An Inconvenient Truth - A Wake-up Call

Just came back from the powerful documentary about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth", by Al Gore.

It is factual, it is clear in terms of its scientific evidence, it is simply told, it is scary, it is alarming, it is disturbing.

USA has had 10 warmest years on record in the past 14 years, and a rising string of hurricane and tornado disasters. Europe has had deadly heatwaves and floods. Japan has been battered by an unprecedented spate of typhoons. Africa is facing rising levels of droughts and famines.

India is mentioned as a somewhat minor contributor to but a major victim of global warming. Possible consequences for India include major droughts, crop failures, water shortages, massive flooding of some coastal areas, and sharp increases in disease and pestilence. The specter of the Himalayan glaciers -- the lifeline of Ganges and other rivers -- drying out and of vast swaths of coastal India submerging under rising waters from melting polar ice caps is outright scary.

China is still a minor contributor to global warming, but its contribution is growing. The impact of rising flood levels, depicted in this film, on Beijing and Shanghai region is enough to make anyone shake off their inertia.

Many of these things have already happened in Niger, Ethiopia, Sudan... it is not fantasy, it is reality... the jaws of catastrophe are closing very fast.

Of course, the big culprits are the emissions from U.S.

Let us hope millions and millions watch this film, and take action to force the politicians to abide by Kyoto accord and do several other things to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to conserve energy.

Please go see this movie.

Please tell everyone on the planet that you can reach to go see this film.

Please get a copy and show it to classes and community centers, wherever you are.

The road to catastrophe is already very far traveled -- things must start happening NOW to reverse the reckless course of unchecked emissions. Otherwise, in 50 years, our kids and grand kids will live in a world plagued by constant disasters.

Given the warming that has already taken place, elevated levels of droughts, tornado, hurricanes, cyclones, flood disasters, and tropical pestilence are almost guaranteed to occur -- the only question is can we take actions to slow the pace of such disasters.

Less likely in the near future, but more scary, is the sudden climatic shift to a long ice age. Such a seismic climate shift could occur in just 10 years -- totally ruining civilization as we know it. Can we prevent it? Probably not. But we can push it back by centuries or even millennia -- long enough into the future for humankind to prepare for it.

Nik Dholakia
Rhode Island, USA
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