My colleagues and I watched Al Gore’s documentary called An Inconvenient Truth at my brother’s house yesterday night. I think it’s a really powerful show, and everyone that can, should watch it.

Basically, it shows the effects that global warming is having on the world today. There were many interesting facts that he highlighted. For example, the ten hottest years were all in the past 14 years, and 2005 was the hottest year of all. Then, there were pictures of the glaciers around the world, showing how much the glaciers are melting compared to 10 years ago. Countries all over were breaking records of the most number of typhoons / hurricanes in a year. Geography books had to be rewritten because they said that in certain areas, it was impossible to have hurricanes, but hurricanes were occuring.

These climate changes also affect the wildlife. Polar bears were actually drowning because there was not enough ice for them so they had to swim really far, and ended up drowning. A certain variety of birds normally lay their eggs in April, and the eggs will hatch in June, when the caterpillars are out. However, because of the climate changes, caterpillars came out two weeks earlier, and the chicks all started dying because they didn’t have enough to eat. In another place, the winter would normally kill off pine beetles. But because the winter wasn’t so cold anymore, the pine beetles weren’t being killed, and instead, they were killing all the pine trees!

It was pretty disheartening at one point, listening to all the things that are happening all over the world. Floods, droughts, hurricanes, typhoons, etc. Al Gore said that it was typical human behaviour to hear all these ‘inconvenient truths’ and then plunging down to the depths of despair, without stopping to think what we can do to help the environment.

Some people are saying that he’s only doing this to gain popularity and run for President again. So what if he is? I don’t think it matters too much what his motives are, the main point is that he is focusing many peoples’ attention on the main issue, the climate change of the earth.

A lot of people have the idea that ‘Well, I’m only one person. What difference can I make?’ Well, if everyone makes an effort, it would make a lot of difference. We discussed it amongst ourselves, and these were the ideas we came up with:

1. When we go out for lunch, shut down the air-cons and hibernate your computer. Yes, it’s an inconvenience when you come back, and it’s hot and stuffy. Yes, you will need to spend a few minutes re-opening your applications, but it saves electricity. The majority of the electric stations are coal-burning stations, which contribute a lot to the pollution of the environment.

2. When you buy items, don’t take the plastic bags that they offer. Instead, bring along your own bags. You might forget the first few times, but if you keep trying, it will become a habit.

3. Perhaps we can try to ‘off-set’ our carbon footprints. We could adopt a tree, perhaps a small potted plant to compensate for the amount of CO2 that we use.

Please, don’t think that you can’t be bothered. In the end, we will be the ones suffering, and our future generations. Make an effort for our planet!

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