Film Series Promotes Environmental Activism

Organized by Environment and Natural Resources Assistant Director Amanda Sardonis and senior fellow Cristine Russell,ENRPkicked off its 2012 Environmental Film Series in March with a screening of “The Last Mountain,” a documentary about citizens fighting to prevent large coal companies from practicing mountain top removal in their town. The director, Bill Haney, a former ENRP fellow, discussed the film after the screening.

“The Last Mountain,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, focuses on a small group of people in Coal River Valley in West Virginia who are trying to keep big coal corporations like Massey Energy from removing mountain tops to mine coal. The citizens argue the practice spreads pollution to other states and causes serious health complications.

The second documentary in the series, “A Fierce Green Fire: The Battle for a Living Planet,” highlights major environmental movements from the last 50 years.  The film, directed and produced by Mark Kitchell, also premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Each of five sections tells an essential story in environmental history, with a compelling group of main characters to personalize the era.

ENRP also hosted a screening and discussion of Robert A. Hefner’s latest project, a documentary titled “The Grand Energy Transition: Natural Gas – The Bridge To Our Sustainable Future,” at HKS on April 9, which was followed by a discussion with Hefner, Leonardo Maugeri, a research fellow with the Belfer Center’s Geopolitics of Energy Project, and Rasmus Myklebust, a graduate student from Norway in the HKS Master of Public Administration program.

Hefner, founder and owner of the GHK Companies and a member of the Belfer Center’s International Council, has been called the “father of deep natural gas” for his work in the field.  Trained as a geologist and petroleum engineer, Hefner has pioneered many of the deep-well technologies used by the U.S. natural gas industry today.