The Butter Bitch and I went with a group of friends to see An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s documentary on global warming and environmental disaster. Although the film has been dismissed as one of several docu-ganda pieces, Gore presents a number of scientific facts that cannot be dismissed.
The inconvenient truth is that I cannot dismiss Gore’s film, or include my review in a light-hearted food post.
My intent was to write an entry titled “Al Gore Needs a Raspberry Chocolate Mint Cooler” and combine my thoughts on the outing with a recipe for a homemade cooler made of raspberries and chocolate mint. I mentioned this title to GS, who had organized the event, and his response helped me realize that I was on the wrong track.
The inconvenient truth is that drought, flooding, and ecological devastation will increase, not decrease, human reliance on chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and other destructive agricultural methods. Dramatic climate change is one of the results of global warming, and Gore effectively argues that the changes will increase in severity.
The inconvenient truth is that the ethical choice between starvation and consumption of food grown with intensive chemical use and then shipped halfway around the world is not a choice we want to be given.
The inconvenient truth is that even through the purchase of organic, local products, we may not have a great enough impact to ameliorate the effects of global warming. More must be done.
The inconvenient truth is that we as a nation choose not to become educated, not to exercise political will and not to effect changes in government policy at local, state and national levels.
The inconvenient truth is that the U.S. is the largest polluter in the world.
The inconvenient truth is that the U.S. could effect dramatic reductions in pollution if we exercised will power to bring about change.
The inconvenient truth is that readers of this blog and the other “chefs” may think that this topic is inappropriate, or that I spend more time blogging about politics and news than tasty food. The inconvenient truth is that this is one topic that should make us put down our organic beers, farm fresh egg sandwiches, and, yes, raspberry chocolate mint coolers and become even more involved.
A convenient truth is that Al Gore is a funny, smart guy. I think he would enjoy, or at least graciously accept, one of my raspberry chocolate mint coolers. I’ll blog about the coolers another time.
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June 4th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
I think the topic is very appropriate, MOLM. (see http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/whatyoucando/index4.html.)
The thing is, what we eat, how we raise our food, where our food comes from, why we don’t know where our food comes from, why we think we can save the world–the hungry, the poor–if only we grow more and more corn, more food… all these questions are so wrapped up in these larger political/spiritual issues.
EITHER/OR thinking will no longer work for us. US vs. THEM is a broken paradigm. We are all in this together. Together we go down… or we pull together and face the truth and do something to recreate the world we want to live in… regardless of whether it works in the end.
And sometimes that means living and making choices in our lives in the spirit of just how interdependent everything–EVERYTHING–in the world is… and just how much beauty there is to save.
June 5th, 2006 at 6:27 am
I second Corn Maven. And I’d like to drink chocolate raspberry mint coolers or whatever they are as we stand on the deck of the Titanic, bailing as much as we can. We can do more, but the important thing is to realize is that we can do something.