It's September 2009. As every year at this period, I am invited to attend the most luxurious event in the Spanish capital. I need two flights to reach Madrid,and usually I chose an aisle seat, but since this trip was booked by my host, my seat happened to be next to the window and in a strategic location in the front of the plane, which gives me a clear and unobstructed sight.Once the plane heading to Madrid started to rise, the French capital started to shrink until featuring like a mosaic work of a contemporary artist fond of geometric forms and pastel colors.
The view of Paris from the air is breathtaking indeed! Moving away, the pieces began to widen, but the same pattern of colors continues. Here we are flying over an area of contiguous agricultural lands cut in rectangular, square, triangular or other multi-angular forms, or even circular, in some cases. This region has many valleys and mountains covered by virgin forests and trees except at the peaks, where they, only few years ago, used to be covered with snow even at this time of year. Here we are entering Spain, and here is the brush of the artist becoming more random, and the puzzle parts taking bigger dimensions Suddenly the plane enters a turbulent area, and the hostess asked the passengers to go back to their seats and to fasten their security belts. I closed my eyes for a moment to open them to the eyes of a little boy looking at me like seeking an explanation of what is happening, or of what will happen. I only clink the eye smiling and just read the peace in his innocent eyes. At this moment, suspended between the sky and the earth, I couldnt help myself from glorifying the beauty of Nature and the greatness of the system which prevailed since the beginning of ages. At the same time I thought of the outcome of the human behavior and of what could happen to the earth if he continues in this direction. How many times we heard talking about global warming and how much we read reports and studies on this subject and perhaps we ourselves talked about it in numerous occasions. But it has never gone beyond being just a discussion. The truth is more painful and more serious than we can imagine! The increase in carbon dioxide is leading to rising the global warming that has reached tremendous intensity in the last fifty years. And worse is to come. We cannot stand still waiting for the rulers to move. Each of us has a role. The air mass which envelops the Earth is one of the assets that we all share; if the toxic gas is emitted in China, it affects me in my small village in Lebanon, just like any citizen of New York City. We all felt for some time that nature has changed, and that the seasons no longer comply with their agenda. Even birds have changed their tracks like if they have lost their compass. But why just watch these facts? Why not listen to the vast majority of the world's scientists? GO NEUTRAL!
Extract from: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, a film featuring the former Vice President Al Gore, directed by Davis Guggenheim, and produced by Laurie David, Lawrence Bender and Scott Z. Burns.
Summer 2009
