Lucy Walker's Oscar-nominated film The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom will screen at EFF this year.

While creating public programs at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City for 15 years, Flo Stone learned that movies were a great draw. Film is one of the most effective means to reach people on complex environmental issues, so after moving to Washington, D.C., she applied that knowledge to her green streak and established the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital (EFF), which since that time has premiered almost 700 films, including world premieres of important titles like A Sea Change (2009), Carbon Nation (2010), and Planeat (2011). This year it celebrates its 20th event from March 13 to 25, during which 180 films (and 93 premieres) will be shown in 64 venues. Its founder took a minute to answer our questions before the excitement begins.

Tom Weis with his rocket trike.

Tom Weis, the "renewable rider," biked the 2,150 miles of the U.S. portion of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline route over two months late this fall, from the U.S./Canada border to Port Arthur, Texas. He steered his "rocket trike" through many small towns along the way, raising awareness, talking to reporters, and recording scores of interviews with a wide variety of people. He’s just returned to his home in Colorado with a good sense of the prevailing opinions of the project in America's rural West.

Alex Smith.Photo: Philip SmeltzerAlex Smith has been a back-to-the-lander, a private investigator, a print journalist, and a researcher, and he now combines those experiences to find and interview authors, scientists, and activists (many of whom you'll never hear from anywhere else), for his indispensible radio program and podcast about the climate crisis, Radio Ecoshock. Produced from a home studio in Vancouver, B.C., and broadcast on a growing list of college and community radio stations (50 at last count) in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia, I thought it a good time to ask a few questions of him, for …

Teeg Stouffer fishes blue ribbon waters in Colorado.Photo: Recycled FishTeeg Stouffer is a lifelong fisher with a lot of hooks in his tackle box. Verbal hooks, that is, that challenge his fellow anglers to consider how they can do right by the environment while enjoying their favorite pastime. Based in Nebraska City, Neb., and traveling widely to fishing events, his nonprofit Recycled Fish is greening the average fisher, with the happy effect of improving water quality nationwide. He's also a host of the popular Fish Shtick podcast, where I first encountered his work. Q. How many people fish recreationally in …

These bumper stickers have proliferated on cars of those opposed to LNG terminals on Passamaquoddy Bay in Maine.Photo: Erik HoffnerA dramatic environmental justice and cultural survival campaign led by a band of Passamaquoddy tribal elders and members in northern Maine ended in 2010 in favor of indigenous activists. A massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal, proposed for this coastal reservation by an Oklahoma energy company encouraged by the Cheney Energy Task Force's bullish policy pushing this fuel, was defeated, but only after a five year battle revealed the inadvisability of Quoddy Bay LNG on economic, technical, and legal grounds. …

Abandoned boat in Iraq.Photos: Stephen Foote. Photos courtesy of PBS Nature's "Braving Iraq." A new green zone is sprouting in Iraq, but it's not the kind you think. It's a grassroots one pushed by a new culture of conservationists whose currency is reeds. The recent environmental history of Iraq is a tale of two men. Saddam Hussein had a horrific impact on the ecology of the country, principally by ordering the draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes in the 1990s in order to collectively punish communities where resistance to his regime persisted. The incredible cultural and biological loss of the marshes …

Alex Johnson exploring riotous, unpredictable Nature.Missoula-based writer Alex Johnson believes we need to queer the concept of ecology, and I'm inclined to agree. After enjoying his feature "How to Queer Ecology: One Goose at a Time" in the current issue of Orion magazine, I asked him to expand on some of his ideas. Q. You propose the queering of ecology. What does that mean to you? A. Queering ecology means hosing out the pigeonholes. The queer movement bravely claims that humans are inherently capable of a much wider range of behaviors than the powers-that-be give us credit for. Queer ecology …

Activists in Montana and Idaho are fighting back against these monstrosities.Iconic authors and outdoorsmen David James Duncan and Rick Bass have an important new book that they wrote in response to the notorious "haul" this month of gargantuan machines ("mega-loads") to Alberta, Canada, constructed in South Korea for use in the tar sands. Besides the tar sands being a debacle and climate justice issue, Bass and Duncan and activists are opposing this effort all along the route from a public safety and aesthetics angle too: The equipment threatens to buckle taxpayer-built roads and bridges, and if swept into the wild …

If the Sochi Olympics are green, then this logo is compelling to look at.Like a downhill skier that crashes right out of the gate, the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to earn a gold medal for "the greenest Olympics." World Wildlife Fund Russia and Greenpeace Russia resigned from the Games' advisory committee last year and recently boycotted a visit of U.N. Environment Program officials who were to inspect the progress, saying, "We do not want to be part of a green PR for the Olympic projects." What are these NGOs …

In our New Agtivist interviews, we talk to people who are working to change this country's f'ed-up food system in inspiring ways.  Basement player: Chris Chaisson outside a house being retrofitted with a root cellar.Photo: Erik Hoffner Gourd yourself: Storage bins in a root cellarPhoto: Whole Farm ServicesImagine if trucks full of food stopped driving into your town or city every night. Or if the electricity grid went down for a while during the winter. What would you eat? Even those of us who grow lots of our own food might have to resort to factory-filled cans, victims of supermarket …