The 11th Hour

I went down to the preview screening of Leonardo DiCaprio's The 11th Hour last night. I want to thank Charlie Fredrick of the Sierra Club for hooking me up with a ticket and the Buckeye Forest Council for some great tips for spreading the word. What a great idea to host a viewing party of films such as An Inconvenient Truth and The 11th Hour.

Let me first off say that I am going to see this movie again as a paying customer to support this effort and I encourage every one that was there last night to somehow contribute as well. I am going to take Darla and Mallory to see it. I recommend that everyone see this movie. I was very interested to see how the movie was going to present itself. I was afraid that it was going to be some wack-job enviro "the sky is falling" Armageddon speech. It was NOT. But it was extremely powerful and I hit a wide range of emotions from sadness, terror, embarrassment, to encouragement and hope.

It absolutely terrifies me that the people with all the power and money and decision making ability can't see what all of the scientists are saying. The two quotes that stuck with me was from Gloria Flora, who said "You can also vote—and I don't mean voting at a voting booth—anybody of any age can vote. Because you vote every day that you pay for something. Every time you lay money down on the counter to buy something, you are saying that I approve of this object. I approve of how it was made, the materials that are in it, and what's going to happen to it when I no longer need it and throw it away." and I don't remember the gentleman's name so someone help out with the proper credit, but he stated (paraphrasing) "Its all hands on deck time. Not just government, Auto manufacturers, Oil companies, Solar array and wind turbine manufacturers. Every one." Folks that me, you, kids at school, the Starbucks slingers. Everyone.

I would encourage everyone to see this film. I would encourage you to try to reduce your impact. We try to bike whenever we can, reduce, reuse, and recycle items we have. I am trying to reduce ours as much as financially possible with energy efficiency in our home, through changing lights out to CFLs, low flow showerheads, turning the AC up a couple of degrees than we've had it in the past, keeping it a little cooler in the winter. I try to vote with the products I purchase. If each one of us continues to make changes in our lives and try to effect changes from a governmental, national, and global level we can begin to make a difference.