I think the opposite of hope is not despair, but resignation.
no hope, just emptiness, care-lessness …
I think the opposite of love is not hatred, but apathy.
no love, just indifference, care-lessness …
Could it be that the opposite of peace is not conflict, but contentment?
no longing for peace, just settling for the status quo, care-lessness?
We saw Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth tonight. It is a clear and thorough, sobering and hopeful, account of the looming crisis of global warming and our capacity as a human race to address its dangers.
It should be seen, because the problem of global warming needs to be understood and faced. As one of my college classmates has stated, global warming is no more or less a theory than gravity is a theory! The scientific community is in agreement: the planet is warming at an unprecedented rate and the cause is the increased level of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere. And the consequences of uncurbed warming at the current levels would be disastrous, globally disastrous.
The facts are there to be seen, but we are often good at ignoring the facts when such ignorance lets us avoid a change in personal behavior. Gore is right: global warming is not a political issue; it is a moral issue. Ignorance is not an option. Hopelessness is not an option. Apathy is not an option … unless we wish to bring the guilt of causing the suffering of future generations down on our heads.
See the movie. And check out the website: http://www.climatecrisis.net/. I wish the film had been less politically self-serving — Gore very much promotes himself throughout the film — but this distraction takes nothing away from the power and timeliness and persuasiveness and may I say, the righteousness, of his message.