The Rise and Fall of the Great Lakes
★ 8 · 1968 · 17m · Documentary · Comedy
A lesson in geography, which concludes that although the Great Lakes have had their ups and downs, nothing has been harder to take than what humans have done to them lately. In the film, a lone canoeist lives through the changes of geological history, through Ice Age and flood, only to find himself in the end trapped in a sea of scum.
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Yellowbird
2014 · ★ 5
Yellowbird lives in the ruins of an old house. He lacks the confidence to leave his home, no matter how much Bug, his labybird friend, tries to convince him to go out into the world. Attempts to toughen him up have had little success, so Bug seizes an opportunity that leaves Yellowbird unexpectedly finding himself the new leader of the flock that is migrating to Africa. Still, lacking faith in his own abilities and with danger and imminent failure lurking around every corner, our feathered hero is forced to either find the strength required to work with the team or bow out and stay hidden away forever.
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Burned: Are Trees the New Coal?
2021
The little-known story of the accelerating destruction of our forests for fuel - the policy loopholes, huge subsidies, and blatant green washing of the burgeoning biomass electric power industry.
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Higher Grounds
2020
Panama is reimagining coffee, and driving new standards for both quality and economics. Explores variety, farming practice, and processing innovation—notions traditionally associated only with winemaking. Through collaborative competition, Panamanian growers are banding together to raise the bar for coffee worldwide. Featuring interviews with award-winning coffee producers in Panama and global coffee celebrities, as well as stunning footage of Panama’s breathtaking highlands, Higher Grounds concludes with a hard look at the sustainability of specialty coffee, the implications for developing-region producers, and how Panama offers a model for the rest of the world.
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Atomic Africa: Clean Energy's Dirty Secrets
2013 · ★ 9
Africa's development is being held back by poor infrastructure and undersized power plants. Countries like Uganda can only produce only 1/4 of the energy needed, leading to daily power cuts with disastrous economic impacts. It's a golden opportunity for nuclear giants who lobby aggressively for more power plants in Africa. But how safe are these new reactors? And what do they mean for the locals?
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Atomic Homefront
2017 · ★ 6.9
Revealing St. Louis, Missouri's atomic past as a uranium processing center for the atomic bomb and the governmental and corporate negligence that lead to the illegal dumping of Manhattan Project radioactive waste throughout North County neighborhoods.
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Crude
2009 · ★ 6.5
The story of lawsuit by tens of thousands of Ecuadorans against Chevron over contamination of the Ecuadorean Amazon.
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You Think the Earth Is a Dead Thing
2019 · ★ 7.6
Just one of the many far-reaching impacts of the slave trade on human history is on agriculture and horticulture. While the French plantation owners on the Caribbean island of Martinique had their gardens laid out, Versailles-style, their enslaved workers continued their tradition of using medicinal wild herbs. Nowadays these herbs represent one of several resources through which the people of Martinique counter the health and ecological ravage caused by the use of pesticides on the banana plantations. Farmers are reclaiming uncultivated lands to grow indigenous vegetables, without any industrial pesticides; they fight boldly for simple biodiversity.
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Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret
2014 · ★ 7.6
Follow the shocking, yet humorous, journey of an aspiring environmentalist, as he daringly seeks to find the real solution to the most pressing environmental issues and true path to sustainability.
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From the Ashes
2017 · ★ 6.4
Capturing Americans in communities across the country as they wrestle with the legacy of the coal industry and what its future should be under the Trump Administration. From Appalachia to the West’s Powder River Basin, the film goes beyond the rhetoric of the “war on coal” to present compelling and often heartbreaking stories about what’s at stake for our economy, health, and climate.
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Another Side of the Forest
1974 · ★ 7.5
Developments in the Canadian forestry industry during the 1970s are shown being carried out both as lab experiments and in the field to protect and conserve the country's vast forests. These include turning a Newfoundland bog into woodland, fostering British Columbia seedlings that withstand mechanical planting, inoculating Ontario elms against the bark beetle, devising ways of controlling fire, and more.
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