GLC goes to the Colorado Environmental Film Festival

On February 24th, a group of high schoolers got to go to the Colorado Environmental Film Festival for a GLC event! The students watched five documentaries and then got to explore a Eco Expo and photo gallery. There was a lot of interesting things at the Eco Expo, including live animals like snakes and owls and a photo booth.

The first film the students watched was called “Prescription Strength Convenience”, which is directed by Malia Cahill. This funny film illustrated a parody of a prescription drug, which poked fun at the many environmentally unfriendly actions people take on a daily basis. The film also illustrates how those actions can harm our environment and quality of life. The film was depicted a commercial that you would see on television in between a show you were watching, so the film was much shorter than the others the students watched.

The second film the students watched was called “The Case for Organics”, which is directed by Dave Bowden. In the film the students learned about the need for growing and eating organic produce. The film showed the advances in biological and horticultural science that supported the idea that people should grow and eat organic produce. 

The third film the students watched was called “The Hundred-Year-Old Whale”, which is directed by Mark Leiren-Young. The film followed the life of “Granny”, a hundred-year-old orca whale that lived off the west coast of Canada. Granny was born in the era where orca whales’ lives were being threatened with hunting and being put on display in places like SeaWorld. As the film followed Granny’s life, they also address the history of the hundred-year battle on orca’s lives that is still being fought to this day. 

The second to last film the students watched was called “Voices of the Inside Passage”, directed by Bryon Goggin. The film told the story of a modern-day battle between industry and the environment within a stretch of water between British Columbia and Southeast Alaska. British Columbia’s $9 billion/year mining industry is trying to claim more land to mine, which can cause danger to the water between British Columbia and Southeast Alaska due to runoff and mass floods of pollution. This is a threat to Southeast Alaska’s fishing industry, that supplies over ⅙ of the United States seafood. If pollution from the mines flow into the water, then the fish will be as risk which could greatly impact Southeast Alaska’s fishing industry. Locals to Southeast Alaska are fighting back the mining industry so their livelihoods and fishing industry will not be at risk. 

The final film the students watched was called “Power of the River”, which is directed by Greg I. Hamilton. Within the country Bhutan, a small group of natives to the country fight to protect their rivers from pressure to build dams for energy. A man named “Good Karma”, one of the natives to Bhutan, lead a rafting expedition with his crew and four Americans down one of these wild rivers that were threatened to have a dam built within it. During this expedition, the four Americans learned the what the impacts could be to the communities that lived around the river, and also what could happen to the river’s fish if a dam was built.