Just to be clear, there is a part two to my last post that I thought I’d have written by now. I haven’t. I will.

This one has been rattling around in my inner parts for a while now, but I decided I’d wait until I actually saw An Inconvenient Truth before letting it out. I’m glad I did. Let me do some basic housekeeping up front:

• This film is worth seeing.
• Al Gore is very smart.
• Al Gore is still a goober of the highest order.
• I believe global warming is real and likely problematic.
• I believe humanoids are at least partially to blame.
• I do not believe Al Gore’s crusade will work.

Ultimately I’m going to make my case for what I perceive to be the fatal flaw in Al’s understanding of the issue and his game plan to save us all from imminent and paradoxical death. (I think the idea is that we’re going to burn-freeze-drown-starve; at least we’ll have some irony to go with the mass geocide….see what I did there? geocide and not genocide). Before I so enlighten you, however, here are my impressions of the film itself…

As I said, I think it’s a film that’s worth seeing if (a) you like films, (b) you like documentaries, (c) you have any real interest in environmental issues, or (d) you think Al and his whole lot are a bunch of liberal Chicken Littles. Actually, if you’re in that last camp you may have the most to gain from watching it, but you’re probably not going to do so no* matter what I say. And if that’s you, way to be that guy.

I contend that it’s worth seeing for a couple of reasons. First, it’s just a very effective visual production. I’m not an expert in these things but, as in so many areas of my life, I have friends who are, so I’ve picked up just enough knowledge to be annoying in my efforts to act like I know what I’m talking about. To that end, I contend that this is a very well conceived piece of film. It is well written and assembled in such a way that you’re rarely given too much science at once without a break for more personal vignettes. Some of you will hate that because those vignettes are stories about Al Gore’s life. Sure some of it is schmaltzy and manipulative, and I felt like Al was whispering in my ear a bit too much, but overall I actually enjoyed that dynamic. It’s a shame (for him anyway) that Gore couldn’t humanize himself for the masses back in 2000 the way he does in this film. He might not have been free for film making if he had.

The second reason I recommend the movie is that it is an accessible presentation of the basic science of global warming and the arguments for the "we should do something about this" position on the issue. Whether or not you agree, you’ll get a more cohesive and accurate sense of the real case for human-induced-and-preventable-warming than you get from, say Bill O’Reilly, Al Franken, or the Gyllenhaal kids. Gore will not be perceived as an objective source on the environment and the movie won’t change anyone’s mind about that. Big deal. Objectivity is mostly a myth anyway, and watching this movie doesn’t prevent you from researching the opposing arguments. For a non-scientist, Gore probably has as much credibility on this particular issue as anyone. He’s been paying close attention to the study of warming for a long time, and that counts for something. I don’t agree with Al about many things, but I admire his intensity, tenacity, and use of his intellectual capacities. And, as I said, I think he’s done a remarkable job of remaking himself since he ran for president as a robot with a lock box seven years ago.

A few assorted notes from the film that I found particularly interesting:

• On
  the science: Of 928 peer reviewed scientific articles about global warming sampled, exactly zero were in doubt as to their being a significant human component to current warming trends. Of 636 articles about warming sampled from the popular press, 53% suggested significant scientific doubt or controversy over the cause of warming.

The most common objection I’ve heard to the campaign to do something about warming is that there isn’t scientific consensus on the issue — that warming is cyclical and that there is no real evidence that what’s happening now is anything more than a natural fluctuation. I’ve probably even made that statement based on scant personal knowledge a few times. That seems unlikely at this point. There is almost universal consensus among the scientific community that (a) the earth is warming, (b) there is no precedent in the known scientific record of either the level or rate of warming happening now, and (c) there is substantial evidence to suggest human activity of the last several decades is the cause of this spike. Let it be said that scientists aren’t always right, even when they agree. But this is what it is. There are certainly still dissenters, but they are a shrinking minority. I’ve been surprised to read and see so many accounts of scientists who doubted or vehemently opposed these theories about warming for years and now have changed their minds.

