NWF featured in “A Fierce Green Fire” on PBS

NWF’s own Barbara Bramble is featured in A Fierce Green Fire, which traces the history of the grassroots and global environmental movement in the 20th century and beyond. The film, which is directed by Mark Kitchell, was featured at the Sundance Film Festival, and the DC Environmental Film Festival last year, and is inspired by the book of the same name by Philip Shabecoff.

PBS will air the national premiere of A Fierce Green Fire on Earth Day, April 22 from 9-10pm.

A Fierce Green Fire is separated into 5 chapters or “acts,” each chronicling a different era of the grassroots environmental movement since it took off in the 1960s, and each highlighting a story of the times.  The stories are both profoundly personal and global in their impact, with focus on such activism as blocking dam construction in the Grand Canyon, the chemicals of Love Canal, Greenpeace’s anti-whaling campaign and rainforest protection in Brazil, where NWF is showcased. Its concluding chapter follows the struggle to address climate change, which continues today.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94zbq5Vaod0[/youtube]

NWF’s Legacy of Grassroots Environmentalism

The fourth chapter of the film focuses on Mendes and the Brazilian rubber tappers’ efforts to stop cattle ranchers  from clearing the forest for pastures. As has been chronicled here before, NWF worked closely with Chico Mendes and other Brazilian rubber tappers, who peacefully put their bodies on the line to save the  rainforest during the 1980s. This movement, and the uproar over Mendes’ assassination, pushed the environmental movement to a global scale. This chapter of the film concludes by highlighting recent grassroots environmental movements that are making a difference in developing countries.

A Timely Showing

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NWF’s Barbara Bramble speaks in ‘A Fierce Green Fire’
The next few years are critical for acting on climate change. The latest chapter of the 5th report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which serves as the paramount scientific body studying the effects of climate change, and showing pathways to mitigate its worst impacts, says that  greenhouse gas emissions must peak and start to come down as soon as possible.

This latest IPCC report also assures readers that ambitious mitigation action will barely make a dent in the global economy, without even taking into account co-benefits such as improved public health. We can’t make these cuts unless we communicate just how dire the situation is, and NWF continues to be on the front lines of informing Americans of the dangers of global climate change.

Recently, NWF became the education partner for Showtime’s Years of Living Dangerously, a 9-part series investigating climate change all over the world that has gained significant media attention.

Click here to find your local listings for PBS.

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