Global Warming
A couple of bits on the subject ...
An Inconvenient Truth is the title of a new documentary film, created by Al Gore, on the subject of global warming. Yes, I (futiley) voted for him, but as Roger Ebert mentions in his review of the film and its theme of global warming .... It is not a political issue. It is a moral issue.
Here's a bit of Ebert's review ...
He (Gore) provides statistics: The 10 warmest years in history were in the last 14 years. Last year South America experienced its first hurricane. Japan and the Pacific are setting records for typhoons. Hurricane Katrina passed over Florida, doubled back over the Gulf, picked up strength from unusually warm Gulf waters, and went from Category 3 to Category 5. There are changes in the Gulf Stream and the jet stream. Cores of polar ice show that carbon dioxide is much, much higher than ever before in a quarter of a million years. It was once thought that such things went in cycles. Gore stands in front of a graph showing the ups and downs of carbon dioxide over the centuries. Yes, there is a cyclical pattern. Then, in recent years, the graph turns up and keeps going up, higher and higher, off the chart .... (snip) ....
When I said I was going to a press screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," a friend said, "Al Gore talking about the environment! Bor...ing!" This is not a boring film. The director, Davis Guggenheim, uses words, images and Gore's concise litany of facts to build a film that is fascinating and relentless. In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.
- Read the whole review here
Coincidently, there was an editorial in the Tablet recently about global warming and what Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams had to say on the subject ...
This week, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke out about the environment, like a prophet urging his people to reconvert to God. Global warming, he said in an interview with the BBC, posed an enormous problem for the planet, and moral responsibility lay with everybody .... What Dr Williams is highlighting, as did Michael McCarthy in the pages of The Tablet last week, is that the problems of the environment are no longer just about whether a warbler dies, or that a once-beautiful river dries up. They are now life or death issues. People of faith must respond to them, just as they do to the devastation of war, to the threat of hunger, to the depredations of poverty .... His voice has yet to be echoed by the Catholic Church, which gives the environment but half a paragraph in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, however, has indicated that it will soon make a statement on the subject. It is right that it does so, and right that we should be reminded that the world, rather than being ours to dominate, has been given to us in trust.
***
Transcript of Archbishop Rowan Williams' interview - BBC 2's Newsnight
Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and the Common Good - A Statement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
An Inconvenient Truth is the title of a new documentary film, created by Al Gore, on the subject of global warming. Yes, I (futiley) voted for him, but as Roger Ebert mentions in his review of the film and its theme of global warming .... It is not a political issue. It is a moral issue.
Here's a bit of Ebert's review ...
He (Gore) provides statistics: The 10 warmest years in history were in the last 14 years. Last year South America experienced its first hurricane. Japan and the Pacific are setting records for typhoons. Hurricane Katrina passed over Florida, doubled back over the Gulf, picked up strength from unusually warm Gulf waters, and went from Category 3 to Category 5. There are changes in the Gulf Stream and the jet stream. Cores of polar ice show that carbon dioxide is much, much higher than ever before in a quarter of a million years. It was once thought that such things went in cycles. Gore stands in front of a graph showing the ups and downs of carbon dioxide over the centuries. Yes, there is a cyclical pattern. Then, in recent years, the graph turns up and keeps going up, higher and higher, off the chart .... (snip) ....
When I said I was going to a press screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," a friend said, "Al Gore talking about the environment! Bor...ing!" This is not a boring film. The director, Davis Guggenheim, uses words, images and Gore's concise litany of facts to build a film that is fascinating and relentless. In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.
- Read the whole review here
Coincidently, there was an editorial in the Tablet recently about global warming and what Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams had to say on the subject ...
This week, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke out about the environment, like a prophet urging his people to reconvert to God. Global warming, he said in an interview with the BBC, posed an enormous problem for the planet, and moral responsibility lay with everybody .... What Dr Williams is highlighting, as did Michael McCarthy in the pages of The Tablet last week, is that the problems of the environment are no longer just about whether a warbler dies, or that a once-beautiful river dries up. They are now life or death issues. People of faith must respond to them, just as they do to the devastation of war, to the threat of hunger, to the depredations of poverty .... His voice has yet to be echoed by the Catholic Church, which gives the environment but half a paragraph in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, however, has indicated that it will soon make a statement on the subject. It is right that it does so, and right that we should be reminded that the world, rather than being ours to dominate, has been given to us in trust.
***
Transcript of Archbishop Rowan Williams' interview - BBC 2's Newsnight
Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and the Common Good - A Statement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
posted by crystal | 10:55 AM
2 Comments:
Your readers may be interested to learn that a thriving literary society exists to honour Machen and his works. The Friends of Arthur Machen (www.machensoc.demon.co.uk) celebrates the writer's life and works in a number of publications such as the journal Faunus, which reprints his essays and journalism. Over the years Machen’s admirers have included the film director Michael Powell, Jorge Luis Borges, Hitchcock’s regular composer Bernard Herrmann, Mick Jagger and novelists Peter Ackroyd, Paul Bowles, Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore. Guillermo del Toro’s acclaimed fantasy film Pan’s Labyrinth was influenced by Machen’s tale The White People (1904). After years of unaccountable neglect the cinema may be about to discover Machen’s genius. A film based on the Angels of Mons legend is currently in development from a British company, and an American screenwriter has written a script based on The Three Impostors (1895). Many of Machen’s books have been reissued over recent years by Tartarus Press (www.tartaruspress.com) and are available in the USA through Chaosium and Dover Publications.
Your readers may be interested to learn that a thriving literary society exists to honour Machen and his works. The Friends of Arthur Machen (www.machensoc.demon.co.uk) celebrates the writer's life and works in a number of publications such as the journal Faunus, which reprints his essays and journalism. Over the years Machen’s admirers have included the film director Michael Powell, Jorge Luis Borges, Hitchcock’s regular composer Bernard Herrmann, Mick Jagger and novelists Peter Ackroyd, Paul Bowles, Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore. Guillermo del Toro’s acclaimed fantasy film Pan’s Labyrinth was influenced by Machen’s tale The White People (1904). After years of unaccountable neglect the cinema may be about to discover Machen’s genius. A film based on the Angels of Mons legend is currently in development from a British company, and an American screenwriter has written a script based on The Three Impostors (1895). Many of Machen’s books have been reissued over recent years by Tartarus Press (www.tartaruspress.com) and are available in the USA through Chaosium and Dover Publications.
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