Inconvenient Truth Unbanned In Yakima, Apocalypse Undaunted
Federal Way got all the press, but more than one school in Washington can ban An Inconvenient Truth. Yakima was in on it too. The Associated Press is reporting that a panel of teachers, parents, administrators and right-thinking people have decided that the film can be shown to a Yakima school's Environmental Club. Environmental Club? At least in Federal Way it was a science class. The Environmental Club? What kind of environmental club worth it's charter hasn't already screened Inconvenient Truth. The kind in Yakima is apparently the answer.
To really understand what happened in Federal Way and Yakima you have to understand the opposition that there is to Gore and his environmental message. While Al Gore has never achieved the kind of cult hate that he may have if he had a "Clinton" in his name somewhere, a lot of people are vehemently opposed to both him and his thoughts on the environment and the science behind what he's saying. And that's just plain not understandable. Who hates science?
Here's an example of how the case is made against the movie:
It is a sign of how politicized global warming has become when a father's push for his daughter's junior high school science class to present both sides of the global warming controversy becomes a national story -- with the father being portrayed as the villain.To recap, Frosty Hardison, the parent of a seventh-grader who attends school in Federal Way, Wash., was troubled to learn that science teacher Kay Walls had planned on showing her class Al Gore's global-warming pic "An Inconvenient Truth" -- without presenting any contrary information.
Hardison is an evangelical Christian who, as The Washington Post reported, sees global warming as "one of the signs" of Judgment Day. That is, Hardison fits the sort of stereotype bound to attract national media attention under the rubric: religious zealot fights science in schools.
Oh, the other side of the global warming "controversy." Shit, we didn't think of that. Here we were respecting the science when we just plain forgot all about the fact that global warming is one of the signs of Judgment Day. We better step to repenting instead of worrying about our way of life changing the temperature of the Earth.
Anway, the environmental club at Eisenhower High was supposed to wait for a council of elders to convene in February sometime to discern the dictates of principal Stacey Locke with regards to An Inconvenient Truth, but they met earlier and got it done yesterday.
