Al Gore, in his movie An Inconvenient Truth, mentions that he started learning about global warming and climate change when he was in university.  When he was in Congress, he tried to get his fellow politicians to understand how important the issue was. Even now, while George W. Bush and his corporate pals have gutted all the environmental laws they could get their hands on, Gore has continued on with his world-wide presentations about global warming.

My questions is:  How does the man not get discouraged or how has he managed to keep going on wih his message all these decades?  There certainly hasn't been overwhelming change in peoples' attitudes.  However, even though Bush in the U.S. and Harper and his predecessors since Kyoto was signed have done either less than nothing or little more than nothing.

But I believe Gore's movie and his presentations have moved individuals, and through those individuals, business, cities, states, etc., to do what they can to stop global warming. I think he has a great impact in Canada, where he has been a number of times over the past year.  Apart from David Suzuki, there are groups, but not a lot of high profile individuals from those groups that the public knows about and can relate to.  Gore's movie highlights very clearly for people what the problem is, how important it is to do something about it, and what will happen if we do not. I think it puts in clear perspective what David Suzuki and many others or groups have told us about it. 

I believe the documentary also leaves people with the question to find out the answer to: What can I do about it? and also the motivation for a few to find the answer.

I was more concerned with human rights and child poverty not long ago.  Then a co-worker asked my manager to set up a Green Committee, and I became a member.  One of the first things the Committee did, was to have a showing of An Inconvenient Truth.  There were about 50 people who attended, three of whom are notorous non-stop talkers who can't seem to stop talking through every meeeting I have attended.  But I knew the documentary was having an impact on the people who attended, because it was completely silent while everyone watched.

Because my interests tend to be obsessive (passionate is a less perjorative term), I have been reading a pile of books from the library about global warming, toxic chemicals, corporate power, political power, genetically modified food, organic food, toxic ingredients in personal care projects, seed banks, agribusiness, biodiversity--anything that will give me the widest view possible of all the concerns.

However, most of these books (except for David Sukuzi and Holly Dressel's book Good News for a Change, have been unpleasant eye-openers. They are chilling and make me afraid for the future of my children and grandchildren.

It is hard to keep being a positive influence by making changes myself and being active to get changes made, as the majority of people, while they are at least aware of global warming, haven't necessarily made any change to their lifestyles or buying habits.

People read less and less these days.  I find the majority of people at my office, all university educated, many with other professional degrees, read only science fiction, fantasy, manga, or mystery novels--general escape reading. Maybe there are also a few novels in there if they make best seller lists or are on sale. I suppose I am critical because I was an English major in university and have read a lot.  Now that I am familiarizing myself with new topics around climate change, I am reading a lot of non-fiction.

I never really got the motivation before to be a vegetarian or to eat organic food before I read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring or other books I have read about agribusiness practices. Because I believe people are more important than animals, in the sense that there are so many people in the world who have no human rights or enough food or water, or who are tortured, abused, killed - I save my moral indignation for the mistreatment of people.  It doesn't get as much TV time as the mistreatment of animals. However, I am very concerned about biodiversity and wild animals and creatures of the sea. A cat or dog may be handsome or friendly or cute.  But there is nothing like seeing a wild animal in the wild.

I have not seen that many wild animals out in nature as opposed to in zoos.  But I did see a group of wolves when I was cross country skiing many, many years ago near a provincial park. I thought they were dogs at first.  I have seen moose in Algonquin park.  I saw a baby bear run across a highway just a few weekends ago. I have seen loons, pellicans and herons as well as other birds not as striking in appearance. I have been very lucky to see several pods of belugas in the middle of the St. Lawrence seaway, as well as minke whales closer to shore. I have seen orcas and other whales farther away along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska.  I once saw a very ill small whale being cared for outside at a marine sanctuary in Florida. I would have to say that I was very moved by the plight of the sick whale.

Maybe all activists get discouraged at some time and I imagine some even go through burn out because of trying to do everyything that needs to get done all at once. But the threat not just to nature but human civilization is so dire with climate change, it is very important to get back into the fray.  I do it for my children and any possible grandchildren, as well as for everything I enjoy or have enjoyed about the world. It is particularly difficult to think about the possible end of the arts and history and culture.  Even though I live in the city, I can see huge trees out of all windows except those facing north. 

When leaves are out, the trees block almost all signs of human interference or habitation, though I can see one telephone poll and part of one brick wall to a house far away across a little parkette. This has been another year of very little rain and I wonder what other years of drought will do to this gigantic and elegant trees.

I started this in response to a post on a pod, but then decided it should be split into at least two or three different groups of comments (as there are other things that can and should be added on the topics below).  So I copied what I had done from the comment I abandoned and put it in here to work on later.

I am very interested in getting corporations and institutional investors (large pension plans, for example), to require companies whose stock they purchase to become more accountable to stakeholders other than stockholders and themselves.

I am also interested in ensuring that the pension from my employer's pension plan comes from investing in sustainable companies and not (hypothetically) in a weapons manufacturer or toxic chemical polluting or agri-business companies.

What I've done regarding pension plan investments I have no control over
I have written to the board of trustees for my pension plan as well as the Board overseeing investments for the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).  CPP says it is following UN guidelines on investing, but to tell you the truth, I haven't read those guidelines yet and the board of trustees for my employer sponsored plan has not written back as yet.

What I'm in the process of doing regarding my own retirement investments (RRSPs)
I decided that I would start investing in socially responsible mutual funds. In fact I just bought the first one today online, and I am going to buy more tomorrow, now that I have figured out how to do it.

There is a website in Canada through a socially responsible investment association that lists mutual funds listed by different categories (Canadian equities, U.S. equities, bonds, and so on).   It is:  www.socialinvestment.ca

On the topic of corporate accountability, there is also an online newsletter from Alternet called Corporate Accountability and Workplace that you may want to sign up for and at another website:  http://www.corporateknights.ca/  At this website, you can sign up to receive periodic updates from Corporate Knights.

If there are U.S. and international websites for people wanting to look into socially responsible investments, perhaps any of the American or international podsters could list ones they know about.