Continuing a recent Movie Monday trend, this week's film is also a documentary, the blockbuster-in-the making Not Evil Just Wrong. This is a different kind of blockbuster, though, since it was not released commercially or (with rare exceptions) screened in theaters. But in terms of its impact, this may prove to be one of the most influential non-fiction films of all time.
Not Evil Just Wrong was created by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, the husband and wife team whose previous film Mine Your Own Business examined the impact that environmental restrictions on mining have on the economic welfare of poor people throughout the world. Not Evil Just Wrong ups the ante and takes on the Big Kahuna of environmental issues, global warming. The film was made available for purchase through their website, and it premiered October 18th in thousands of homes and similar venues for small to medium-sized groups across the globe.
The film itself packs a wallop, and exposes the many exaggerations and outright deceptions that global warming advocates have peddled over the years. The infamous "hockey stick" graphs are seen to be a fraud, since they omit the medieval warming period when global temperatures were substantially higher than today. The film also interviews two independent researchers who examined the data which NASA scaremonger James Hansen used to claim that 1998 through 2006 were the hottest years on record. Their analysis revealed that Hansen made several critical errors which, when corrected, show that the warmest decade of the 20th century was the 1930s, when the world was mired in an economic depression and not exactly gobbling up fossil fuels. One of the most delicious moments in the film is when James Hansen is forced to admit his errors but can hardly bear hearing the names of these researchers (Stephen Mcintryre and Ross McKitrick), as he haughtily dismisses their work as being "of no importance."
The great white whale of the movie is of course Al Gore. Here he is thundering about the need to freeze global carbon emissions immediately. There he goes saying "the basic problem is cars, coal and buildings" (is that all? sounds like an easy fix!). And now he's at an event honoring Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring and acknowledged inspiration for Gore's environmental activism. Her tome led to a worldwide ban on DDT, which in the 50s and early 60s was widely used to eradicate mosquitoes and, in the process, control the diseases they spread. Ms. Carson was particularly concerned about the impact of DDT on birds, which she believed were accidentally being wiped out along with the mosquitoes (the loss of their birdsong made the spring "silent").
The problem was that the link between DDT and bird deaths was always weak, and the health hazards claimed for humans were even more tenuous. Nevertheless, the "world" came together and in a heroic, collective effort convinced the World Health Organization to ban the poisonous substance. Before long, it was noticed that malaria - which had been nearly eradicated - was starting to become prevalent in tropical and subtropical parts of the world, particularly in Africa. Malaria is a deadly disease for children (most adults will survive getting it), and it is transmitted overwhelmingly by mosquito bites. In the decades since it was implemented, the ban on DDT has led to the deaths of millions of people from malaria, most of them children and primarily in Africa. Because of these unforeseen deaths, and because the science underlying the policy was increasingly discredited, the World Health Organization lifted the DDT ban in 2006. Naturally, Al Gore thinks this was a mistake.
The movie presents all the facts above, and notes that this is the last time that the "world" got together and, in its collective wisdom, took action against an environmental hazard. The implications are crystal clear: they're doing it again, this time for global warming. And what unintended consequences can we expect this time around if coercive policies resting on an uncertain scientific foundation are implemented worldwide?
We don't know, of course, but the best bet is - they would be far worse. Not only because trying to regulate every carbon molecule on earth is a fool's game (although it is), but more importantly because the world runs on fossil fuels. Cutting global emissions immediately, and through mandated government policies, can only be done by reducing economic activity (to believe otherwise - that we can substitute "green jobs" that pay as well, or better, than the jobs that will be lost from carbon caps - means that millions of potential entrepreneurs have failed to recognize or act on these profitable market opportunities, yet government bureaucrats and environmental activists are wise enough to perceive and manage our transformation into a brave new "green economy"). Less economic activity means a lower standard of living and, as with the ban on DDT, the world's poorest people will suffer most. A worldwide cap on carbon emissions will consign sub-Saharan Africa to poverty more or less permanently, and with a constant economic pie and increasing population their meager living standards can only decline. To his credit, an activist from an organization called Plane Stupid (which is trying to restrict airline travel) is quite forthright in announcing this aim, and says that people like Al Gore who say that we can reduce carbon emissions without reducing living standards are not leveling with the public - as far as he and his friends are concerned, the point is to reduce living standards. Humans are just gobbling up too much of the earth's precious resources and it's time to make everybody stop.
The film brilliantly illustrates this conflict between the aims of environmental elites and the impact of their policies on ordinary people by examining the hard-working, lower middle class McElhany family in Vevay, Indiana. Husband and father Tim makes mufflers at a local factory and earns $16 an hour. Wife and mother Tiffany stays home and takes care of their two kids. They don't have much, but they work hard, make sure their children receive the best education possible, and scrimp and save their money to purchase a new modest home (which needs LOTS of work) just outside of town. They know a global cap on carbon would mean the cars Tim makes mufflers for will soon go the way of the Dodo, and so would their plans for the future. Tiffany becomes the film's anti-Gore, a humble, plain spoken person without a Harvard education but great reserves of common sense. The climax of the movie is when Tiffany composes a letter to Al Gore detailing her concerns about the policies he's promoting and decides to drive it from Vevay, IN to his home in Nashville. Naturally the great man isn't home, but she knocks on the door of his Graceland-ish estate and delivers the letter to the help, who kindly thanks her for her concern (he seemed to think it was a fan letter).
The film has much, much more (I haven't mentioned the many interviews with Patrick Moore, who co-founded Greenpeace, has real environmental cred and is appalled by the global warming movement. Or Richard Lindzen, the MIT scientist and dean of climatology research, who is a leading global warming skeptic and has many valuable comments about how those "consensus" documents get developed). So don't let this review/rant/sermon keep you from seeing the movie if you haven't yet. There are a lot of groups out there organizing new screenings and trying to keep the momentum going, especially since President Obama will go to Copenhagen in December with the goal of signing an international treaty that imposes severe restrictions on carbon emissions. McAleer, McElhinney and others like them want this trip to be as successful as the President's last visit to that city, when he failed to bring back the Olympics. The topic of global warming will be around for the rest of our lives, and you owe it to yourself to understand both sides of the issue. With Not Evil Just Wrong, the debate has been well and truly joined.
I got to meet McElhinney a few weeks back and have to say that she's a very engaging speaker and warm personality. If anyone in YR Nation is able to organize an event around the film, her sincere anger over environmental alarmism is very compelling.
Posted by: BATMAN | October 27, 2009 at 12:33 PM