Great Reaction to An Inconvenient Truth

From Daily Kos diarist litigatormom, whose 16-year-old daughter just saw a preview screening of Al Gore's upcoming global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

"Mom, why doesn't your generation get it?"

And there she had me. Because while we all like to blame Bush and the Republicans for pretending that the existence of global warming is still a subject of debate, "my generation," the Boomers, the Flower Power generation, has largely slipped comfortably into a consumerist middle age, in which we decry our government's idiotic policies, but don't bring much pressure to bear on the government to change them. I myself am more consumed by the war (not that its unimportant) and civil rights violations (not that its unimportant) and don't pay that much attention to the biggest long term threat to our country, and to the world.

I suppose I tell myself that it'll happen to great-great grandhildren I'll never know, and that a fix will be discovered before then. But it won't happen to my great-great-grandchildren, its going to happen to my smart, snarky, beautiful, almost 16 year old daughter in her lifetime.

My daughter told me that she feels she needs to learn more about the science of global warming. She says we need to make our candidates talk more about it, and DO more about it. My not quite 16 year old daughter put me to shame.

And by the way, my daughter (who was only 10 years old during the Florida recount) said: "You know, I always heard that Al Gore was boring and stiff, but he seems really smart, and he's funny too. He said he was the former next President of the United States."

GO-Team '08