Patents on the soles of your shoes...: An inconvenient sequel

Thursday, April 13, 2017

An inconvenient sequel

10 years ago, former Vice-President Al Gore, delivered the message of climate change to the world in a beautiful documentary and book, both titled An inconvenient Truth. A year later, in 2007, Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in connection with this message. Although the effects of greenhouse gasses on the climate were known well before the publication of this book and release of the documentary, no one had really understood the urgency of the situation or felt compelled to take action.

Thereafter, this much changed on a planetary level. Whether it was Energy Star appliances in the home economics department, idle functions on laptops, solar energy initiatives, the widescale adoption of hybrid cars as a step towards electric ones, or flyknit uppers on sports shoes, everyone both personally and collectively began taking steps to reduce their fossil fuel footprint. On an international level, the largest industrial polluting nations of the Northern hemisphere also began taking responsibility for creating an increased threat of famine and hardship, arising from ever greater climate changes in the Southern hemisphere.

Now, mark July 28, 2017 in your agendas as the release date of An Inconvenient Sequel: From Truth to Power, a documentary that promises to be at least as game-changing as the first.

In any event, green might be staying, contrary to what was feared at Patents on the soles of your shoes in the aftermath of the Nov 2016 elections.