The New York Times reports that NASA quietly revised their mission statement in February this year. Where previously their statement read: “To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers … as only NASA can”, the agency has revised their mission as just “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”

The latest change win the mission statement as implemented without the knowledge of its employees, in contrast to the mission statement revision in 2002, where the line “to understand and protect our home planet” was added in an open process with NASA scientists and employees.

An Inconvenient Truth is opening is select cities right now. I’m almost tempted to say that it is a moral obligation for everyone to watch it - to refuse to do so, or to remain willfully ignorant about pressing environmental crises is to turn one’s back on humanity, and I don’t say that lightly. What is really worth watching about the movie are the photographs of what the earth has already lost, and the graphic projections of what we could still lose. Even if you already have the facts, it’s seeing the graphs, and photographs from space on the big screen that will make an impact on you and everyone you send to watch this film.