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Perfect setting for a scary movie

Brooker Creek Preserve could be underwater in Al Gore's scenario.

By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published July 13, 2007

	Viewers focus on Al Gore during the showing of An Inconvenient Truth at Brooker Creek Preserve on Wednesday.
[Times photo: Ted McLaren]

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Ted McLaren] Roberta Fernandez speaks to people about the film "An Inconvenient Truth" and about steps they can take to reduce their environmental impact on Wednesday evening

EAST LAKE – On their way to a free movie Wednesday evening, the 119 people made their way along a shady, winding boardwalk that snakes through a corner of Brooker Creek Preserve.

They passed graceful Virginia creepers, jack-in-the-pulpits and laurel oaks. Unseen lurked young alligators, bobcats and cottonmouth snakes.

Once inside the preserve's education center, they settled down for the 96-minute show, Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth.

As pictures of recent natural disasters flashed on the screen - wildfires, flooding and the enormous devastation after Hurricane Katrina - Gore said it was like a nature hike through the Book of Revelations. The audience members laughed the kind of laughter you hear at a funeral.

Later, as the movie focused on scientists' predictions that Greenland is destined to one day melt, Gore showed a redrawn map of Florida after such a catastrophe. The crowd let out an quiet yet audible gasp.

Pinellas County, Hillsborough County, the malls, the schools and all their homes, the boardwalk they had just hiked and the Education Center they were sitting in were underwater.

Gone.

Sunk. Like the mythical Atlantis.

None of "the Nature Coast" was left. Very little of the Sunshine State was left.

That and among other dire warnings from scientists concerning global warming drove the point home to the folks who came for the free showing. Most of the audience indicated they hadn't seen the movie before.

After the film, Roberta Fernandez, one of a small army of volunteer environmental advocates trained by Gore to facilitate his slide shows, gave some facts.

"Every single person in this room is 30 percent of the problem," she said. "But the good news is that 30 percent of us can solve the problem."

She pointed out that:

• If every commuter worked one day at home, 5.85-billion gallons of gas and 143-billion tons of carbon dioxide would be saved annually.
   
  
• Appliances such as TVs still use energy - about 25 percent, according to Fernandez, when they are turned off. It's called standby energy. Unplug them before you leave the house.
   
  
• The production of junk mail consumes as much energy as 2.8-million cars per year.
   
  
• 1.5-million barrels of oil are used for America's bottled water per year.

The presentation prompted spontaneous soul-searching, and in some cases finger-pointing, from the audience.

Charlene Schilk, 59, of Trinity said the solution to it is "everybody working together."

"There's no other way," she said.

Her husband, Tom, 62, blamed the problem on politicians "who are all bought out" and a narcissistic public "riding around in gas guzzlers" that simply doesn't care.

"In this country, people are so greedy," he said. "They can't see past the dollar."

Peter Grace, 56, of Tarpon Springs said he loved the film, but wished it had "come out 20 years ago."

He admitted a little sheepishly that he still uses plastic bags.

"But I try to reuse them for garbage bags," he said. "At least it gives them another purpose than carrying groceries."

His neighbor Sandy Swanzy, 63, laughed and offered to give him a cloth bag to take to the grocery store from now on.

Palm Harbor resident Don Chambers, 56, and his wife were upset that people who live in the Sunshine State don't use solar energy

"I have debates with people in bars," he said. "People say dude, there is technology that will solve global warming."

He said he cannot get through to them.

"I think there's a certain amount of entitlement," he said. "(The say) it's my money. If I want to put gas in my boat, I'm going to put gas in my boat. They think they're entitled. That's not true."

Chambers did admit he owns what some refer to as a land yacht called a Cadillac.

But he said he works from home so he doesn't use it to commute to an office, keeps the tires filled up and watches his speed to reduce his gas use.

Bruce Rinker, director of Pinellas County's Environmental Lands Division, was pleased so many people came out to Brooker Creek to see the movie.

"We're living in an age of ecological crisis," he said.

He said according to his research, in 2100, there may be a 1.6- to 4.6-foot rise in the sea level.

"Places like St. Pete and Tarpon Springs would become islands," Rinker said.

"It's time for us to act now," he said. "I don't think it's too late. If there's one single native species left, then the fight goes on."

Eileen Schulte can be reached at (727) 445-4153 or schulte@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 12, 2007, 23:41:55]