It’s Only Inconvenient If You Let It Be

This time two summers ago, Sarah and I went to see An Inconvenient Truth. I’ll admit: she had to drag me because I don’t particularly enjoy documentaries, much less ones done by politicians, and even less ones done by Al Gore. But since Sarah cares oh so much about the environment, and I cared about Sarah at the time, I went with her.

The best part about it is that I caught Sarah while her eyes were filled with tears. What?! Sarah? Crying?! I know, I thought so too. Except that this was during the scene where the computer-generated polar bear drowned. Forget the San Francisco Bay/Florida/Manhattan going under water; the CG fuzzy cuddly bears matter more than people.

Either way, I ended up being pretty moved by it despite my bit of skepticism. Say what you want about it, but sometimes scare tactics are necessary to provoke progress in people who are otherwise too preoccupied/lazy/whatever to change their lifestyles. Not that Sarah’s self-absorbed lifestyle has changed in the last two years.

1. She still leaves the TV blaring when she goes to class.
2. She still leaves the lights on after she is done with the kitchen/bathroom in the middle of the night.
3. She still gets pissy when I bug her to separate her recycling, and she still neglects to help me take out our bins.

Granted, she has bought a bike. Though I think that has more to do with the fact that her hipster friends all ride self-painted bikes as a statement of their “trend-setting” ability than her effort to reduce emissions.