Co-sponsor: HKS Energy & Environment Professional Interest Council
Join us as we kickoff the 2014-15 HKS Environmental Film Series with "A FIERCE GREEN FIRE: The Battle for a Living Planet." This is the first feature film to examine the growth of the modern environmental movement, exploring grassroots and global activism over a fifty-year span.
From halting dams in the Grand Canyon to battling 20,000 tons of toxic waste at Love Canal; from Greenpeace saving the whales to Chico Mendes and the rubbertappers saving the Amazon; from climate change to the promise of transforming our civilization, the film tells vivid stories about people fighting – and succeeding – against enormous odds.
Before screening the film, we will have a short introductory panel discussion to frame current environmental issues and activism on college campuses today. Science journalist Cristine Russell, a senior fellow at the Environment and Natural Resources Program, will introduce the themes of the film and how they are relevant today. Then two students will discuss current environmental activism: Chloe Maxmin, Harvard College '15, is a co-founder of Divest Harvard, environmental activist and blogger; Mick Power, HKS MPP2, is a lawyer and campaigner from the Australian environment movement.
A FIERCE GREEN FIRE was directed and written by Mark Kitchell, Academy Award-nominated director of Berkeley in the Sixties, and narrated by Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, Van Jones, Isabel Allende and Meryl Streep. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, has won acclaim at festivals around the world, had theatrical release and, in 2014, premiered on public television as part of the acclaimed American Masters series.
Inspired by the book of the same name by Philip Shabecoff, A FIERCE GREEN FIRE chronicles the largest movement of the 20th century and one of the keys to the 21st. It brings together all the major parts of environmentalism and connects them. It focuses on activism, people fighting to save their homes, their lives, the future – and succeeding against all odds.
Environmentalism is one of the great causes of the twentieth century, and one of the keys to the twenty-first century, particularly the challenge posed by climate change. It has arisen at a juncture in history when humans have come to rival nature as a power determining the fate of the earth. It’s the battle for a living planet.
