A Fierce Green Fire
Sign up for a historical sweep of environmental activism. “A Fierce Green Fire” touches it all. It reaches back to John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, and Gifford Pinchot. It picks up its title phrase from Aldo Leopold. It begins gelling as an activist force with David Brower’s Sierra Club. It takes residence on the calendar with Earth Day. It transforms into matters of environmental justice when civil rights concerns march with environmental concerns. It stands on the shoulders of nature when people afflicted in Love Canal and other neighborhoods suffer birth defects and cancers and exploitive disregard. It dabbles in alternative life styles and is resisted by energy industries with power that will not be longsighted. It takes on flare with Greenpeace and crosses controversial activist lines. It merges local with global activism, where the people live and the corporations usurp. It takes the temperature of climate change where it is already too hotly changing.
“A Fierce Green Fire” lays the history of environmental activism before you, showcasing respect for palpable successes and retries against the odds. It reaches toward a prospect that is bigger than environmentalism.
This film is too long because it covers too much. This film is too short because there is so much oxygenated activist spirit that it pumps through our veins. The film handles its presentation challenge well, juicing each section and segment of expression with tension and appreciation.
It channels its documentary arc to the present, beyond the inklings and projected warnings. It leads us to the near future, where maybe, just maybe, human beings will recognize each and all as environmentalists because we breathe the same air, drink the same water, eat the same food, and live on the same, only planet.