"Earth Days" Review
Oct. 22, 2009
The Detroit News
The proliferation of films proclaiming an impending environmental holocaust has become a new form of pollution in itself, with the central message often being hammered to death by earnest self-righteousness.
Which is why documentary veteran Robert Stone's "Earth Days" is such a welcome relief. Yes, the future still looks grim and whales are hunted here as they are in all such films, but Stone spends most of his time tracking something positive -- the birth of the environmental movement in the '60s and '70s.
The environmental movement took hold quickly after authors such as Rachel Carson ("Silent Spring") and Paul Ehrlich ("The Population Bomb") started raising questions about pollution and sustainability. Ehrlich is one of the many environmental elders interviewed in "Earth Days" -- former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, Whole Earth Catalog guru Stewart Brand, astronaut Rusty Schweickart are among the gray-haired others -- as Stone follows just how much happened in a few short years.
The Environmental Protection Agency, the list of endangered species, pollution controls on automobiles and, indeed, even the annual celebration of Earth Day all came into existence between the late '60s and early '70s, mostly under the unlikely reign of President Richard Nixon.
It was a grand time of green enlightenment that culminated with President Jimmy Carter putting solar panels atop the White House. Unfortunately, President Reagan had those panels torn down and environmental progress came to something of a halt for too long.
In many ways this film is a chronicle of how far we haven't come. Still, there's hope to be found in the work that was initially accomplished, and it's also nice to know some of the more dire predictions of that era haven't come to pass.
Yet. The intense seriousness of the current global predicament comes across fully in "Earth Days." It's just joined by a sense of potential accomplishment for the future.
The Detroit News
The proliferation of films proclaiming an impending environmental holocaust has become a new form of pollution in itself, with the central message often being hammered to death by earnest self-righteousness.
Which is why documentary veteran Robert Stone's "Earth Days" is such a welcome relief. Yes, the future still looks grim and whales are hunted here as they are in all such films, but Stone spends most of his time tracking something positive -- the birth of the environmental movement in the '60s and '70s.
The environmental movement took hold quickly after authors such as Rachel Carson ("Silent Spring") and Paul Ehrlich ("The Population Bomb") started raising questions about pollution and sustainability. Ehrlich is one of the many environmental elders interviewed in "Earth Days" -- former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, Whole Earth Catalog guru Stewart Brand, astronaut Rusty Schweickart are among the gray-haired others -- as Stone follows just how much happened in a few short years.
The Environmental Protection Agency, the list of endangered species, pollution controls on automobiles and, indeed, even the annual celebration of Earth Day all came into existence between the late '60s and early '70s, mostly under the unlikely reign of President Richard Nixon.
It was a grand time of green enlightenment that culminated with President Jimmy Carter putting solar panels atop the White House. Unfortunately, President Reagan had those panels torn down and environmental progress came to something of a halt for too long.
In many ways this film is a chronicle of how far we haven't come. Still, there's hope to be found in the work that was initially accomplished, and it's also nice to know some of the more dire predictions of that era haven't come to pass.
Yet. The intense seriousness of the current global predicament comes across fully in "Earth Days." It's just joined by a sense of potential accomplishment for the future.
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