AUDIOVISUAL
The CASID and WID audiovisual collections include the following environment-related videos, which are available free of charge to MSU faculty for use in their classrooms. For more information about the videos, please visit http://db.oid.msu.edu/video/user/videoform.asp or contact Helen Farr, CASID Secretary, at (517) 353-8570.
Banking on Disaster
In this film, Adrian Cowell documents the disastrous consequences of paving a road throught the heart of the world's largest rainforest in Brazil. The story is told in three chapters, the last of which deals with the late Chico Mendes, the leader of the rubber-tappers' union, who was assassinated for his courageous efforts to halt the devastation of the rainforest and to create protected areas to be managed by local rubber-tapper communities.
Deep Ecology
Deep Ecology, the term coined by Arne Naess to describe a deeper,
more spiritual approach to nature, is discussed by three people whose
lives are based on deep ecology. Diane Depuydt and Ivan Ussach of The
Sacred Earth Network, and Vivienne Simon, director of the Center for
Psychology and Social Change at Cambridge Hospital, speak about the
meaning of Deep Ecology.
Development a Better Way? Ladakh Project - Lessons from Little Tibet
Ladkah, or "Little Tibet," is a wildly beautiful desert land in the Indian Himalayas. For more than a thousand years, the Ladakhi people maintained a balance with their fragile environment. Recently, however, as a consequence of the region's increasing contact with the modern world, social harmony, and ecological stability have been giving way to divisiveness and environmental decline. This video provides an excellent case-study for a discussion of development issues.
Dr. Jay M. Gould Interviews
Journalist Laura Flanders interviews Dr. Jay M. Gould about the relationship
between radioactivity and breast cancer. Dr. Gould has found a clear
relationship between fission products released from atomic reactors
as well as from nuclear bomb tests and the breast cancer epidemic.
Earth: The Changing Environment (Global Links Series)
Looks at the environment, natural resources, pollution, forestry, and agriculture.
Environmentalists Under Fire: 10 Urgent Cases of Human Rights Abuses
When oil spills contaminate rivers and drinking water in Nigeria, when loggers clear-cut Mexico's old-growth forests, when nuclear submarines leak radioactive waste in Russia, and when damming of the Narmada River destroys some of India's most fertile land, the earth does not scream, or get angry, or fight back. But there are people who are brave enough to speak out, to defy governments, and to confront corporations. They risk arrest, imprisonment, and even death, to protect their homeland - to give the earth a voice. Amnesty International and the Sierra Club have come together in a one-of-a-kind collaboration on the behalf of these environmental defenders. The goal of this joint endeavor is to shine a bright light on nations where human rights abuses are being committed against environmental activists and to take action immediately to stop the abuses suffered by environmentalists who are being beaten, harassed, detained, raped, tortured, and murdered.
Food or Famine? (Two-part)
Is the human population going to outstrip the earth's food supply? This is the principle question asked in this provocative new study from the Nature of Things series. In the year 2020, there will be between three and four billion more mouths to feed. The past forty years have produced impressive food surpluses, but these have led to environmental problems, such as soil erosion, salinization, and chemical pollution. Food or Famine looks at projects in North America, Chile, Indonesia, Africa, and India-all of which reflect a return to agricultural methods based on sound ecological principles. However, there is a continuing challenge that as the world population increases, new crops with higher yields will have to be developed. This film also examines the worldwide imbalance between food consumption and production.
The Forbidden Land
The role of the Catholic Church is examined in relation to social justice and civil rights in Latin America. Also, economic and environmental changes are evaluated since new governments were installed with the "blessings" of the Catholic Church in Brazil.
From the Roots: California Indian Basketweavers
Basket weaving among California's many tribes was once an integral
part of everyday life, while also providing a vehicle for artistic and
technical excellence in the hands of the finest weavers. The destruction
of Native life during post-contact years nearly led to the demise of
these traditions, but today's weavers are working diligently to preserve
the ancient knowledge and skills required of their art and to pass these
on to the younger generations. In this highly engaging documentary, California Indian basket weavers
speak eloquently of the baskets, the plants, and the importance of basket
weaving. They also discuss the challenges of restricted access to plant
gathering sites and museum basketry collections, as well as concerns
surrounding the use of pesticides in areas where plants are gathered.
The Future of Progress
This 30-minute video is made up of interviews with four leading thinkers/activists in the field of environment and development: Edward Goldsmith (founder, publisher and co-editor of The Ecologist magazine); Vandana Shiva (Coordinator of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy); Martin Khor (Vice-President of the Third World Network and the Consumer's Association of Penang); and Helena Norberg-Hodge (Director of the Ladkah Project and the International Society for Ecology and Culture). The interviews were conducted at an international seminar on the environment and development in Biskops-Arno, Sweden, which was jointly organized by the International Society for Ecology and Culture and Friends of the Earth, Sweden.
