Not Wrong, Just Unpersuasive
Not Evil, Just Wrong, a new film about the dangers of global warming hysteria, tries to act as a counterpoint to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, but falls short.
The film, by Irish filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, argues that the well-meaning intentions of environmentalists can lead to suffering for the third world, and that the so-called consensus among climate change scientists is misguided.
For starters, the choice of "Not Evil, Just Wrong" as the title is puzzling, because the primary purpose of the film is to convince the viewer that environmentalists are, in fact, evil.
One commentator says that a problem with the contemporary environmental movement is that they are “anti-human.” A working-class man from Vevay, Indiana looks at the camera and says he wants to show Al Gore his children to ask him why he wants to destroy their lives. A sobbing woman from Uganda recalls the death of her child from malaria – the culprit being environmentalists who banned the use of DDT worldwide.
So: the real point of the film? Environmentalists are evil, and wrong, as well.
McAleer and McElhinney criticize Al Gore’s film for suggesting that polar bears are dying out due to the retracting polar ice cap. They’re right to do so, as the number of polar bears in the world has actually increased five-fold since the 1960s.
But the image of an apparently doomed (and extremely cute) polar bear, swimming towards the ever-retreating ice, was the most persuasive part of An Inconvenient Truth. This image, now ingrained in the minds of school children everywhere, affected the debate on climate change.
Unfortunately, the film lacks its own "polar bear moment." This is not for lack of trying – the film tries to use the story of DDT's prohibition to show how environmentalists can enact regulations that decimate the lives of those too poor to deal with the resulting burdens. They’re not wrong, but they do conveniently leave out the fact that the prohibition of DDT was one of the primary factors for the resurgence of America’s most iconic bird, the bald eagle.
The documentary also fails to hit home because everything in it has been said before: that Al Gore is not wholly honest in his own documentary; that climate change projections can be deeply flawed; and that overreaching climate change legislation could have disastrous consequences for those least suited to adjust.
In addition, this film could be damaging to a conservative movement seeking reasonable ways to address environmental issues. Over and over, we're told that the solution to environmental problems is that there is no problem. Unlike in books as Bjorn Lomborg’s Cool It, where the Danish economist applies cost-benefit analysis to the real problems of climate change, this film argues that the problem is not with the climate, but with Al Gore’s head.
This mindset has become pervasive within much of the modern conservative movement. Greenhouse gasses being an externality, the government needs to be involved in some ways if the problem is to be addressed. Not comfortable with any sort of government intervention, many conservatives have proposed either to (a) talk about property rights, which don’t really apply to greenhouse gases, or (b) deny the problem entirely. Sadly, a conservative movement that rejects the reality of climate change is a movement that loses an entire generation of youth, a generation that is passionate about environmental issues.
For its flaws, the film is right on several accounts. For example, drastic steps like shutting down all the coal-firing plants in America overnight would be catastrophic. But who didn’t already know that? This documentary preaches to the choir, and at the end of the day it’s doubtful that any other than the already convinced would be moved by this documentary. This film is not wrong – it’s just unpersuasive.