Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Environmental Films

I am sure you are one of the thousands of people who have watched the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth (http://www.climatecrisis.net/an-inconvenient-truth.php). If not check out the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAK8Cd4t0WA



It is movies like “An Inconvenient Truth” that get people excited and probably scared. Scared to a point of not being able to see how they can take action that will make a difference.

So I was really excited when friends started saying to me that I must watch the movie Home. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/user/homeproject as it has some superb scenery.



Though when I was half way through the movie I got this concern that the movie was going to leave me once again in a place of being paralysed to take action. Thank goodness it did finish with some positive news and ways people are making a difference. However, after the 1h30m I was left thinking what are really positive movies I could be sharing with people to give them the courage and inspiration to know that we all can make a real positive difference to our climate.

Well a good friend of mine said check out the 22 minute film called “Hope in a changing climate” (http://hopeinachangingclimate.org/). Well I did and I was very impressed. It is about ecological restoration projects of huge scale happening across China and Africa that are producing superb results for their communities in terms of food and water security.

If you are looking for a boost on what you can do then I do encourage you to watch this short movie at http://hopeinachangingclimate.org/.


The programme documents the remarkably successful efforts of local people to restore denuded, degraded ecosystems – transforming them into verdant, life-sustaining environments which enable people to break free from entrenched poverty. The film contains breathtaking before and after footage of large-scale restoration projects. Presented by John D. Liu, founder of the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP) and creator of the film Lessons of the Loess Plateau, the new programme is directed by Jeremy Bristow from the BBC, the award-winning producer of the acclaimed David Attenborough series The Truth about Climate Change.

The area of restoration on the Loess Plateau in China is the size of Belgium and thousands of years of subsistence farming had made it barren and unfertile. In 1995 The Chinese Government, with support from The World Bank, took drastic action to rehabilitate the plateau, and local people – seen as both perpetuators and victims of the devastation – became part of the solution.

Looking forward to hearing about similar films that give us solutions not just problems.

Grow well
Dr Merrin

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