In Summer 2006, after seeing the global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth (of which Andrew Tobias rightly said "the feeling of most who go see the movie is that everybody else ought to see the movie"), I - and others - felt we had to do something. And one thing we could do was to encourage local public figures to see the film, offer them tickets to do so, and collect and report their responses.
I set up a (currently stale) weblog for the project, and assembled a number of people willing to lend their names, money and/or efforts to the cause, but it mostly came down to "super-contributors" Susan Hull and me.
After the film had been showing in town for almost two months, I went before our county Board of Supervisors, and spoke during the meeting's public comment period, asking if the Supervisors had seen the film yet, and offering them tickets in case they still wished to do so. None had seen the film, and none accepted the tickets; some said they intended to see it when it came out on video.
Fast-forward to a week ago: An Inconvenient Truth has won an Academy Award for Best Documentary, and has been out on video for over 4 months, for a total of 6 months that the film's been available to county residents. I had purchased two copies of the DVD, and went before the Board of Supervisors at their meeting last Tuesday to reprise my questions and offer of last summer.
It did not go smoothly. Our new District IV supervisor, Hank Weston, said he had seen the film. But when I commenced asking the other four supervisors if they'd seen it, Board Chairman John Spencer intervened, saying I was not permitted to ask questions during the public comment period - that I could contact my own Supervisor to ask, outside of the meeting, but (I understood his implication to be) that none of the other Supervisors were under any obligation to answer my questions.
(Another project member had sent an email to the Board asking about the film; his questions had been met with silence from 4 Supervisors and an off-the-record answer from the 5th.)
I'm fairly certain that none of them besides Mr. Weston had seen the film; only he gave any indication of having seen it.
The value journalists continue to provide in a 'disintermediated,' Net-enabled world -- when they are doing their jobs right, of course -- is to continue to ask public figures the uncomfortable questions that they won't choose to answer on their own.
- Scott Rosenberg*
- Scott Rosenberg*
But we can get answers now, by banding together. Citizens in the districts of Sue Horne, John Spencer, Nate Beason and Ted Owens are asking their respective Supervisors about An Inconvenient Truth, and will report the responses.
Stay tuned...
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Related: Earth Day 2007 in Nevada County (Sun Apr 29), and
Local Non-Profit Groups to Join Forces on April 14 in Grass Valley
(to show two free solution-oriented films on climate change at the Del Oro Theater: "Too Hot Not To Handle" and "Kilowatt Ours")
3 comments:
Thanks Russ - I don't have time to address this now, but I will.
To Russ-
OK, I addressed it, at Who's an activist, part 2.
And Russ, I'd still like to see a compendium of all the columns you've written on global warming, with publication dates. Please?
And regarding your post, that you mentioned in your comment: IMO you are never going to see anthropogenic global warming as a crisis. If you were open to information sources that came from science and not PR, you might; but you're not, and as long as there's money to be made by global warming denialism PR, it will continue to thrive, and you will continue to be persuaded by it.
So be it. I don't have the time to continue engaging on it, beyond a general suggestion that you get your information from more credible sources.
and might i point out that our public officials are more than welcome to state that they share your views and won't be seeing the film; I just want them to go on the record saying where they stand.
Have you seen An Inconvenient Truth? Has George Rebane seen it?
(I answer your questions; I hope you'll do the same for me)
In short, here are answers so far, from those county supervisors who didn't respond when I asked at the meeting if they'd seen the film:
* As of last Saturday, Sue Horne had not yet responded;
* John Spencer has not seen the film and doesn't intend to;
* Nate Beason replied, answering only one of the four yes-or-no questions, but did not make it clear whether his answer was on the record.
* not sure about status of the contact with Ted Owens.
Here are the 4 questions from the email (the DVDs are with the Board Clerk):
1. Have you seen the film (either on screen or video)?
2. If so, did you see it before the recent (3/27/2007) Supervisors' meeting? If you haven't seen it yet, would you like to see it? (two DVDs of the film are available for loan - please let me know if you'd like to borrow one)
3. If you've seen it or intend to, would you be willing to answer several more equally brief questions about the film after seeing it?
4. Do you have any problem with your answers to these questions being made public?
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