Head Tale

I have a classmate who was raised in a Christian fundamentalist household.  She's in a children's lit class with me and we were talking about scary books we read as kids.  She said that some of the Christian children's books she read as a child was the most frightening stuff she's ever read because unlike say,  ghost stories or Dracula or Stephen King that all her friends read, she was taught that these Christian stories were real.  Vampires are fictional but the end of the world was coming.  Haunted cars don't exist but the non-faithful would burn in excruciating pain for all eternity.  And so on.

The idea that something is a LOT more frightening because you believe deeply that it's real was the thought that popped into my head last night as we watched Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth,  downtown at the Rainbow Cinema.  Before this film, when someone asked me the scariest film I'd ever seen, I usually said “The Shining”.  Not now.  We've got a new winner and it's not just because it's scary to find out that Al Gore isn't actually a zombie.

Of course, there's a group of people who are criticizing the science and facts used in the film.  And to be fair, as with anything, you can't accept it at face value and should be critical yourself (at one point in the movie, Al Gore explains how he's traveled from the Arctic to the Amazon to study the issue and how he's given this lecture 1000 times around the world.  So my first thought is, “Isn't a single airline flight more harmful to the environment than driving for a year?”  (Don't quote me on this stat – I know I've read something to that effect but can't find the actual quote now.  Bad librarian!))

Anyhow, the film does end on a positive note and we even got a handout as we left the theatre listing
10 Things You Can Do To Stop Climate Change
1. Change A Light
2. Drive Less
3. Recycle More
4. Check Your Tires
5. Use Less Hot Water
6. Avoid Products With Lots of Packaging
7. Adjust Your Thermostat
8. Plant A Tree
9. Turn Off Electronic Devices
10. Encourage People To See “An Inconvenient Truth”

Of course, I also can't help but link to this tongue-in-cheek response to Gore's list.  Sample suggestions “Go on a random killing spree” and “Upgrade to a new Gulfstream G550”