So why do so many of us still believe that the significance and causes are completely uncertain? The best evidence is that the popular media continues to propagate the notion — true at one time, but not so much now — that there is something close to 50/50 disagreement on these questions among leading scientists. Anyone else find this odd? It strangely inverts the typical political divide on both the environment and popular media. Conservatives usually distrust the popular media
more than liberals, and the media (speaking in very broad terms, obviously) certainly does tend to push more "liberal" causes without much hesitation.  Yet here we have the opposite — the popular media continuing to drive an apparently inaccurate perception about the science of warming and many fairly conservative folks running with that perception. Weird.

For the record, I have no particular interest in Al and his pals being right. I hope they’re wrong. I just think there’s less scientific basis for thinking they’re wrong than before. That’s all. And I’m certainly not trying to champion Al in some way, but that will be clear enough soon enough.

• Al somehow gets away with calling the folks displaced by the 2004 Tsunami and Katrina "refugees."

I assume Jesse Jackson is out there running a boycott of the DVD and that he organized protests of the premiere, the Oscars, etc. Right? ……no? Hmm.

• More irony: At one point in the film, Al says
  something about how he keeps thinking the
  warnings will produce some kind of change in how we live as he walks through about the fifth airport we’ve seen in the film to get on what I can only assume was his billionth flight in a year or so. Is Christopher Guest ghost-writing parts of this thing?

This is one of several moments like this I notice in the movie — commentary on how desperately we need to decide to live differently while we’re watching Al live just like we all live (or just like he lives, which is not necessarily how "we" live). I know hypocrisy is too easy to find in anyone with a cause, and I know we use it as a crutch for our paralysis and indifference far too often. Let that be said.

However, this has to start somewhere, right? If we want less of the stuff in the air that causes the earth to warm, we probably need to fly around on fewer big jet planes and drive around in fewer limousines, right? Does Al really want to sit across a table from me and start comparing how much heat I’m giving off to his output? According to this report, I’m guessing the answer is no. And that goes for all the hosers in Hollywood going on late night talk shows and congratulating themselves for driving cars powered by vegetable oil and hemp root mixed with their own urine (though if someone can invent that kind of engine, I am absolutely in — talk about killing two birds with one stone!) Most of these nuts have flown more miles in the last month than I’ll fly my entire life, many of them on private jets lest they have to mingle with the unwashed plebeians who still drive archaic autos powered by evil fossil fuels. Their "cribs" consume more energy in a month than my home and yours will use for the next year.

Look, if I understand this correctly, Gore is arguing that we have to take warming seriously and start changing the way we live. That means change the way we live, right? That means this is so important that, rather than justifying the way I live, I need to change it, right? Consume a reasonable amount of energy, right? So what’s the hold up, Al? How important is it? How much do you believe this? Do you believe it enough to live differently? Do you believe it enough to live like me and most of my relatively environmentally unconscious friends live?

And that’s the problem. Al may be right about the predicament, but we have a major breakdown when it comes to a solution. Why? If this thing might do us all in, why is the guy who’s become the face of the issue using 20 times the energy (none of it powered by the sun or cow manure, as far as we can tell) at his house that I am at mine? I mean, his kids are grown and out of the house, right? It’s just him and Tipper hanging around the joint when they’re home, I assume, and surely they’re home less than most of us (not that we aren’t all on the global speaking circuit or doing press junkets to support our award winning film). So what gives?

I’ll answer that in a day or three. It’s not really about Al.

(Shoulda kept the beard, Al.)

*I noticed when reading this back that I constructed a phrasing with four consecutive two letter words ending in "o." Now that’s something to make a film about.

[Part 2]
[Part 3]

I always find a visual helps me better appreciate stories, so the following conversations took place between me and the kid on the right:

Yes, the one singing into a karaoke machine with the six-shooter conspicuously positioned in front—well, you can see it. That’s what happens late on New Year’s Eve when a kid has taken down one too many Caprisuns. Funny how this is cute for a four year old, but if I was caught on film singing karaoke while wearing a side (or front) arm after consuming too many mood altering beverages on New Year’s Eve, you’d probably describe it as something other than cute. But that’s not the point of this post. Well, it’s not supposed to be, but I won’t be surprised if it hijacks the original point.

