During the last three days, Golden hosted the 6th annual Colorado Environmental Film Festival at the American Mountaineering Center. This examiner will share some of the films which will make you sad or angry to move into action to help humankind and the only planet that is our home.
The festival began Thursday, February 23rd and ran through Saturday, February 25th. There was a wide array of films on climate change, food justice, water issues, renewable energy, agrofuels, pollution, energy issues, local community agriculture, genetically modified foods, reducing waste, extinction of species and much more.
This examiner attended two evenings of films on Friday and Saturday nights. On Friday there was a late night screening of three films presented at the Golden Hotel. These films were all focused on local issues in Colorado.
The first was “Chasing Water”, which was directed by native Coloradoan Pete McBride, who is a professional photographer. McBride was curious as to where all the water they used on their farm in Central Colorado ended up. He decided to follow the Colorado River from its headwaters at Rocky Mountain National Park to 1,500 miles to the confluence at the Sea of Cortez.
His companion, John Waterman a writer, traversed down the entire Colorado River in his inflatable kayak. Meanwhile, McBride paddled some of the river, while flying over the river to the Mexican border and spotting all the “straws” sipping from the river. When they entered Mexico, they received a rude awakening.
Learn who the biggest sippers of the river are and who aren’t. Hint: Las Vegas isn’t one of them.
Audience members were privileged to meet and speak with McBride afterwards.
The following film hit even closer to home, “Rocky Flats: Legacy” directed by Scott Bison. Rocky Flats was a place where 6,000 people had jobs to build plutonium buttons (part of the triggers for atomic weapons) from 1952-1992 on the eastside of Highway 93, adjoining the major development of Candela’s just south and the National Wind Technology Center rests just north of the Rocky Flats facility and south of Highway 128.
Thousands of these employees of the plant and others like it across the country were exposed to radiation, beryllium, silica, asbestos and other toxic substances and are now suffering from cancers and other deadly ailments. Since the closing of the plant in 1992 by the FBI due to contamination and unsafe business practices, only three employees from of any of the national plants have received any compensation. Meanwhile, the former employees of the plant continue to suffer and die a slow death, while the government treats them like “guinea pigs” according to film.
“No Water to Waste” sums up both Colorado water issues and the Rocky Flats plant. This film focuses on the expansion of Gross Reservoir. With the growing population of Colorado, much of our Front Range water is diverted from the Western Slope (we are the second biggest sipper of the Colorado River). Water will be diverted from the Fraser River to the reservoir.
The film explains how the developments of Candela’s, the E-470 toll way (owned primarily by a foreign corporation) also called The Jefferson Parkway, the Rocky Flats plant, truck traffic from the dam expansion to mountain communities, loss of native animal habitat in and along the Fraser and Colorado Rivers, open space and the loss of tourist dollars (fishing, wildlife viewing, water sports, etc.).
Right now there is also a plan, not only to build homes and businesses next to the former Rocky Flats plant, but a highway to “complete” the beltway. Cities like Boulder and Golden tried to fight it, but other cities like Broomfield, Arvada and Westminster supported to expansion on the grounds of “economic growth.”
However, the Town of Superior and the City of Golden are fighting it on the grounds that the former Rocky Flats land is still contaminated. According to the filmmakers Gabrielle Louise and Chris Garr, the cleanup results have been sealed by the U.S. government.
The land is scheduled to become a national wildlife refuge. While the plutonium waste, which polluted the entire area, is not dangerous if it gets in contact with clothing, however if it is inhaled it can get dislodged into the lung tissue and cause illnesses like cancer.
Superior and Golden are questioning the safety of this area. Why is the government hiding the results of the Environmental Impact Study of the land, yet telling the public that it’s safe?
Without the expansion of the reservoir, then Candela’s and the parkway cannot be expanded. The film asks the public to contact Denver Water to stop the expansion of Gross Reservoir. Do we value water or growth?
