March 26

A Sense of Wonder

by Kaiulani Lee, Christopher Monger, Karen Montgomery, and Haskell Wexler

When pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring 50 years ago, the backlash from her critics thrust her into the center of a political maelstrom.  Despite her love of privacy, Carson's convictions about the risks posed by chemical pesticides forced her into a very public and controversial role.

Using many of Carson's own words, A Sense of Wonder depicts Carson in the final year of her life.  Struggling with cancer, Carson recounts with both humor and nager the attacks by the chemical industry, the government, and the press as she focuses her limited energy to get her message to Congress and the American people. (Click here for film's site.)

2008, 55 minutes

April 2

Taking Root

by Lisa Merton and Alan Dater

Taking Root tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy - a movement for which this charismatic woman became an iconic inspiration.  It weaves a compelling and dramatic narrative of Maathai's personal journey in the context of the turbulent political and environmental history of her country.  (Click here for film's site.)

2008, 81 minutes

April 9

Thorium Remix

by Gordon McDowell

Thorium Remix examines a potential solution to climate change, the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR).  LFTR is a radically different approach to nuclear power, an approach strongly favored by the creator of today's reactors, Alvin Weinberg.  Despite holding key patents on today's reactor technology, Weinberg insisted that LFTR be pursued as the safest, most environmentally responsible alternative.  Facing political opposition, research was halted, Weinberg passed on, and until recently the technology was forgotten.  Thorium Remix reintroduces this technology through a rapid-fire collection of interviews, lectures, and historical footage.  A simple case is made: Nuclear power is essential in our fight against climate change and LFTR is essential for safe nuclear power. (Click here for film's site.)

2011, 120 minutes

April 16

The Last Mountain

by Bill Haney

The mining and burning of coal is at the epicenter of America's struggle to balance its energy needs with environmental concerns.  Nowhere is that concern greater than in Coal River Valley, West Virginia, where a small but passionate group of ordinary citizens are trying to stop Big Coal corporations, like Massey Energy, from continuing the devastating practice of Mountain Top Removal.  A passionate and personal tale that honors the extraordinary power of ordinary Americans when they fight for what they believe in, The Last Mountain shines a light on America's energy needs and how those needs are being supplied.  (Click here for film's site.)

2011, 95 minutes

April 23

King Corn

by Aaron Woolf, Ian Cheney, and Curt Ellis

King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation.  In the film, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from.  With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil.  But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat - and how we farm.   (Click here for film's site.)

2007, 88 minutes

April 30

Double Feature!  Taken for a Ride and Cincinnati's Abandoned Subway

Taken for a Ride reveals the tragic and little known story of an auto and oil industry campaign to buy and dismantle streetcar lines.  Across the nation, tracks were torn up, sometimes overnight, and diesel buses placed on city streets.  With investigative journalism, vintage archival footage, and candid interviews, Taken for a Ride presents a revealing history of our cities in the 20th century that is also a meditation on corporate power, city form, citizen protest and the social and environmental implications of transportation.  (Click here for film's site.)

1996, 52 minutes

Cincinnati's Abandoned Subway explores the creation of the subway, why it failed, and how the unfinished rapid transit loop impacts the present-day metropolis.  Hightlights include the project's conception in 1916, details of the construction during the 1920s, and its ultimate demise prior to The Great Depression.  The ongoing debate over public transportation encourages citizens to look to their past to understand how the lack of the subway affects them today.  More importantly, people will recognize how present decisions influence the lifestyles of future generations.  (Click here for film's site.)

2012, 56 minutes

This movie will be shown in Rec Center Room 3250.

May 7

Ingredients

by Brian Kimmel

Ingredients examines the local food movement.  At the focal point of this movement are the farmers and chefs who are creating a truly sustainable food system.  The quality, taste, and nutritional value of the food we eat has dropped sharply over the last fifty years.  Shipped from ever-greater distances, we have literally lost sight of where our food comes from and in the process we have lost a vital connection to our local community and to our health.  Ingredients illustrates how people around the country are working to revitalize that connection.  It reveals the people behind the movement to bring good food back to the table and health back to our communities.  (Click here for film's site.)

2009, 73 minutes

This movie will be shown in Rec Center Room 3250.

May 14

Gasland

By Josh Fox

The largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States.  The Haliburton-developed drilling technology of "fracking," or hydralic fracturing, has unlocked a "Saudia Arabia of natural gas" just beneath us.  But is fracking safe?  When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies, and contamination.  A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire.  This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called Gasland.  (Click here for film's site.)

2010, 107 minutes

This film will be shown in the Campus Recreation Center, Room 3250

May 21

Dirt!

by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow

Dirt! takes you inside the wonders of the soil.  It tells the story of Earth's most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility - from its miraculous beginning to its crippling degradation.  Made from the same elements as the stars, plants and animals, and us, "dirt is very much alive."  Though, in modern industrial pursuits and clamor for bouth profit and natural resources, our human connection to and respect for soil has been disrupted.  This film brings to life the environmental, economic, social, and political impact that the soil has.  It shares the stories of experts from all over the world who study and are able to harness the beauty and power of a respectful and mutually beneficial relationship with soil.  (Click here for film's site.)

2009, 86 minutes