Global Tomorrow Coalition: Our Common Future
Leaders and experts from business, government and environmental groups gather as the World Commission on the Environment and Development (begun by the UN General Assembly) to discuss issues related to sustainable development. The conference was based on the conclusions of an international report entitled "Our Common Future." This report calls for global sustainable development - a process of economic and social growth that meets the needs of the present without compromising the future. It addresses the problem of land, air and water, but it is also a strategy that balances human needs with the use of resources. The Global Assembly's mandate is to place this common future on the US agenda.
Journey to Planet Earth
The seven programs in the PBS series Journey to Planet Earth explore the fragile relationship between people and the world they inhabit.
Rivers of Destiny
Journey to four major river systems of the world to investigate environmental pressures facing those whose lives depend upon the health of their river. Locations: the Mississippi, Jordan, Amazon, and Mekong Rivers.
The Urban Explosion
Explore a major dilemma of the 21st century: how to sustain the world's exploding urban population without destroying the delicate balance of our environment. Locations: Mexico City, Istanbul, Shanghai, and New York City.
Land of Plenty, Land of Want
Investigate the fundamental challenge facing today's farmers: how to feed the world's growing population without endangering our environment. Locations: Zimbabwe, China, France, and the United States.
On the Brink
Examine how severe environmental problems can lead to political crises and increased hostilities around the world. Locations: Haiti, India, Peru, South Africa, Mexico, and the United States.
Seas of Grass
Discover the world's grasslands, natural vegetation of nearly one-third of Earth's land surface, some of which are in grave danger. Locations: Kenya, South Africa, Argentina, China, and the United States.
Hot Zones
See how changes in global and local ecosystems are connected to the increased spread of infectious diseases. Locations: Kenya, Peru, Bangladesh, and the United States.
Future Conditional
Investigate the link between environmental change and the health of our planet as millions of people must cope with the spread of toxic pollution. Locations: The Arctic, Mexico, Uzbekistan, and the United States.
The Legacy of Malthus
This video portrays two opposing sides in the debate over "What makes people poor?" The assumptions made by proponents of these two sides are presented impartially by just letting the debaters speak for themselves. In India, peasant farmers are being evicted from their land and then accused of being feckless, poor, irresponsible, and unable to feed their families. The film takes on the international population "establishment," challenging the entrenched view that overpopulation alone is responsible for poverty and environmental destruction.
Local Heroes/Global Change: With Our Own Eyes
In the North, our ideas about how a country "develops" have been shaped by our own experience in achieving material success. In turn, these ideas have greatly influenced worldwide efforts to overcome hunger and poverty. Rich nations promoted - and poor nations sought - strategies that worked in the North. For example, in the 1950s, economist Walt Rostow held that if enough money was invested in urbanization and industrialization, a developing country's economy would reach a critical point where it could prosper like the industrialized North. Unfortunately, notions of how the world changes are not mechanical facts; they are concepts rooted in culture. Of course, some industrialization and some aid efforts did help. But developing nations were not always well served by ideas that worked in the North or by the assistance they received. Giving too much attention to urban industry often left the masses of rural people out of development. In addition, technologies "transferred" from the North to the South often were not adapted to local needs, or they wreaked havoc on the environment. More local, ecologically sensitive solutions were urgently needed. But through all these trials and errors a vast learning process was going on across the world. New answers were beginning to emerge to some fundamental questions: What is development? How should the countries of the North support it?
The Long March
Community in Chengdu, China, has organized to clean up polluted river. Today, Chengdu's government has succeeded in reversing the damage, turning an urban nightmare into a model of modern-day planning.
Love, Women, and Flowers
Flowers are Colombia's third largest export. But behind the beauty of the carnations and chrysanthemums sold in the US and Europe lies a horror story of hazardous labor conditions for the 60,000 women who work in the flower industry. The use of pesticides and fungicides, some banned in the developed countries that export them, has drastic health and environmental consequences. This beautiful and powerful documentary is the final collaborative effort of Marta Rodriguez and her husband Jorge Silva. With urgency and intimacy, the filmmakers evoke the testimonies of the women workers and document their efforts to organize.
Marilyn Waring Presentation at MSU
In this taped lecture, Marilyn Waring (author of Who's Counting) discusses environmental issues of concern in development, such as the commodification of pollution, soil, and water. She points out contradictions and problems with the idea of the market being a mechanism for ecological renewal.
Michelle Perreault, Sierra Club and Brock Evans, Audubon Society
In this Enviro Close-Up, Ms. Perreault, the first woman president of
the Sierra Club and now the group's international vice president, focuses
on the role of women in the environmental movement. She speaks of the
movement's "boy's network," tells how this is changing, and
describes the sexual discrimination experienced by women all over the
world when "out against environmental pollution." Brock Evans,
vice president for national affairs of the Audubon Society, talks on the ravaging
of tropical rain forests and widespread destruction "of the planet" -
and recommends actions to halt environmental degradation.
