environmental movement

Evon Peter, director of Native Movement, answers questions

Evon Peter. What work do you do? I am the executive director of Native Movement. What does your organization do? Native Movement is a collective of around 15 organizers who work on a myriad of projects focusing on youth leadership development, sustainability, protection of sacred sites, and social, political, economic, and environmental justice. We work […]

Two new eco-movies on the way from Participant Productions

Speaking of Participant Productions, I just discovered they have two more environmentally themed films in development:

1) Luna

Luna is based on the true story of Julia Butterfly Hill, a drifter turned environmentalist who galvanized the movement in the early 90's to save the redwood trees in Northern California from deforestation.

Julia Hill was a young woman without direction or purpose whose travels brought her to Northern California and the quiet majesty of the ancient Redwood trees. At that time, junk bond king Charles Hurwitz was leading a campaign to clear cut the redwoods via his newly acquired company Pacific Lumber to ensure maximum profits. Eager to protect the trees she had come to love, Julia agreed to work with a small environmental agency called Earth First to stage a tree "sit" which involves living up in the trees for days at a time to prevent the trees from being cut down.

Days became months and months turned into years, as Julia refused to come down from her tree until she knew the Redwoods would be protected. She braved fierce weather, injury and attacks from lumber men to save her tree, Luna, and the old growth trees around her. Julia's struggle drew massive media attention and she became an eloquent spokesperson for the Redwoods and the environmental movement.

2) Electric Dreams

Based on the book by Caroline Kettlewell, Electric Dreams tells the story of a rag tag group of rural students beating all odds to win a competition to create an electric car. Led by an idealistic new teacher and a garrulous shop instructor, the kids work together to convert a 1985 Ford Escort into an electric vehicle they call "Shocker." To the surprise of the community, Shocker takes the winning prize, beating out the better-funded and well-bred schools nearby. The students come away having learned about engineering, alternative energy, and about themselves.

For a complete list of movies coming soon, in theaters, on DVD, and in development, visit the Participant Productions website. Good stuff.

Expensive

Of course it isn't Treehugger's fault, but Tim Haab makes a solid but lamentable point here.

Wise-use movement gaining political strength from fundamentalist Christians

Or so argues a new book by Stephenie Hendricks -- Divine Destruction: Wise Use, Dominion Theology, and the Making of American Environmental Policy, excerpted in the latest Seattle Weekly.

Nut 'graph from the excerpt:

[T]he widespread acceptance of anti-environmental thinking in the guise of Wise Use is made more troubling in that there are increasingly close ties between those who subscribe to the ideas of Wise Use and members of fundamentalist Christian churches and organizations. The Wise Use movement's influence over religious conservatives thus mirrors the traditional relationship between religious and political conservatives in that Wise Use advocates are increasingly adapting their own agenda to include the concerns of religious voters. In so doing, they have gained an army of God to promote their own agenda.

Dateline NBC explores that question

Here at Grist, we like to keep you on your toes. On the one hand, we tell you that the Christian Right is swaying politicians and threatening the environment. On the other, we show that some of the evangelical leadership is urging its members to adopt eco-friendly living habits and exhorting the government to lighten America's environmental footprint.

For those of you who don't have anything better to do on a Friday night, you have an opportunity for a different perspective. Dateline NBC will be airing "In God They Trust," in which Tom Brokaw "explores why so many Americans are turning to this expression of faith, and asks whether or not some Evangelicals are going too far."

I doubt they will be discussing the environment, but one can pray hope.

Can 30 million evangelicals be a bad thing?

"Environmentalism and the religious worldview" is in the top ten Gristmill posts ranked by the number of comments. Apparently combining these two issues strikes a chord, or at least gets you all riled up.

So I'm wondering what y'all think of the Grist interview with Richard Cizik. Regardless of your views on religion, Richard can reach out to over 30 million people -- and he wants them to fight global warming.

And if if that isn't enough scripture for you, the Seattle Channel is streaming "Whose Planet Is It, Anyway?," the Foolproof event moderated by Grist's own Chip Giller where Richard and others discuss the future of the environmental movement. (You might want to make some popcorn for this one.)

On framing environmentalism

This is part three of a three-part interview. You can read part one here and part two here.

In this section, Alex and I discuss the way environmentalism has been framed and what greens can do to change those frames.

Conflating environmentalists and terrorists is all the rage

What liberals and their allies in the environmentalist wacko movement fail to understand is: their message has gotten out. Their anti-capitalist, socialist, gloom-and-doom, fear-based, lunatic ravings have been amplified — and Americans understand exactly who they are, and what they’re about. As the “Mr. Big” of the vast right-wing conspiracy, I am proud, ladies and […]

Environmentalism and liberalism shouldn’t be joined at the hip.

A couple of quick prefatory remarks -- several readers interpreted my earlier posting as an attack on liberalism. That was not my intent at all: While I am not a liberal, as the saying goes, "Some/most of my best friends are liberals." The only goal of the previous posting, and the one that follows, is to suggest the harm that comes from automatically coupling liberalism with environmentalism.

In my previous post, I discussed our movement's international problems. But back in America, we're not doing much better. When the American environmental movement began, Lake Erie was on fire, the bald eagle was on the verge of extinction, and L.A. was choking on its own smog. When environmental regulations seemed to reduce these problems, the public was all for them. But as regulations multiplied, environmentalism became associated in many minds with costly regulatory expenditures, failed Superfund clean-ups, and lots of bureaucratic red tape. Big government enviroliberalism took over a grassroots movement.

Why should liberalism be the Siamese twin of environmentalism? If I am pro-life, against affirmative action, or for private accounts in Social Security, does that mean I don't care about protecting forest ecosystems or saving blue whales?