NYTimes Movie Critic A.O.Scott Educates Us on the 'Lethal, Terrifying Urgency' of Global Warming
Movie reviewer A.O. Scott on Wednesday applied his expertise to the scientific ssue of global warming and rising sea levels, in his sarcasm-laden review of "The Island President," a documentary about "climate change" and the danger it supposedly poses to the island of Maldives: "In Paradise, and Closer Than Ever to Disaster."
For many of us who live in temperate zones, inland regions and the industrialized West, global warming is a source of anxiety -- even terror -- and something of an abstraction. The mildness of this past winter on the Eastern Seaboard might have seemed ominous, yes, but it was also pleasant, and much of the time other social, economic and political problems have a way of seeming more urgent than human survival.
There is also a noisy subculture of obfuscation and denial that has pulled an already contentious conversation about climate change and the environment down into the fever swamp of American ideological animus. It’s a hoax! It’s a liberal conspiracy! It’s a scheme on the part of greedy scientists and power-hungry international organizations to shame us out of our S.U.V.’s and our plastic grocery bags!
In other parts of the world, though, the issue has a lethal, terrifying urgency. “The Island President,” a new documentary by Jon Shenk (“The Lost Boys of Sudan”), visits one such place, the Maldives. That archipelago of roughly 1,200 low-lying islands in the Indian Ocean, of which about 200 are inhabited, is described as “paradise crossed with paradise,” and its soft sand beaches and blue waters have made it a haven for wealthy tourists. Though the film includes spectacular aerial and underwater footage of the Maldives’ beauty, it concentrates its attention on uglier realities.
For 30 years the country was ruled by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, a dictator with the usual authoritarian habit of imprisoning, torturing and terrorizing his opponents. Among them was Mohamed Nasheed, who after years as a pro-democracy activist and a political prisoner was elected president at 41 in 2008.
As soon as he took office, Mr. Nasheed faced an environmental crisis of existential dimensions. The steady rise in ocean levels caused by melting polar ice and increasing global temperatures had already caused serious erosion on some islands, and the eventual catastrophic inundation of this small, vulnerable nation was starting to look inevitable, rather than just frighteningly plausible.
Scott, a fan of leftist documentary maker Michael Moore, uses the thinnest of pretexts to indulge in liberal politics, even questioning whether the 2010 Robin Hood movie was "one big medieval tea party."
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Comments
Hate to break it to you Mr. MOVIE REVIEWER
Submitted by Cappmann1962 on Wed, 03/28/2012 - 3:50pm.
But the Globull Alarming issue is NOW settled, and not in your narrow-minded favor.
First of all, the supposed melting polar ice causing a rise in sea levels is total BS. A report from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado finds that Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007. So, with a 26% increase, where exactly is all this water coming from that is causing rising sea levels?
Secondly, as to your Maldives erosion concern, According to Paper 8: Environmental Changes in the Maldives: Current Issues for Management - By Mohamed Khaleel and Simad Saeed, Ministry of Planning Human Resources and Environment, Ghazee Building Malé, Republic of Maldives, the islands of the Maldives are very transient, building and eroding at a rapid rate, and thus beach erosion is a very widespread problem. Severe cases of beach erosion have been reported by 57 inhabited islands and several resort islands. In an evaluation of coastal engineering issues in the Maldives (Readshaw, 1994), it was found that causes of erosion vary greatly from one location to the other and the causes identified include: loss of a source of sand; increased exposure to the incident wave climate due to historical mining of the house reef; changes in the near shore current patterns, either due to natural causes or man made changes, such as construction of coastal infrastructure; changes in the natural sediment balance; and up drift impoundment of sand behind coastal structures built without pre-filling.
Therefore, the Maldives erosion is NOT caused by non-existent sea level rise from non-existent water from EXPANDING polar ice.
Next time, try doing a little research before penning a column on a subject about which you, A MOVIE REVIEWER, know absolutely NOTHING besides the propaganda from all those liberal conspirators, and those greedy scientists and power-hungry international organizations who have a scheme to shame us out of our S.U.V.’s and our plastic grocery bags!
'Cause guess what? There ARE liberal conspirators and greedy scientists and power-hungry international organizations who have a scheme to shame us out of our S.U.V.’s and our plastic grocery bags! Not to mention doing us out of our hard-earned money and making every conceivable effort to take us back to the stone age. And idiots like you are doing your damndest to help them, either through ignorance or deliberate support.
Global warming Bring it on!
Submitted by okie-pastor on Wed, 03/28/2012 - 2:39pm.
Global warming
Bring it on! I'm cold down here
As global warming melts away, integrity evaporates
Submitted by needle on Wed, 03/28/2012 - 3:52pm.
As the so-called scientific basis for Global Warming melts away, the ideological partisans who swore their allegiance to the theory feel they must amp their apocalyptic rhetoric up and up, as their other option dwindle away.
Of course, people with integrity could admit they were wrong; but we are talking about Liberal partisans here, not people with integrity, people essentially allergic to responsibility.
- Looking forward to the self-annihilation of the Manipulated Stories Machine.
I wonder if has anything to do with sucking out other peoples $?
Submitted by dbo on Wed, 03/28/2012 - 4:49pm.
If "catastrophic inundation" is inevitable why is President Nasheed building 11 new airports?
so it's a comedy, right?
Submitted by wizardjr on Wed, 03/28/2012 - 9:01pm.
how else do you define it...?
Where is that other critic?
Submitted by drsamherman on Wed, 03/28/2012 - 9:26pm.
The idiotic one who was whining about the pro-life documentary being emotional and guilt-laden? Of course, the pointy-headed lib-o-ranter was too busy shoveling the crap to point the same out about another pro-AGW movie.
He's not the only one
Submitted by deadeyedan on Thu, 03/29/2012 - 1:03am.
Movie reviewer Roger Ebert has long been an admirer of the error-fraught Al Gore docu-melodrama "An Inconvenient Truth".
Anyone interested in the facts of the case should see:
http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/
And don't be discouraged by its length, it doesn't take long to figure out what's going on.
CLIMATEGATE - (now I & II plus FAKEGATE) - the revelation that the pseudo-scientists at East Anglia University know just as much about the atmosphere as Harvard law professors know about the Constitution