So anyway, this is my first offspring, and he’s not quite four and a half. He’s full of questions and as I explained here and here, an endless supply of stories and wisdom related to Star Wars. He’s never really seen the movies, but this crazy video game follows the story line pretty closely, so I’m repeatedly surprised to hear him tell me something about the white robot turning on his light so Princess Leia could tell that other guy with the "light saver," to (in Leia voice), "Help me…you’re my only help" and such. I’m not kidding – roughly 40 percent of our conversations over the past week or two have been about Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewy. We run into his friends Liam and Burke at the playground and he instantly declares himself Han, delegates Luke’s identity to Liam, and one or both of them decide Burke (who is also a boy) will be Leia, much to their father Pepe’s chagrin. With a little intervention, a compromise is reached and Burke is upgraded to Chewy. But that’s not the point of this either.

The point is to document, as much for my own sake as yours, more of the incomparable perspective this kid injects into my life over and over again. Sometimes I forget this feature is built into my life.

As I mentioned before, there is much discussion these days about God around here. The latest feature in this area has been questions about why God made various things:

Why did God make bugs?
Why did God make fingernails?
Why did God make carrots?
Why did God make rain?
Why did God make boogers?

I can usually come up with a passable answer to most of these, and several of them can be handled with a sort of "circle of life" formula: God made it rain so the grass and trees will grow so the bugs will have a place to live. God made bugs so the birds will have something to eat. And so on. I feel like I’m lying a little when I say good things about carrots, but you do what you have to do to get healthy food in the kid. I’ve officially deferred the boogers question to our friend Laura, who is a second year medical student we occasionally call for unofficial advice to spare ourselves a $25 copay.

Anyway, I went to pick him up from a birthday party tonight, and we made a late trip to Kroger (where, if you aren’t careful, you’ll be told via a clearly marked price tag that a 12-pack of Welch’s grape soda costs $2.50 and then be charged $3.89 at the register.) On our way home, I began to lament to my son that I was very tired from the day. I even listed off for him all the admirable things I’d done today to make me tired.

He listened graciously, sighed, and said, "Yeah, I know Dad. I’ve had a really long day." It was one of those moments where you wonder when he learned to use a fairly grown up, hyperbolic phrase properly. So I asked, "Aiden, what made your day so long?" His answer: "God made it so long, Dad." Impressed, I supplement my question with "I mean why was your day long?" Undeterred he responds, "God made it so long so I’d have lots of time to play with my friends, play with Ella, play Star Wars, go to Hudson’s party. ‘Cause God wants me to have lots of fun, so he made my day really long."

Like I said. Perspective.

Oh, and if you made it this far, as a bonus I offer you low quality video footage (taken with my phone) of the above photo. The still photo is actually a lie insomuch as it hints that Aiden is the most entertaining person in that scene. The real star was rk’s boy Sam, who sang one of the most heartfelt unintelligible songs I’ve ever heard. Enjoy (by right clicking and choosing "save as…")

If you haven’t seen Craig Ferguson speak about Britney, booze, self-medicating, and the radical inversion of the patterns of this world, spend your next 15 minutes here.

And then this…

Amy and I watch probably 90% of our television in delay. The DVR has changed everything. It’s not unusual for us to be several episodes behind on any of the handful of shows we watch. This suits me fine since I have what may be a diagnosable addiction to delayed gratification (roll that one around for a little bit). The only downside is avoiding conversations about Lost and The Office among friends.

Anyway, we also watch very few commercials, which likewise pleases me (and this time with no psychological side effects). What I have seen lately seems to indicate that corporate marketing folks these days are more Two and a Half Men than Sports Night; more Bob Saget than Ricky Gervais. It’s good to see that somebody smart apparently still squeezes into the room now and then. (There’s a video down there for those of you using a reader that doesn’t show such things.)

I do not mean that everyone is an expert on God. I would argue that no one, regardless of title or training, is that. Some are experts on religion or on particular ways of thinking about God (man made systems all), but a true expert on God I’ve yet to meet. Nonetheless, I believe we are all theologians. What I mean by this is that each of us (humans, I mean), no matter our level of intentionality, is wondering, believing, speculating, reacting, doubting, pursuing, hoping, questioning (and on and on) with respect to God. I, of course, capitalize the word because I am persuaded that this particular journey every person is on is related to the God. However, use "god" or "higher power" or whatever term you prefer, and I submit my assertion stands. From the most adamant atheist to the best behaved fundamentalist, we’re all developing a theology as we move through life.

