Earthday, Everyday; Evolution's End?

These two environmental programs from Bennu Productions offer a promising and a not-so-promising look at current trends in the ongoing environmental wars. Earthday, Everyday, narrated by Dennis Weaver, takes its title from the theme of the 20th anniversary of Earthday (namely, that every day should be considered Earthday, in terms of our personal environmental responsibility.) The program chronicles the birth and development of Earthday (including footage from the inaugural Earthday on April 22, 1970) through interviews with founders former Senator Gaylord Nelson and Dennis Hayes. In addition, Bruce Davison of Earthday USA and Nigel Seele of Earthday International talk about the growth of interest in the Earthday phenomenon and the growing impact of Earthday on legislative matters over the past 20 years. A solid introduction to the history and purpose of Earthday. Following a melodramatic opening, Evolution's End?, narrated by Carole King, addresses the question of the destruction of ancient growth forests in the U.S. Viewers are told that only about 5% of our native American forests remain, and an environmental spokesman cites lack of information as one of the biggest problems ("people are shocked that national parks are logged"). To focus the eye of the media on the problem, John Hall (of Hall & Oates), Bob Weir (of The Grateful Dead), and a group of environmentalists took a bike ride through the Rocky Mountains, pointing out the broad ugly swatches of clearcutting that punctuated the trip. What's nice about Evolution's End? is that it manages to look beyond the angry-celebrity-syndrome to some of the facts that many people don't know (i.e. that as taxpayers we are subsidizing what is basically a financially struggling enterprise--the timber industry--which would truly suffer without government freebies), as well as the fact that 25% of the timber logged here is exported to Japan (exporting our exhaustible natural resources is not a particularly swift move, thinking-wise). While unquestionably anti-clearcutting, the program is not a rabid defense of the sanctity of trees--it offers sound economic and ethical reasons why we the people shouldn't be paying the timber industry to cut down trees in our national parks, lands that we the people agreed to set aside for mutual enjoyment by generations before and after us (hopefully). Both Earthday, Everyday and Evolution's End? are recommended. (Available from: Bennu Productions, 626 McLean Ave., Yonkers, NY 10705, (914) 964-1828, and other distributors.)