PART 1: THE DUH PRINCIPLE: BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY
"Look before you leap." "Better safe than sorry." These simple mottos express the heart of the precautionary principle, which acts as a lens for scientific choices, "an insurance policy against our own ignorance." Carolyn Raffensperger and Sharyle Patton share stories that put flesh and bone on this golden rule. Buy It!
PART 2: THE WONDERS OF GAIA – NATURE IS SYMBIOTIC
"Why plant a garden when you can put plants to work for you in your own body?" This is one of the mind bending questions Lynn Margulis, one of the greatest cross-disciplinary scientific thinkers and educators of our epoch, asks. She, ethnobotanist Wade Davis and mycologist Paul Stamets weave tales of amazing plant intelligence like the "Hat Thrower Mushroom" and animals that eat light. Buy It!
PART 3: ENERGY SECURITY – THE GROWTH OF SOFT ENERGY SYSTEMS
The recent energy "crisis" in California triggered the worst reflexes of many business and political leaders, who clamored for more fossil fuel power plants and fewer environmental limits. With the September 11th attacks has come the increased recognition that how we make and distribute energy is nearly impossible to protect. The Rocky Mountain Institute’s Hunter Lovins and renewable energy expert David Katz examine how these challenges present opportunities for dramatic shifts in energy production. Buy It!
PART 4: LIGHT AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD – REINVENTING THE POETRY OF DIVERSITY
Author/ethnobotanist/anthropologist, Wade Davis, has been from Borneo to Tibet to Haiti, from the high Arctic to the Andes and Amazon as an explorer of our planet’s wondrous cultural and biological diversity. He has found a fire burning over the Earth, taking with it plants and animals, cultures, languages, ancient skills and visionary wisdom. Quelling this flame and reinventing the poetry of diversity is the most important challenge of our times. Buy It!
PART 5: GREENING MEDICINE – THE MAINSTREAMING OF HERBS
Herbalism has finally broken through into mainstream medicine. Dr. Tieraona Low Dog, a physician/herbalist is a pioneer of this new paradigm. She questions modern medicine while practicing it. She explores the special relationship that exists between plants and humans and presents exciting evidence that validates the traditional use of medicines like — garlic! Buy It!
PART 6: SOIL AND SOUL – THE FUTURE OF FARMING
What are the hidden costs of agribusiness, with its chemical dependent mega farms? Poor nutrition and physical and mental illness, connected to poor nutrition, are on the rise in the United States. Farmers Michael Ableman and Joel Salatin express the soul that is returning to farming the land. Here come the chicken tractors, and the pigorators. Buy It!
PART 7: I HEARD THE VOICE OF A PORKCHOP – THE THEORETICAL PROMISE VERSUS THE ACTUAL PERILS OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS (GMO’S)
Master soil scientist Elaine Ingham describes a genetically modified organism she discovered in her screening work that if released, could have devastated global plant life. Writer Michael Pollan probes issues from food safety to the evolutionary significance of the power to genetically modify life and Peter Montague, the editor of Rachel’s Environment and Health News, reports on grassroots political actions that are beginning to render genetic engineering accountable to the public. Buy It!
PART 8: LESS IS MORE – TOWARD A ZERO-DISCHARGE INDUSTRY
How about creating an industry that emits no poisons into the environment? Direct action eco-heroine Diane Wilson has used civil disobedience to fight such chemical giants as Union Carbide and Dupont. She tried to sink her shrimp boat on Formosa Plastics’ toxic effluent pipe and won a zero discharge agreement. Professor of Environmental Engineering Jack Matson tells how chemical plants can and are achieving zero discharge. Buy It!
PART 9: DAUGHTERS OF THOREAU – NOT TOO WELL BEHAVED
On his deathbed, Henry David Thoreau said his only regret was that he had been too well behaved. Julia Butterfly Hill, Diane Wilson, and Terri Swearingen, three of the most imaginative, inspiring and courageous direct action heroines of our era share their experiences and show us how courage and commitment can stop mountains from being moved. Buy It!
PART 10: PLANTS AND PEOPLE – WHO'S CULTIVATING WHOM?
Award-winning journalist for the New York Times Magazine, Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World takes a fresh perspective on the co-evolution of people and plants. Ethnobotanist/artist Kathleen Harrison, who has been working with the Mazatec people of Oaxaca, delves into the human-sacred plant sacrament relationship. Buy It!
PART 11: GETTING THE REAL STORY – BYPASSING CORPORATE MEDIA
The rise of new communications technologies capable of linking us as never before coincides with an unprecedented bid by the corporate media to monopolize the message. How can media be used to catalyze a national and global conversation about what really matters? Peter Montague the editor of Rachel’s Environment and Health News, Mark Sommer, the Executive Director of the Mainstream Media Project, Elise Hoeg of the Rainforest Action Network describe strategies that are working. Buy It!
PART 12: NATURE AS HEALER – RESTORING LIFE AND COMMUNITY
Anna Marie Carter, the "Seed Lady" of Watts, shares heartful stories of community renewal that have grown from her work building free organic gardens for residents of south central Los Angeles. T. Allen Comp presents his extraordinary work with AMD&ART, a non-profit that has combined public art, environmental improvement and community engagement in treating abandoned mine drainage in Appalachia. Buy It!
PART 13: NATURE AND SPIRIT – IT'S ALL CONNECTED
Global healing requires a spiritual transformation of every aspect of life. Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun Magazine, author/educator Matthew Fox and Joanna Macy, eco-philosopher and scholar of Buddhism speak of the profound interconnectedness of all life and the experience of joy, courage and community we need to engage in the healing of the world. Buy It!
