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CUBAN TELEVISION BROADCASTS DOCUMENTARY BY ALBERT
GORE
Former U.S. vice president asks for
political will to save the planet
BY LILLIAM RIERA — Granma International staff writer
—
THE February 8 edition of the
regular “Roundtable” program on Cuban Television
broadcast the documentary An Inconvenient Truth,
in which former U.S. vice president Albert Gore
criticizes the Bush government’s environmental
policies and makes an urgent appeal to save life on
the planet.
Gore, from whom the presidency
was snatched in the fraudulent elections of 2000,
emphasizes in the film the moral obligation of
making changes to prevent global warming, which
stems from the increase in carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, from causing millions of deaths.
In the 1.5 hour film, which was
nominated for an Oscar this year, the politician who
accompanied Democrat William Clinton in the White
House refers to the need — outside of the so-called
war on terrorism — to face “other problems an
threats,” as he stands in front of an enormous
screen with chilling animated graphics that show
what would happen in the world, including New York
and Florida, if half of Greenland were to melt away.
“There is a lack of political
will,” Gore says, noting that President George W.
Bush has used as his environmental adviser nobody
other than Philip Cooney, a well-known, long-time
advocate of the oil industry.
The documentary, made in 2006 by
filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, predicts more violent
hurricanes, typhoons and tornadoes; heavier rain and
snowfall; longer droughts and floods; polar ice-cap
melting, a rise in sea levels, terrible epidemics,
and the extinction of species... strong and
convincing arguments that the existence of humanity
is at stake.
In order to present the
documentary, the “Roundtable” invited John
Saxe-Fernández, professor and essayist from the
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, who
criticized the maneuvers carried out by ruling
circles in the United States to ignore alarming
realities like climate change.
Buying the opinions of the
scientific community and silencing the warnings of
those who have more advanced environmental ideas has
been the conduct of the U.S. government, which
abrogates rights in order not to comply with
international laws and regulations, Saxe said,
noting that the White House continues to refuse to
sign the Kyoto Protocol.
Nevertheless, Saxe noted that the
film has the limitations of its author, who does not
see that the root cause of the problem lies in the
contradictions of capitalism, because the planet
does not have the ability to continue withstanding
the capitalist system.
Gore was one of the main
advocates of the North American Free Trade Agreement
with Mexico, which contributes to the pollution of
the environment.
An Inconvenient Truth
has been very successful among critics and the
public, and has raised more than $24 million,
placing it third among documentaries that have seen
the highest box-office earnings.
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