EARTH DAYS
Written, Produced & Directed by Robert Stone
Released by Zeitgeist Films
USA. 100 min. Not Rated
 

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth may have publicized the threat of global warming, but the first real discussion of the phenomenon dates back to the 1960s. Forty years ago, the idea that we’re polluting the earth was a radical suggestion. Today, the only people who doubt it are probably on line to visit the Museum of Intelligent Design.

Earth Days is the answer to the question of what happened between then and now. Focusing on the resistant politicians and die-hard activists, it chronicles the environmental movement from its explosive birth (at least among the young and crunchy) with the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring to the cornerstone status it enjoys today. The documentary takes a dignified and minimalist approach to relaying the facts: nine major players (an advocate, an astronaut, a scientist, an author, a politician, and so on) speak candidly into the camera. Spliced between the interviews are reel after reel of unearthed archival footage and sweeping nature shots—simply conceived but powerfully executed.

Because today environmentalism is not as much a pet cause as a liberal tenet, rehashing the movement’s founding precepts seems a bit tedious at first. Duh, pollution is bad, and trees are worth saving. But as the nine men and women delve deeper into their testimonials, a slew of surprises and did-you-knows reclaim our attention.

Denis Hayes recalls how the original Earth Day, which he dreamed up in 1970, went from inspired idea to the nation’s largest ever cross-country demonstration after a short blitz of lobbying and successful press campaigns. Dennis Meadows, the author of Limits to Growth (1972), still stands behind his apocalyptic prediction that the population boom will choke our resources to the point of collapse sometime in the middle of this century. Astronaut Rusty Schweickart slips slightly off topic as he reminisces about being the first man to float untethered in space with the whole Earth before him—an image that puts the environmental movement in spellbinding perspective.

While these pioneers captured the hearts of the 1960s counterculture (and mostly grew out of it), political attention was often harder to negotiate. Hayes recounts his involvement in installing a solar-powered water heater on the White House roof during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, and then its removal by Ronald Reagan—a symbolic step back for environmentalism and, according to Hayes, a spiteful and arrogant gesture from a president who fought tooth and nail against conservation.

Compared to the blinding ignorance of the materialistic 1950s, our attitude toward nature has moved eons ahead in a short time. But with all the facts science, observation, and common sense make available, these nine convincingly believe we still have a perilously long road to travel. Yana Litovsky
August 14, 2009