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Welcome to our last Sneak Peek Pro episode of the preseason here at Faith, Fern & Compass, where every day is Earth Day. In Episode 3 – Happy (Belated) Earth Day!, we celebrate the Earth as our mother and our home, taking a look back at the origins of the holiday and how it’s evolved over the past 42 years from a national teach-in to a global call to community action.
Jeff explores the bipartisan roots of the first Earth Day back in 1970, a national event that wove together the loose threads of conservation and environmental protection, giving birth to the modern environmentalist movement as we know it. Declared an international holiday — and renamed Mother Earth Day — by the UN in 2009, today’s celebrations all over the world recall the need for action and synthesis that originally inspired the holiday, as well as looking ahead to the challenges that our planet faces in the near future. Getting into the spirit of things, Ali gushes about how much she loves urban trees and talks a bit about all the benefits they provide to city-dwellers.
Next, we head into the jungle with a review of DisneyNature’s most recent film, Chimpanzee, a touching documentary of chimpanzees living in the Tai Forest of the Ivory Coast that offers a glimpse into the cultural diversity and startling compassion of one of our closest primate relatives. With breathtaking cinematography, somewhat silly narration by Tim Allen (yes, that Tim Allen), and lots of adorable baby chimp action, it’s well worth the price of admission — especially since a portion of ticket sales during the film’s opening week go to support the research and preservation efforts of the Jane Goodall Institute.
Turning a more critical eye on the role that corporations have played in distracting and derailing environmentalism over the past several decades, we take a look at how many conservationists and ecologists are finding common cause with the #Occupy movement and its protests of corrupt corporate and government power in an effort to reclaim Earth Day as a holiday of community action, not individual guilt. Ali revisits the question of urban infrastructure and how it can help (or hinder) the choice to bike instead of drive, a perfect example of how individual action accomplishes so much more when it’s supported by systemic change. Plus, Jeff gets to brag about what a good citizen of the earth he is by biking 13 miles a day on his commute to work. (Wow!)
In the Pro extension, Ali and Jeff share some ways that they celebrate Earth Day as a spiritual holiday, and explore why meditation, communication and art are so vital for nurturing a sense of sacred connection with this planet that we know and love. Jeff ponders the universality of beauty from bees to birds to human beings, and Ali confesses her not-quite-platonic love for a magnolia tree in the neighborhood.
Remember that this is the last episode where we offer a free sneak peek of Faith, Fern & Compass Pro. If you like what you hear and you want to support the podcast, become a Pro Member today. The first 150 folks to sign up can register for only $5/month with the discount code: ‘DUNBAR150′ — but hurry! Registration opened on Earth Day and we’re growing fast!
Join us next week for the very first episode of Season One here at Faith, Fern & Compass!
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Links:
- ThinkProgress tweets about Fox News Earth Day coverage
- “Earth Day’s ups and downs reflect changing environmental movement,” by Kazi Stastna
- “On Earth Day: a disconnect among those who pledge love for the environment,” by Jonathan Tilove
- United Nations news coverage and official website for International Mother Earth Day
- “The High Cost of Losing Urban Trees,” by Nate Berg
- Benefits of NYC’s Urban Forest
- Chimpanzee and the Jane Goodall Institute
- “The Earth Needs More Than A Day: Why We Occupy,” by Mickey Z.
- “Occupy Earth: State Of The Environment Fundamentally Linked to Economic Injustice,” by Shepherd Bliss
- “Occupy Earth Day,” by Mike Ewall
- “The Hand That Covers The Eye,” by Brendan Myers
- “How Biking Benefits Everyone,” by Jay Walljasper
Music Credits:
- Opening and closing theme: “Dragonfly” by Brian Boyko
- “Walking in the Forest,” by earthfriend
- “Whale Call,” by earthfriend
- “Rainy Night,” a collaboration by earthfriend and Andrew Eales
Art Credits:
- Thanks to NASA for making their images of Earthrise and the Small Magellanic Cloud available in the public domain!
- Thanks to ~ Essence of a Dream ~for the background texture!
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA License.
Tags: #Occupy, biking, Brendan Myers, conservation, Earth Day, environmentalism, Jane Goodall Institute, movie review, nature, Rio+20, spirituality, urban trees
[...] to our last Sneak Peek Pro episode of Faith, Fern & Compass, where every day is Earth Day. In Episode 003 – Happy (Belated) Earth Day!, we celebrate the Earth as our mother and our home, taking a look back at the origins of the [...]
People were utterly shocked when Jane Goodall first announced her findings that chimps hunted and killed monkeys; it had been thought chimps were scavengers at best.
Another thing people don’t often realize is that chimps are dangerous when grown up. The ones we see on TV are juveniles (same with orangs), and when they get too old they often end up locked away in cages because no one knows what to do with them.
I am on the fence about Earth Day. On the one hand, it’s nice to have people sit up and pay attention to environmental issues and to see all the outreach. But at the same time, it’s like being an environmentalist only when someone’s looking at you. The other 364 days in the year need to be Earth Day as well.
Regarding corporations–corporations create exponentially more pollution than individuals do. While we should make individual choices to lessen our footprints, we shouldn’t let that become a red herring to distract us from the much bigger problems of oil spills, industrial pollution, mountaintop removal, and so forth.
Very thought-provoking episode; thank you.