If I hear one more person squak how "An Incovenient Truth" was the "the most important/scary film" they've ever seen I may resort to hurting myself and/or others.

Hey, I'm all for saving the planet. I happen to like it and I'm particularly fond of my little corner of it. But I totally can't figure out what it is we're meant to do about it... apart from feel endless guilt and do a lot of middle-class self flagelation about what bad, bad western middle-class people we are... BAD I tell you!

While I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than ever see this film I have had a look at the website it links to www.climatecrisis.org and this provides me with a list of "useful" things I can do to save the world. These are:

1) Change a light. Give me a break!

2) Drive less. Walk, bike, carpool or take mass transit more often. OK! Well, that would work for me considering I live over 10 kms from work and take a 7 year old to school and a 16 month old to day care. No problemo... if I leave at 4:00 am each morning and teach the kids not to whine so much, we should be right.

3) Recycle more. I'm confused. I've been recycling to the best of my abilities for about 10 years now and things seem to be getting worse rather than better. What's the story?

4) Check your tires [hey, not my fault Americans can't spell properly]. Fuck off!

5) Use less hot water. How much less exactly? Maybe we should just stop showering altogether... and washing dishes... We'd all be disgusting, stinky, filthy sub-humans but at least Al Gore will be happy.

6) Avoid products with a lot of packaging. How exactly? Maybe they should start putting packaging weight on each product so as well as comparing fat, sugar and carb levels on each damn thing we buy at the supermarket we can now add packaging weight so we can make an "informed fucking choice".

7) Adjust your thermostat. I'm not even going waste my time with that one.

8) Plant a tree. Come here, Al, I'll plant a tree up your arse! This simplistic bullshit is just too nauseating, I can't take it.

9) Turn off electronic devices. Well, sure. I'll just go around each morning turning off my clock radio, microwave, TVs, videos, washing machine, dryer, etc, etc and then I'll turn them all back on again when I get home. Because god knows I have plenty of spare time and I've been wondering how to fill in those long, empty hours each morning and evening. Thanks, Al. You're a bloody genius.

Well, now that I know how to save the world everything will be fine and dandy. I'm so relieved. I am concerned however by the fact that Al Gore seems to think these steps are really only relevant to the little people. King Gore as he likes to call himself (OK, I made that up) has two giant houses (and I'm fairly sure he doesn't turn off and on all his electronic devices on a daily basis) and flies all over the world spruiking his crappola in a private jet (which is #10 on the list "10) Get around in a private fucking jet" I just didn't put it here because I know most of my readers aren't quite at the private jet level of lifestyle just yet).

I'm happy to admit that I like my car and my TVs and my air conditioning and that I don't always look for the product with the least packaging. Sue me. If my personal overconsumption is going to cause the end of the world as we know it then so be it. I can live with it (or not as the case may be). What confuses me is that we've already had global warming of sorts haven't we? Hasn't there already been an Ice Age (I've seen the movie so I know it's true) and then the earth warmed up and the ice melted, etc, etc. Did they have air conditioning and fridges and petrol guzzling cars in those days? Also, didn't the dinasours become extinct because of some sort of global climate crisis? I'm no paleontologist but I'm fairly confident the dinasours didn't have cars or computers and I'm pretty sure they walked to work, so what happend?

I am just so friggin' sick and tired of all the Chicken Littles yelling about the sky falling down. I'm busy. If it's going to fall down then I'm hoping there are better minds than mine (well, at least minds that passed high school science) that are worrying about it. All I know is that you can't turn on the radio or the TV without some report or other being shoved down our throats about how naughty we are. It's never ending. There are scientists proving this and disproving that and I can't make head or tail of what the truth is. Deep down inside I suspect that no-one knows the truth; that there are many shades and variations of the "truth". Each person or group flogging their version of the truth to us has an agenda to sell and I don't for one minute buy that Al Gore is selflessly flogging this shit because he earnestly believes the end of the world is neigh.