‘Inconvenient Truth’ coming to Cannelton
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CANNELTON — Global warming affects everyone and one Perry County resident decided to do something about it.
After watching the Oscar-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Brandi Hess said, “it struck me and made me realize that we have a crisis.” The documentary is about former Vice President Al Gore’s work to expose “myths and misconceptions that surround” global warming.
“It’s just a topic that’s very interesting,” she said. Hess enlisted the help of environmental watchdog group Valley Watch President John Blair to present “Indiana’s Inconvenient Truth” at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Cannelton Community Center. “He was able to bring (global warming) home to Indiana,” she said. She met Blair through their work at the University of Southern Indiana, where she’s a graphic designer and he’s a communications professor. Blair also presented the program at USI and in the surrounding area.
“I just wanted to bring him here to learn more about it and how we can help,” Hess said, adding that Blair is familiar with Perry County. In 1977, Blair was part of Nuclear Waste Action Committee, a group formed to protest against using what is now Hoosier National Forest as a nuclear-waste dumping site.
“Perry County certainly holds a special place with me,” Blair said, because it was the start of his more than 25 years of environmental work. “It was clear to everyone that accepting nuclear waste was a bad idea.” The area was no longer considered a dumping site and it was due to a “direct result of citizen opposition,” he said.
In the 1980s, Blair and Valley Watch joined with Tell City and Hawesville, Ky., residents to protest against a new coal plant in the area. When a company called Ensco wanted to put a hazardous-waste incinerator in Troy, Blair was also there. In both cases protestors kept waste from the area. “Anytime you invite hazardous waste into a community, it’s a bad thing,” he said.
Blair attended training along with Gore and 200 others in Nashville on how to present the information in “An Inconvenient Truth.” The first third of the presentation will be from the documentary, he said, but the rest will focus on “the tri-state and our responsibilities.”
Blair said he will touch on a number of topics including renewable resources, efficient energy use and how global warming effects not just the world, but people’s health.
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