For anyone interested in that sort of thing, the most recent Prospect/Foreign Policy poll of the world’s top public intellectuals has now closed, and the results are soon to be announced. While these results themselves are unlikely to be particularly meaningful or important, as ever the vote provides an opportunity to raise awareness of voices not ordinarily granted much attention or credibility in the mainstream of our political culture, and draw attention to some issues of major importance. Below are a couple of recent films featuring two (in fact three, if you’re watching carefully) of the people I thought worth voting for. The first is of a speech delivered in March this year, containing some crucial information on the current environmental crisis, and thoughts on how we should respond to it. The scope of this crisis remains extremely grave, and the extent of the potential human suffering it could effect almost unimaginable. In the words of Robert Corell, a US-based Arctic scientist and member of the IPCC, speaking last September,
“For the last 10,000 years we have been living in a remarkably stable climate that has allowed the whole of human development to take place. In all that time, through the mediaeval warming and the Little Ice Age, there was only a variation of 1C. Now we see the potential for sudden changes of between 2C and 6C. We just don’t know what the world is like at those temperatures. We are climbing rapidly out of mankind’s safe zone into new territory, and we have no idea if we can live in it.”
According to Jagadish Shukla, lead author of a recent IPCC report,
“The consequences of global climate change constitute one of the most serious threats facing humanity. While the poor and the impoverished will suffer the most, the potential for catastrophic climate change that can adversely affect the habitability of the entire planet is quite real.”
The second is a trailer for a forthcoming film, American Radical, focusing on the life and career of one of the US’s finest, most courageous and outspoken public intellectuals. Both deserve to be watched, and pondered.
