs to stop flying on private jets and dump his motorcade, but that won't happen.
Don't listen to climatologists who make money from promoting global warming. Look to the meterologist who get paid no matter what the weather does. They disagree with man made warming, and get put down for it.

Answer 8

God wants us to submit to his will which is the redeeming and saving of his people. Society shouldnt look foward to that many people dying, we should have an optimistic view for our people, while knowing Armageddon is coming. We can not afford to ignore problems, they become burdens later. I dont believe that we should have a negative view about the inevitable end, even though it seems horrible and cruel. You have, nor have I or anyone else sinned enough to deserve this end, many others, our ancestors mainly have.... I apologize greatly for this, but it is truth.

Answer 9

Life belongs to God. He started it, and can return it to any he chooses.
As the owner we cannot understand his thinking. As subjects we can only rely on his mercies.
You cannot fight God and win. But, you can blame the owner of this world for the atrocities that he, Satan sanctions.
Read your bible. God is not the wrong doer.

Answer 10

Everything is a chain of events, so the outcome is unpredictable when others try to force it to be predictable. If we are doomed, it is not just our fault but the faults of those before us.