The Miracle of Guinope
The once-dying village of Guinope, Honduras, is now thriving. Why? The answer to that question holds the promise of ending hunger, not only for the villagers of Guinope, but for millions around the world. And because the answer includes a way to end slash-and-burn agriculture, it also holds great promise for saving much of the world's endangered forest cover.
Nepal at Risk: Community Development and the Environment
This video describes the need for ecotourism, conservation awareness, appropriate technologies, self-reliance, and involvement of local people in Nepalese development.
NOW with Bill Moyers: The Earth Debate
Bill Moyers (PBS) and Nisha Pillai (BBC) facilitate a discussion with leading activists, scholars, and business people at the World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002 in South Africa. Participants debate on world hunger, disease, globalization, poverty, multinational and transnational corporations, sustainable development, AIDS, patents on pharmaceuticals, global warming, population growth, pollution, the environment, energy, and consumption of natural resources.
The Quiet Revolution - Honduras: Food Production and Environment
Like other subsistence farmers in his community, Reynaldo Andino Canterero used to practice the environmentally degrading "slash and burn" approach to agriculture. Not only was he upsetting the local ecology, his farm was not producing enough to feed his family. Now, through World Neighbors, a grassroots organization, Reynaldo is learning soil and water conservation techniques that increase crop yields and protect the environment. As part of the programs goals, Reynaldo is sharing his new knowledge with his neighbors.
The Road from Rio
Alexandra is a poor suburb of Johannesburg, but it's within sight of the prestigious Sandton Convention Centre. The venue was the home for what was billed as the most important international conference of this century: the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which opened on 26 August 2002. As world leaders prepared for the meeting, hard questions were being raised. What could the conference really hope to achieve? And why - when governments had failed to deliver on so many of the promises they made at Rio - should the world believe they'd be any more sincere this time around?
The Shape of War
The Shape of Water follows women from Senegal, Amazonian Brazil, India, and Jerusalem to highlight women's activism around various local and global issues. The women of this film are abandoning female genital mutilation, tapping for rubber to protect the rainforest, opposing military occupations, sustaining the world's largest trades union, protesting dams that threaten to drown their homes and lives, and safeguarding the biodiversity of the planet.
Suspended Dreams
This is a courageous documentary from Lebanon about the effects of 16 years of civil war on what was once the intellectual, cultural, and commercial center of the Arab world. The film tells the story of four Beirut citizens from very different backgrounds as they struggle to reconstruct their homes and lives amid the chaos, the broken buildings, and the unexploded mines of their once beautiful city. The film assesses the appalling impact of modern warfare on the environment, and looks ahead to a new conflict in the making over the Middle East's most precious commodity - water.
Trading Democracy (Bill Moyers Reports)
In this video, Bill Moyers examines how corporate investors are using an obscure provision in NAFTA to challenge national laws. Examples of such cases are presented from California, Canada, and Mexico.
Trinkets and Beads
After 20 years of devastating pollution by oil companies in the Amazon basin of Ecuador, a new kind of oil company - Dallas-based MAXUS - promises to be the first company which will protect the rainforest and respect the people who live there. Trinkets and Beads tells the story of how MAXUS set out to convince the Huaorani - known as the fiercest tribe in the Amazon - to allow drilling on their land. It is a story which starts in 1957 with the Huaorani massacre of five American missionaries, moving through the evangelization of part of the tribe by Rachel Saint, pollution of Huaorani lands by Texaco and Shell, and manipulation and buying off of Huaorani leaders by MAXUS. Now the Huaorani leader, Moi, is trying to unite the tribe to force MAXUS off their lands. The story of how the Huaorani are attempting to survive in the Petroleum Age on their own terms, to outwit and outfight the forces of change, exposes one of the best-hidden consequences of our relentless drive to "develop" the world.
Vandana Shiva, Distinguished Lecturer
This is a taped lecture given by ecologist and feminist Vandana Shiva at Michigan State University. She talks about "Gender Justice in Environmental Policy." Shiva is one of the world's leading environmentalists and the pioneer of theorists' equal feminism. She is a physicist, philosopher, science ecologist, and activist. She has been described as one of the world's most prominent radical scientists, combining issues of the environment, agriculture, spirituality, and women's rights to create a powerful philosophy.
Women's Action for New Directions
Susan Schaer, executive director of Women's Action for New Directions,
Inc., a national organization based in Arlington, Massachusetts, explains
how WAND pursues its goal of empowering women to act politically to
reduce violence and militarism and to redirect military resources toward
human and environmental needs.
