 |
 |
 |
| Home | Schedule of Events | Volunteer Opportunities | Speaker Biographies |
Earth Week Films
"Black Gold" - Friday, April 20, 8:30-10:00
(77 min) Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil. But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields.Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Tadesse Meskela is one man on a mission to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy. As his farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price.
Against the backdrop of Tadesse's journey to London and Seattle, the enormous power of the multinational players that dominate the world's coffee trade becomes apparent. New York commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation reveal the many challenges Tadesse faces in his quest for a long term solution for his farmers. (Source: Black Gold Website)
"Buyer Be Fair: The Promise of Product Certification" - Friday, April 20, 10:30-11:30
(60 min) Buyer Be Fair: The Promise of Product Certification takes viewers to Mexico, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden, the USA and Canada to explore how conscious consumers and businesses can use the market to promote social justice and environmental sustainability through product labeling, with a focus on Fair Trade coffee and Forest Stewardship Council certified wood. Buyer Be Fair is an inspirational and balanced television special that reaches beyond the choir to present the promise of product certification to a wide audience. (Source: Buyer Be Fair Website)"How to Save the World: One Man, One Cow, One Planet" - Monday, April 16, 2:30-4:30
(104 min) How to Save the World exposes globalization and the mantra of infinite growth in a finite world for what it really is: an environmental and human disaster. But across India marginal farmers are fighting back. By reviving biodynamics an arcane form of agriculture, they are saving their poisoned lands and exposing the bio-colonialism of multinational corporations. How to Save the World tells their story through the teachings of an elderly New Zealander many are calling the new Gandhi. (Source: How to Save the World Website)"An Inconvenient Truth " - Tuesday, April 17, 5:30-7:00
(96 min) Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom -- think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, An Inconvenient Truth, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his "traveling global warming show," Gore also proves himself to be one of the most misunderstood characters in modern American public life. Here he is seen as never before in the media - funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our "planetary emergency" out to ordinary citizens before it's too late. (Source: Inconvenient Truth Website)
"The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" - Wednesday, April 18, 1:30-2:30
(53 min) The documentary, The Power of Community – How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, was inspired when Faith Morgan and Pat Murphy took a trip to Cuba through Global Exchange in August, 2003. That year Pat had begun studying and speaking about worldwide peak oil production. In May Pat and Faith attended the second meeting of The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, a European group of oil geologists and scientists, which predicted that mankind was perilously close to having used up half of the world's oil resources. When they learned that Cuba underwent the loss of over half of its oil imports and survived, after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, the couple wanted to see for themselves how Cuba had done this. (Source: Power of Community Website)"Rising Waters: Global Warming and the Fate of the Pacific Islands" - Thursday, April 19, 2:30-3:30
(57 min) For 7 million people living on thousands of islands scattered across the Pacific ocean, global warming is not something that looms in the distant future: it's a threat whose first effects may have already begun.Through personal stories of Pacific Islanders, Rising Waters : Global Warming and the Fate of the Pacific Islands puts a human face on the international climate change debate. (Source: Rising Waters Website)
"Who Killed the Electric Car?" - Tuesday, April 17, 2:30-4:00
(91 min) It was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert?Who Killed the Electric Car? chronicles the life and mysterious death of the GM EV1, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business. (Source: Who Killed the Electric Car Website)
BCC Earth Week is organized by the BCC Student Science Association. For more information contact Rob Viens in the BCC Science Division at rviens@bcc.ctc.edu or (425) 564-3158.
Last Updated April 5, 2007