Even if we rarely consciously think or speak of the supernatural or divine, how we live and think demonstrates a particular orientation toward and understanding of what is and is not going on beyond us and inside us. Many religious systems (terminology I use for the sake of familiar communication, even though I believe religious systems and God have less to do with one another than we’re trained to believe) suggest that our unspoken theology is more reliable than what our mouths profess.

But none of that is terribly revolutionary. What is revolutionary, to me, is that I have had this fascinating reality thrust in front of me in the form of a four year-old boy. I am witnessing, one day at a time and in great detail, the development of one human’s theology (well, his everything, but this is one of the parts that matters most to me). And more daunting than the witnessing is the participating — this kid is bouncing his ideas, speculation, and questions off of me and Amy at every turn.

Just tonight over dinner we discussed everything from why God is invisible to the genealogy of Jesus, all at his prompting. I need to brush up on the first 17 verses of the New Testament so I’m ready when his curiosity expands beyond two generations. Last year I wrote about being with my grandmother when she died. She spent her final days a mile from us, and Aiden saw her frequently in that time. We sometimes drive past the home where she was several times a day, and we’ve had countless conversations about life, death, and Mamaw. His little wheels turn a little more deliberately when we talk about these things. I can see it happening, and it’s thrilling and overwhelming and absolutely spellbinding for me.

Tonight’s highlight…

Aiden: Jesus didn’t have a mom and dad, right?
Me: Well yeah, he did actually. You know that, I think. His mom was Mary and…
Aiden: Yeah, and Joseph was his dad. I remember.
Me: Right.
Aiden: And Mary and Joseph weren’t afraid, right?
Me: I don’t know. I would imagine that they–
Aiden: No, they weren’t afraid. Just like Princess Leia wasn’t afraid.
Me: (Nodding) Great.

Like I said, everyone is a theologian, and that process unfolds differently for all of us. My response to Aiden’s unfolding theology (which, in case I’m not being clear, is not about his proper intellectual response to a list of pre-articulated doctrines but about his spirit’s response to the life-altering reality of God’s Good News) matters. I want to love him enough to guide him well and trust God enough to not crush his spirit. It seems to me that programming and pushing him to a very particular pre-determined outcome would, indeed, be a crushing of his spirit. Likewise, abdicating my role as one of his two primary spiritual directors and capitulating to the countless other voices competing for his affection and allegiance would be depriving him of the fullest expression of my love. I want to let him be Aiden, following the Voice he hears while protecting, counseling, and correcting him when love and truth demand as much. This, it turns out, is not a science. It is a dirty, hilarious, tear-inducing art. However, I’ll be damned (and perhaps literally) if I’m going to refuse to pick up the brush even if some days I can’t  find the paint.

For further readings on this journey, I refer to my friend Pepe, who has penned an excellent piece on his agenda for his boys. To this I say, "YES!"

As I sit in my office trying to better assist the small groups of people in our community who are being the church together, I’m overhearing this conversation about 15 yards to the west…

Aiden (who is playing one of his two X-box games – the Legos version of Star Wars): OH NO! Don’t take my robots! Oh wow…Mom, I just saw Darth Vader. He’s awesome, isn’t he? Mom…isn’t Darth Vader so awesome?

Amy (laughing): Don’t you think he’s scary? He’s a bad guy.

Aiden: No he isn’t. He’s really so good. I love him. He’s awesome.

Any Jedis out there who can help me rescue my four year-old from the Dark Side?

UPDATE: Reason #473 – real time visuals

And for the record, he doesn’t play a lot of video games. It’s this and Finding Nemo for limited amounts of time during the week.

when I used to blog? That was cool.

I’ve finally updated the photo albums (to the left). The December album
is full of all (very) new pictures, and I also added the better set of
photos to the Colorado album.

EDIT: I also added a Thanksgiving album.

How can you resist these two?