Forget the politics. Forget the seemingly irrelevant anecdotes that Al Gore presents regarding his narrow and controversial loss in the presidential election of 2000. An Inconvenient Truth reveals a rather alarming contemporary issue that Choate students in general need to be more aware of—global warming. In our first special program of the year, the student body was shown Gore’s wide-reaching and influential documentary. The hope was that it would provoke—as Mr. Ford stressed in his email—“discussion and activities related to Choate’s efforts in supporting environmentally friendly ways of life.”
Coming into the program, I was probably more excited about the weekend dress code than the documentary, which I assumed would have me asleep within 15 minutes. However, I managed to stay awake, at least for most of it, and I believe that Gore did, for the most part a nice job of presenting the science and evidence about global warming without getting too preachy. His facts and experiences supported his points well, and his argument was made more compelling with the use of rhetorical questions and quotations. After the program, I actually found myself thinking a good deal about the messages Gore emphasized throughout, and how they could possibly relate to Choate and our lives here.
We’ve all heard the startling facts on global warming and of our “imminent doom” if we fail to act soon. Yet somehow very few of us actually muster up enough willpower to do anything at all. After all, what can one high school student do to sway the nation and impact the environment once and for all? Probably not much. But if we play around with the idea, the question can be rephrased – what can one high school student do to sway the school and impact the community once and for all? Play around with the words a bit more and you get: what can one high school do to sway the community and impact the state once and for all?
As I’ve just demonstrated, the first question can easily be broken down into smaller complementary questions that provide more optimistic answers. Start small. Don’t think about impacting the world, but about impacting a friend or classmate. Get involved, commit to plausible goals, and spread awareness and your own ideas to anyone and everyone who is willing to listen. As Gore stressed towards the end of his presentation, the key to resolving global warming lies with our ability as the rising generation to ask the question “What were our parents thinking?” now instead of years from now when we have our own kids. Global warming is not an issue that will resolve itself, and inaction will only delay the Earth’s recovery and put it in the hands of future generations.
Last year at Choate, the theme of the special programs revolved around conflicts in the Middle East. With issues connected to that topic, the student body often felt the need to revert to political backgrounds and debate the politics behind American involvement in Iraq rather than viewing the conflicts objectively. There was a large rift between the viewpoints of students, and it seemed that every program provoked at least a few students to strong disagreement and even offense. However, I feel that global warming is an issue that transcends the realm of politics and is, for the most part, an indisputable problem. All in all, I think the first program did a nice job of introducing to the whole student community the goal, a hefty one, of all pushing this year to do our part to help prevent global warming. This may even be the start of a new theme in the special programs. And who knows? Maybe this year we’ll see environmentally friendly students heading down to special programs in t-shirts and jeans for every program from now on. Imagine that.
