Off to the Friends' Meeting House last night for a showing of the Al Gore ("the former next President of the USA") polemic, "An Inconvenient Truth". I suspect most of the 40-50 people in the audience didn't need convincing of Gore's argument, but it was interesting to finally get to see the film which has caused such controversy. The evening was organised by Friends of the Earth and ended with a lively discussion with local politicians and environmental activists.
Two negative points from the evening. Firstly, the Northern Echo promised to attend, but didn't turn up, much to the disappointment of Kendra Ulyatt, the dynamic new co-ordinator of Darlington FoE, who has dragged the local group up from the brink of folding to having a healthy and growing membership and level of activity.
Secondly, although 4 of the 5 Lib Dem councillors were there, only Gerald Lee for the Conservatives and Veronica Copeland for Labour turned up. I expect the other 47 councillors have already seen the film.
The debate was lively, and Veronica and her officer minder had to take a lot of flak from the audience, and rightly so. Veronica dealt with it in good humour, even though her answers betrayed the lack of urgency and initiative on environmental matters that characterises the Labour Council in Darlington. Unfortunately, ticking boxes and achieving minimum standards is just not good enough any more, and this Council needs to be so much more dynamic and innovative in doing its bit to tackle climate change. As was said more than once, we know the science and we have the technology to solve this problem. What we lack is the political will.
7 comments:
The Wikipedia article on An Inconvenient Truth contains some useful information and references about the scientific basis for the film.
Somehow, I'd not seen the film before so it was good to finally get to see it. I'm going to try to arrange a showing at work.
Nope, not seen it... I was otherwise engaged at Harrowgate Hills Residents' Association meeting; there too, had 40/50 residents getting involved. I rather spend my time with ward residents than be sat watching a film, but hey, that's just me.
There must have been loads of residents' association meetings on last night ;)
Cllr Mark Burton, shows the true face of new Labour in Darlington, being educateds just not important..........god helps us when any valid issues regarding the environment need to be made!
Thanks Anonymous, you’re absolutely right of course. I’m no expert at anything much, but God does love a tryer. As for the environment and any decisions to be made, I’d most definitely have to take up the advice of the experts of our collective communities... and engage even more.
I learnt tonight at the Association of Parish Councillors (from those who attended this showing with you Mike) that the film is to be shown in the town hall at some point… so as all councillors have a further opportunity to see it.
Richard has blogged about the film showing on our site.
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