American Masters A Fierce Green Fire

 

Premieres nationally Tuesday, April 22, 2014, 9-10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings) in honor of Earth Day

 

 

Film Interviewees

(in order of appearance)

 

Tom Turner, author and editor at Friends of the Earth and Earthjustice; a protégé of David Brower whose biography he recently wrote

 

Martin Litton, David Brower’s main ally in conservation battles from Dinosaur Monument in the 1950s to the Grand Canyon and Redwood National Park in the 1960s

 

Doug Scott, conservation activist and organizer of Earth Day; former legislative director for the Sierra Club and formed the Campaign for America’s Wilderness

 

Jerry Mander, ad man for the Sierra Club during the Grand Canyon campaign turned social critic (Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television and other books); founder of the International Forum on Globalization, which led WTO protests in Seattle in 1999

 

Stewart Brand, publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog and the CoEvolution Quarterly; author, Whole Earth Discipline, which explores paths to the future

 

Philip Shabecoff, former The New York Times environmental journalist; founder of Greenwire; author of A Fierce Green Fire on which the film is loosely based, as well as Earth Rising and Poisoned Profits (with his wife Alice)

 

John Adams, founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which he led from a law firm for the environment to one of the most influential national environmental groups

 

Lois Gibbs, the archetypal angry housewife with sick children who led Love Canal (Niagara Falls, N.Y.) residents in a two-year battle to combat toxic waste; founder of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ); she has spent 35 years organizing grassroots activism

 

Robert Bullard, pioneering environmental justice advocate; author of Dumping in Dixie and other books as well as the study “Toxic Wastes and Race.”

 

Rex Weyler, a draft dodger who helped found Greenpeace; he was part of the early whale and seal campaigns, wrote the defining history of Greenpeace, and is still active in many causes

 

Paul Watson, a founder of Greenpeace who dreamed up the baby harp seal campaign and later was kicked out for going too far; founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, where he has been hunting the hunters ever since

 

Barbara Bramble, head of National Wildlife Federation’s international affairs; campaigned against destructive impacts of development and helped reform World Bank environmental policies; a key U.S. ally of Chico Mendes and the rubber tappers

 

Adrian Cowell (recently deceased), journalist who made The Decade of Destruction, the defining documentary film series about the Amazon; close to Chico Mendes and helped bring him to the world’s attention

 

Vijaya Nagarajan, professor at University of San Francisco and co-director of the Institute for the Study of Natural and Cultural Resources; author of the forthcoming book Feeding a Thousand Souls: Women, Ritual and Ecology in India

 

Jennifer Morgan, climate activist who led World Wildlife Fund efforts from Kyoto to Copenhagen; head of the Climate and Energy Program at the World Resources Institute

 

Stephen Schneider (recently deceased), pioneering climate scientist at National Center for Atmospheric Research and Stanford University; author and tireless advocate; this is one of his last interviews

 

Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature, the first book about global warming; moved to activism after a decade of frustration; founded 350.org with his students and built it into a leading organization battling climate change worldwide; led Keystone XL pipeline battle

 

Mark Hertsgaard, author of Hot: Surviving the Next Fifty Years and Earth Odyssey; longtime journalist for The Nation on environmental issues

 

Paul Hawken, author of The Ecology of Commerce, Natural Capitalism and Blessed Unrest; eco-entrepreneur and visionary

 

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