The following evening the festival concluded at the American Mountaineering Center with six different films. This examiner viewed three of the films in the Foss Theater. The first film was a Spanish film called “La Mirada Circular,” which translates to “The Circular Look.”
A typical middle class Spanish family cooks up some steak sandwiches for their picnic at the beach. The family enjoys a leisurely day at the beach when something tragic occurs.
The children are chased by two men through the woods and they try to call for help on their parents’ cell phone, but are snatched and taken away in a livestock trailer and are unable to get out of their constraints. The two cried and cried for help to passing cars, but to no avail.
The truck stopped in a parking lot where the two men leave the children alone in the travel. Will they snatch the little girl in a parking lot eating an ice cream? The children yell to her to help, but she only smiles and waves goodbye. No one will help them.
In the end, the audience is shocked to learn the plight of the two young ones. There wasn’t a dry eye in the theater as the two were taken into a horrific building, where their kinds are slaughtered on a daily basis. Their kind are first brought into an enclosure and shot through the head with a bolt. They fall through a hole in the floor and are hung upside down. Some of them are still screaming for their lives as the bolt in the head didn’t kill all of them. Their throats are slit to put them out of their misery and they are eviscerated. Their organs spill out onto the floor.
Of course no human children are killed only the bovine children. Will it stop you from eating meat or begin eating the new “Franken Burgers?”
Following this horrific and moving film was “Agrofuels: Agribusiness’ Attack on People and the Planet,” which revealed the true cost of Brazil’s energy independence from fossil fuels.
Indigenous and native people of Brazil and other Latin American countries are being forced off their lands in order to convert their grazing pastures and rainforests into sprawling monoculture crops of soybeans, sugar cane and palm oil plantations. Many of the crops are genetically modified and owned by multi-national corporations like Monsanto (see previous article “Are genetically modified organisms green?").
According to the film, the corporations not only take their land, water, jobs and other resources out of their countries, but deplete the biodiversity of the seeds that generations of farmers have used for hundreds of years.
Soon food crops will not be the only agrofuels (not to be confused with biofuels), but eucalyptus, switch grass and other mono crops.
The people are fighting back and building locally based food systems (community supported agriculture, organic farms, etc.) See this examiner’s previous article on a CSA. (Stay tuned for another feature on a new CSA beginning in Arvada this spring.)
The final film of the evening was not a tear jerker or a fearful film, but a film of action, where even the most conservative Americans want to rely less on a “Carbon Nation.”
The film begins in Roscoe, Texas, where a cooperative of farmers banded together to create the largest wind farm in the world. Before, these farmers were struggling, but now each farmer receives $1,500 per year per wind turbine on their property. Plus, they can continue to farm and ranch the land below. They are making more money as energy producers than they ever had as farmers.
The film motivates Americans from all walks of life: military, farmers, former CIA, religious leaders and community activists. The film adds humor and human sweat to transform our nation into a nation less reliant on fossil fuels for energy.
Cliff Etheredge “single handedly” (he does have only one arm) transformed a bankrupt farm town into the largest wind farm in the world.
Dan Nolan, a former army colonel, is helping the military become more energy efficient and use more green energy like sun and wind.
Bernie Karl, a man who says he doesn’t believe climate change is human caused, still feels that polluted air, water and soil is human caused. He turned his naturally occurring hot springs into a geothermal electrical power plant.
Van Jones, who was once part of the Obama cabinet, is now taking all that he learned from his late father (a former junior high principal) to help minorities stay out of jail and get green jobs, by installing solar panels in low income communities in California.
Michael Dunham, a former rock n’ roller, now recycles old refrigerators. He stated that his father invented the polystyrene (Styrofoam) coolers and he’s “cleaning up his father’s mess.”
Amory Lovins, a Colorado native, is helping New Yorkers become more energy efficient by retrofitting the Empire State Building.
There were many more billionaires, farmers and others making a difference. What about you?
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