Mark your calendars. June 9th is the opening date for the Vancouver launch of the movie we've all been anticipating: Paramount Classic's An Inconvenient Truth. The new documentary, which received rave reviews at the Sundance Festival,  focuses on Vice President Al Gore's international crusade to raise awareness about global warming.



These days, celebrities are all about lending their names to pet causes. But what makes this more exciting than Her Royal Buxomness Pamela Anderson's affiliation with PETA or Sir Paul McCartney's seal hunt protests is that this cause, in my opinion, is the cause to lend your name to. Climate change, however unsexy it may be, is (in the DeSmogBlog's collective opinion) the most pressing issue of our time.

In a sobering report released today by UK NGO Christian Aid, new figures show the shocking degree to which the world's poor already suffer from the effects of climate change.

The report also shows "the poor people in the world's most vulnerable communities will bear the brunt of the forecast 'future shock." According to the report, "a staggering 182 milliion people om sub-Saharan Afric alone could die of disease directly attributable to climate change by the end of the century. Many millions more throughout the world face death and devastation due to climate-induced floods, famine, drought and conflict."

We're delighted to see some media attention by our friends at The Tyee to the important issue of climate change and the PR pollution around the subject.  

Check out Donald Gutstein's piece (reprinted below), "The Global Warming Denial Lobby", where he discusses the schemes of climate change skeptics.

Check out this clever Doonesbury cartoon that appeared in newspapers across North America on March 5, 2006.

Why feel constrained by those pesky facts? Just apply the principles of "situational science" - respect both sides of a scientific argument, not just the one supported by facts, and voilà, your argument just got a whole lot easier!