On Monday, September 4 we said goodbye to the legendary Steve Irwin.

Irwin's contributions to ecological conservation were overshadowed only by his larger than life personality. I hope his extraordinary enthusiasm will inspire a generation of armchair biologists. When will we realize that humans have to co-exist harmoniously with nature? Despite criticism about the somewhat unorthodox methods he employed on his hit show, “The Crocodile Hunter”, Steve was a wildlife expert and a professional. Crikey!

Speaking of the ecosystem, what happens when a politician like Al Gore takes a good long look at the state of the planet, and actually develops of philanthropic stand?

Let's see; last year I reviewed the film “Good Night, and Good Luck.” The film was based on the legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow, who is said to have played a key role in the downfall of Senator Joseph M. McCarthy during the “McCarthy Witch Hunt” trials. A few years later Murrow, and his forewarnings of creepy Orwellian government authoritarianism, are ignored and forgotten. Americans especially, continue even today to live in a state of fear based on a “non-war.” For Murrow, it was the Red Scare, for us it's the “war” on terror.

Last year as the American military continued to make its presence felt in Iraq, Eugene Jarecki brought us “Why We Fight;” a documentary that grabbed us by the hair on our chinny-chin-chin's and spit on our shoes as the voice of Dwight D. Eisenhower echoes from the grave - beware the industrial war machine, stop it before it's too late. Nearly sixty years later, Eisenhower couldn't have been closer to the truth, and who gives a damn?

In 2006, Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States, released yet another warning with his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Using simple charts, graphs, and a touch of humorous allegory, Gore manages to offer a polite analysis on the sorry state of our ecological stomping ground. The question is this: will we continue to act like subordinate pawns in the chess board of life, or will we grab the reins and save ourselves and our future lineage from an eternity of climatic hell on earth?

Come on people, for a list of ten easy things even you can do, visit the Inconvenient Truth website at www.climatecrisis.net.

On the subject of ignoring the truth, I would like to pay my respects to the five Canadian soldiers who died last week in the “peacekeeping” effort in Afghanistan. Embarrassingly, we are expected to continue support for our troops as the poor fellows continue to fight for our right to party…no wait, I mean liberty, or oil…or, um… wait a second, why are we over there? You tell me! As the American Socialist author Upton Sinclair once remarked, “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on it.”
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