On Thursday evening I finally got round to watching An Inconvenient Truth. I watched it with the boys and although they said that they weren't that interested because it didn't say anything new, they did end up watching the complete film.
They were right, for anyone with even a slight interest in global warming there probably wasn't really any new information, but I thought the points were well put across. The pictures of glaciers in particular were impressive (and worrying). The main feeling the boys came away with was incomprehension that nobody seemed to be taking much notice especially since the problem was identified so long ago. Since everybody should know what to do, why aren't they doing something about it?
Fast forward a day to Friday. The last day of term and the schools finished early. By lunchtime the three of us were home and on a chilly wet day the request was to go to a nearby retail park. We have got into the habit of doing this at the end of term and the boys get to go to McDonald's, as you might imagine this is not a treat on offer very often. I wondered whether watching the DVD would have any effect on the trip, would they want to travel less far or take a packed lunch instead of eating fast food........no.
The car was soon filled with packaging and although I took my own lunch (I will not set foot in McDonald's) I was really just as bad with my Starbucks americano in a disposable cup!
So will the film change what we do? Admittedly we do most of the things listed at the end of the film and I feel we are reasonably "green" already but when it actually came to making some new changes, well it was a bit inconvenient really, we'd just come in from work/school, we were hungry/wanted coffee and it was easier to do what we've done before.....and we did enjoy it!
1 comment:
On the one hand, my friend watched a story about global warming on Oprah and has since switched to Compact fluorescents, turns appliances off more often, ect. Its small changes but some people are making them.
On the other hand, here in the US a big study was presented to the government about global warming (end of January) basically saying this country needs to change its ways FAST or else. My parents watched it on the news when they were visiting me and started up on how they couldn't believe the government has done more about this, George Bush is an idiot, people shouldn't drive SUVs, ect. ect. ect. They then proceeded to leave their hotel room with every...single...light...ON. In addition to throwing out all of their disposable cups they had accumulated after a single use because its "more sanitary". Some people get it...others just DON'T.
Do give your boys some time however, they are young and have lots of time to grow....
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