Are you (still) doing your bit?

Some might say that the global 'hot' topic (pardon the pun) of the last couple of years has been climate change, and the fact that politicians have now finally begun to acknowledge what for some time has been quite obviously a growing problem should be cause for some cheer.

Films such as An Inconvenient Truth have clearly helped to spell out the specifics of the wider problem to a mass global audience who need only put in the DVD, watch and learn. The use of Al Gore, the "former next President of the United States", gives the opportunity to learn from someone who is serious politician himself first, albeit increasingly celebrity second.

But it is undeniable that his commitment to his cause, and the coverage that his film has been given (not least through its Oscar win), is a key focus for the recent trend in embracing the need to do something about global warming, and a direct cause of phrases such as "carbon offsetting" entering popular culture and vocabulary.

And so I am left wondering what possible benefit there is to be had in publicly criticising his film for being perhaps too alarmist. I fail to see how the causes that Al Gore sets out to bring to the world's attention are helped by a school teacher petitioning a court to ensure that An Inconvenient Truth should not be shown in schools, at least unless it is accompanied by counter-balancing information that basically serves to cancel out any good that the film may have caused. So what if some of the issues are overstated? Surely the alarmist tone is what is needed to convince the historically ill-informed and apathetic watching masses that something needs to change.

Now, if the message is "global warming is a serious issue....oh, but wait. No, actually, worry not, it's not really a problem for a fair few more years yet" then your average secondary school student will leave the classroom not only confused as to why they had just been made to watch a film that the teachers then took great pains (having been compelled to do so by law) to pull apart in the interests of giving balance to the issues presented, but also largely unconcerned and disinterested about the fundamental issues.

With the likes of George Bush and his generation still refusing to sign up to, or even recognise the benefits of, the Kyoto protocol, it is in today's schoolchildren that attention should best be focused; to begin education on global climate change at an age early enough to avoid the inevitable onset of apathy, cynicism and selfishness that adolescence breeds.

Al Gore's film (without this week's judicial led dilution requirement) may have served to provide the perfect catalyst to kick into action the generation who would have been best able, and least sceptical, of the need to be the first to take the global environmental crisis as seriously as it demands. Without pointing out that it may contain some inaccuracies, no-one would have been any the wiser, and the fundamental point about there being a need to act would have remained intact. However, now it will just be seen as a fictional scare-mongering exercise which an already hesitant global audience will use to justify their continued non-action.

An Inconvenient Truth has been robbed of its purpose unjustifiably by those who, wrongly in my view, thought it more important that its message be 100% correct, than 100% effective.