IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Tafoya) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power [2017] (directed by Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk) is a film that deserves, indeed needed to be made, is more nuanced than most of its detractors who'll probably never see it would admit and probably caused me more trepidation than the vast majority of films that I've viewed and reviewed in the nearly seven years that I've written my blog. Consider simply that I saw this film 2 1/2 weeks ago and am only now sitting down to write about it. Why? Well... Dear Readers, guess...
I think here of my 85 year old dad, a Czech born life-long outdoorsman - camper, hiker, backpacker, cross-country skier (I grew-up doing ALL THESE THINGS with him as a kid). Since he grew-up first under Nazi Occupation and then Communist domination, he never owned a gun and so never equated "outdoorsmanship" with gun ownership. Yes, obviously under Nazi occupation / Communist domination he didn't exactly have a right to have a gun, but also understood that under such regimes going after a gun meant certain and needless trouble and probably jail and/or death. And yet even under Nazi / Communist domination he (and my whole family) grew-up appreciating THE NATURAL BEAUTY of this world (beyond the reach of any Dictator / Regime) especially when one gets out of the cities into the countryside.
Today ANYONE who hikes / backpacks _knows_ that the world's glaciers are melting. My dad now lives largely in Colorado where former U.S. vice president Al Gore's example in his first movie on the subject (An Inconvenient Truth [2006]) of the "beetles eating the trees" in Colorado due to warming temperatures is again OBVIOUS TO ALL.
So why is Climate Change even "debated" anymore today? Obviously because there are HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars invested in Oil. There are scholars on the American Civil War who also say the obvious: Prior to the American Civil War white southern slave owners had BILLIONS of dollars sunk in their slaves, giving them up was NOT going to happen without a fight.
So former U.S. vice-president Al Gore continues to make the obvious case, even trying to educate American Viewers that countries like India have their own reasons for being angry at limits on carbon emissions: In the film a government minister from India sarcastically tells Al Gore and his group meeting with him: "You and your people (Europeans) had FOUR HUNDRED YEARS of UNFETTERED OPPORTUNITY TO POLLUTE THIS EARTH OF OURS FOR YOUR ECONOMIC BENEFIT, GIVE _US_ AT LEAST A HUNDRED AND FIFTY TO DO THE SAME. THEN we'll talk ..."
But EVERYBODY (including the U.S. and India) _did_ step-up in Paris in 2016 to come to an agreement to try to save this planet by reducing our global carbon emissions.
'Course, now that agreement is threatened by, well, WE ALL KNOW ...
So folks, go up into the mountains, enjoy the fresh air and the trees, TAKE PICTURES ... and at least try to do your parts to reduce your own carbon footprints. We can all do our parts ourselves.
Dictators do die (either with a bullet in their heads like Hitler, or by natural death in the case of Stalin). The Earth will outlast them, and even most of us will outlast them as well.
In the meantime, let us enjoy and bear witness to the natural beauty of the world today, and then seek to live _humbly enough_ to bequeath what we can of this beautiful planet of ours to future generations.
An excellent if poignant / sad film and one DOES wonder "what difference will it make?" But difference it will ...
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