Temperatures yesterday, the day after Earth Day, reached 84º in sunny Central Park, twice as hot as it was two weeks ago. Last week's Nor'easter dropped nearly 8 inches of rain, flooding homes and roadways and canceling over 500 flights in the tri-state area- these being only recent local signs in our eco-system’s decline.
Far more revealing statistics were presented by Al Gore in his film 'An Inconvenient Truth,' now available on DVD, which site that the ten hottest years in Earth's history occurred in the last 15, with 2005 being the hottest.
On channel 13 Sunday night I watched the BBC's factual drama 'The Impressionists,’ an insightful story about the lives of the French painters, Edouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renior, Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, Frédéric Bazille and Claude Monet, as told from the point of view of Monet, the father of Impressionism.
The sun was Monet's muse, the film claimed, as the artist, dramatically portrayed by Julian Glover, lamented on how life is full of fleeting moments, like unfinished canvases.
In the opening shot from ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ a serene river in the woods somewhere, fades in and Mr. Gore seems to feel a similar poetic angst as he softly narrates at a slow pace over the landscape; “You look at that river.. gently flowing by.. you notice the leaves rustling with the wind.. you hear the birds.. you hear the tree-frogs, in the distance you hear a cow.. you feel the grass.. the mud gives a little bit on the river bank.. its quiet.. its peaceful, and all of a sudden, it’s a gear shift inside you, and its like taking a deep breath and going.. (breathing).. oh yeah, I forgot about this!”
