Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" is coming to Springfield. Unfortunately for some opponents of City Utilities' push for a new power plant, the movie won't hit the screens at the Moxie, the new independent movie theater on Walnut Street, until July 5.

At times in recent days, Dan Chilton, owner of the Moxie, received an e-mail every 15 minutes. Please show the movie before the election, the e-mails ask.

I can understand these pleas. Al Gore and his movie have been getting a lot of attention lately. The movie got rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival. That's largely because Gore is doing what he's long been passionate about — trying to get people focused on the environment. His book "Earth in the Balance" was first published 13 years ago.

I've read columns by people saying they used to be skeptics, but now they're convinced that global warming is real. And they're saying we all must see Gore's new movie, "An Inconvenient Truth."

Let's say Gore can convince us that global warming is a real problem. Does that mean we should reflexively reject the power plant? I don't think so. I voted against the power plant two years ago, largely because I'd talked to people who didn't think CU was looking hard enough at alternative energies such as wind. It made sense at the time. But as I've lived here longer, I've seen how affordable electricity is compared with other places I've worked. And I now believe that CU takes its obligation to protect the environment seriously.

I called CU General Manager John Twitty to talk about global warming and the movie and he told me about how City Utilities has met all the clean air laws required by the Environmental Protection Agency.

I asked about alternative sources of power. "We've been doing lots of analysis of wind energy all along," he said. "We were the first people in Missouri to have a specific wind energy program called Wind Current."

Around 225 CU customers have chosen to have their electric needs supplied by a wind farm in Kansas. They pay about twice as much for electric power as other CU customers. But there's no way wind could supply electricity for everyone in Springfield. We would have a lot of hours in the year with no power if we did that, Twitty said. Of course, a blackout is one way to conserve.

It's easy to say that coal is yesterday's fuel. But we'll be using it well into the next century. Most estimates say we have enough coal to last us 250 years. And the technology improves all the time, to burn it cleaner and more efficiently.

I don't know exactly what Al Gore would say about City Utilities. I don't care but so much. Clearly his movie didn't open in New York, Los Angeles, and — because of the really big election on a new coal plant — Springfield, Missouri.

I'm excited to go see his film when it plays at the Moxie in July. But when it comes to a new Springfield power plant, this year I'm supporting it. Sometimes the inconvenient truth is that coal isn't as evil as some folks want us to believe.