We post daily morsels of illuminating information and inspiration on The Green Spotlight’s Facebook Page. If you have a Facebook account, we hope you’ll click on the page’s Like button (if you haven’t already “Liked” or “Followed” the page) and Share the page with your friends.
Please visit the Page to get a sense of the various topics that it covers. We hope you’ll share some of our links. To make sure that Facebook will continue to show you our posts on your Facebook homepage/newsfeed, visit our page regularly and give a thumbs-up to (“Like”) your favorite posts.
Here’s a sampling of some topics that we’ve highlighted on the page over the last month or so, including both good news and bad:
Ireland is completely divesting from fossil fuels (and has also banned fracking)
TransMountain pipeline approvals revoked by court
Protect the Protest: a new alliance of environmental and civil liberties groups
In 40 states, electricity from renewable sources is cheaper than the existing power supply
Air pollution causes lower IQ and other neurological deficits and diseases
Climate grief and depression
Traverse City, Michigan and Denver, Colorado set 100% renewable energy goals
Mexican President plans to ban fracking
Monsanto ordered to pay $289 million as jury rules Roundup caused man’s cancer
Poisonous red tides and toxic algae blooms worse than ever in Florida this summer
Teenagers’ climate lawsuit moves forward
Administration proposes weakening the Endangered Species Act
PFAS contamination in Michigan
Wildfires and heat waves around the world, including at the Arctic Circle
We post morsels of illuminating information and inspiration on The Green Spotlight’s Facebook Page every day. Anyone can view the page, even if you don’t have a Facebook account. But if you do have an account, we hope you’ll click on the page’s Like button (if you haven’t already “Liked” the page).
Please visit the Page to get a sense of the wide variety of topics that it covers. You are welcome to comment on the posts and we hope you’ll share some of our links. To make sure that Facebook will continue to show you our posts on your Facebook homepage/newsfeed, visit our page regularly and give a thumbs-up to (“Like”) your favorite posts.
Here’s a sampling of topics that we’ve highlighted on the page over the last couple of months:
Tesla’s Powerwall battery for home energy storage
Climate Rides (and Hikes)
Hawaii commits to 100% renewable electricity
Toxic pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides are really biocides
Goldman Prize winner videos
RoundUp’s links to cancer and other health and environmental harms
Environmental education, curriculum resources
Fossil-fuel-free funds have outperformed conventional stock-market funds
Community Choice local renewable power programs
Mother Earth News Fairs
Portland generating electricity via turbines in city water pipes
Wind turbines installed on the Eiffel Tower
New films: Inhabit, Oil and Water, Dryden, Merchants of Doubt, Mother, Revolution, Planetary
The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Many people refer to it as the “green Nobel.” Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and inspiring. “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives an award of $150,000 [starting this year, it has been increased to $175,000], the largest award in the world for grassroots environmentalists. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.”
This year marks the 25th anniversary of this international prize. And this year, for the first time ever, the Goldman Environmental Prize ceremony will be broadcast LIVE on the Goldman Prize YouTube channel.
This year’s six prize recipients (one from each of the six inhabited continental regions) are:
Helen Slottje (NY, USA) — Helping towns across New York defend themselves from oil and gas companies by passing local bans on fracking
Desmond D’Sa (South Africa) — Rallied south Durban’s diverse and disenfranchised communities to successfully shut down a toxic waste dump that was exposing nearby residents to dangerous chemicals
Ruth Buendía (Peru) — United the Asháninka people in a powerful campaign against large-scale dams that would have once again uprooted indigenous communities
Ramesh Agrawal (India) — Organized villagers to demand their right to information about industrial development projects and succeeded in shutting down one of the largest proposed coal mines in Chhattisgarh
Suren Gazaryan (Russia) — Led multiple campaigns exposing government corruption and illegal use of federally protected forestland along Russia’s Black Sea coast
Rudi Putra (Indonesia) — Dismantling illegal palm oil plantations that are causing massive deforestation in northern Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, protecting the habitat of the critically endangered Sumatran rhino
Click on each recipient’s name to read—or watch a brief video—about their remarkable efforts and achievements.
Here’s the video about Helen Slottje, who has provided pro-bono legal assistance to help towns across New York (including Dryden) defend themselves from oil and gas companies by passing local bans on fracking, using a clause in the state constitution that gives municipalities the right to make local land use decisions.
Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:
This is a listing of some of the green-themed films that came out in the last couple of years. Click on each of the links below (or go to IMDB.com) to see previews/trailers, reviews, and descriptions of each film. Update: Also check out our newer listing of green-themed films of 2015.
Scroll to the bottom of this post to see a list of some green film festivals; those websites provide information on more films, including some brand new ones that haven’t been shown widely yet.
If there are other relevant, recent films that you’ve seen and would recommend to others, please add those in the Comments section below.
Green Film Festivals
These are a few of the annual film fests that I’m aware of. Please let everyone know about others by contributing a Comment! Many of the festivals’ websites feature video clips or entire films (short and full-length films), and they list many additional, new, independent films, beyond what I’ve listed above.
The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and inspiring. “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives an award of $150,000, the largest award in the world for grassroots environmentalists. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.”
This year’s six prize recipients (one from each of the six inhabited continental regions) are:
Kimberly Wasserman (Chicago, IL, USA) — Fought to get local, polluting, coal power plants shut down; leading community greening projects
Jonathan Deal (South Africa) — Fighting against hydraulic fracturing (fracking) gas extraction
Azzam Alwash (Iraq) — Restoring marshes and protecting water resources
Nohra Padilla (Colombia) — Instituting recycling and waste management programs
Rosanno Ercolini (Italy) — Fighting toxics from incinerators and spearheading a Zero Waste movement
Aleta Baun (Indonesia) — Protecting sacred forestland from marble mining
Click on each recipient’s name to read—or watch a brief, well-made video—about their remarkable efforts and achievements.
Here’s the three-minute video about Kimberly Wasserman, who “led local residents in a successful campaign to shut down two of the country’s oldest and dirtiest coal plants — and is now transforming Chicago’s old industrial sites into parks and multi-use spaces:”
Last year’s recipient from the U.S. was Caroline Cannon, who has brought “the voice and perspective of her Inupiat community in Point Hope, Alaska to the battle to keep Arctic waters safe from offshore oil and gas drilling.”
Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:
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