Is global warming real? Are human beings really destroying this planet? Can we still save it? …No seriously, is it? I have no idea and I cannot even begin to forecast any answers to any of these questions.

Maybe you have seen it, maybe not, but I'm sure most of you are aware of the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the film is presented by former U.S Vice President Al Gore in a slide show format explaining how the 10 hottest years ever recorded have all happened in the past 14 years (from 2006 back), with the hottest being 2005.

The film created a firestorm and weathered $49 million at the world-wide box office and launched Gore to a global warming guru.

Whether you agree with Gore or global warming and its immediate or inevitable threat, there are a lot of people that do. They care a lot and plan to do a lot. Londoner Paul Mansfield was one 150 Canadians who traveled to Montreal this past April to take apart in the education of The Climate Project.

The Climate Project is headed by none other than Al Gore, who was there to tutor the Canadians. Joined with David Suzuki, Gore taught a Canadian version of his An Inconvenient Truth slideshow.

After having such a learning experience and now able to teach the slideshow himself, Mansfield realized how big this issue really is and the reality of the limit that only one person has.

“That's, I think why Mr. Gore used the whole train the trainer model. Because I'm sure when he went through this journey on his own to do all these presentations, he probably came to a point where he [realized] ‘I can only do so much,'” Mansfield explained.

Mansfield only had high praise for Gore and his mentoring skills. He said it was definitely a serious atmosphere with a serious message. Just how serious?

“It's the first time in civilization...no forget about civilization, first time ever in time, that human kind has influenced the climate on a global scale,” Mansfield declares.

That's why the newly trained environmentalist forecasts that it might be an overwhelming issue for some people.

“If I came up to you and said ‘it's up to you to save the planet.' I mean human nature is people will shut down, they become overwhelmed and they default to ‘I'm only one person.'” Mansfield said.

So can we even still save our planet? Mansfield believes so. He says there is going to have to be a cultural change though.

“Drinking and driving back in the ‘80s, it was sort of ‘what's the big deal' but now it has been sort of ingrained into our mindset that you don't do it,” he said.

The only problem is this change. How are thousands, no millions of people going to change their lifestyle?

Gore released a movie which thousands of people drove to the theatres or sat in their homes on their couch's sucking energy through their TV, you know what I mean. To create some more thunder about his point, Gore had LiveEarth, probably the biggest ironic back step in publicity history. It was a series of concert that were held on July 7, 2007 in about a dozen places around the world which should have had a slogan of “Let's advocate saving energy and stop global warming by flying hundreds of celebs all over the world to have massive concerts with giant speakers and light shows, sucking tons of energy into one place, which thousands of people are most likely going to drive to.”

Get my point? At least the Foo Fighters put on a sweet show at Wembley.

Anyway, whether you agree with Gore or not, Mansfield made one last extremely interesting point. If everyone in China and India were to live the lifestyle of North Americans the issue of Climate Change would increase drastically in no — time. He says we need to stop referring to poorer countries as “developing” and start looking at ourselves as “over-developed”.

It is obvious that if we are going to stop a change in the climate, we are going to need to start a change in ourselves.