23rd Annual International Festival - “Protecting the Earth and Our Future”

West Regional Center - Saturday, April 7

International Festival Schedule of Activities

Film: An Inconvenient Truth (100 min.)
10 a.m., Room 111, WERC
Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, reset the course of his life to focus on a last ditch, all- out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change.

In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his "traveling global warming show," Gore also proves himself to be one of the most misunderstood characters in modern American public life. Here he is seen as never before in the media funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our "planetary emergency" out to ordinary citizens before it's too late.

With 2005, the worst storm season ever experienced in America just behind us, it seems we may be reaching a tipping point and Gore pulls no punches in explaining the dire situation. Interspersed with the bracing facts and future predictions is the story of Gore's personal journey: from an idealistic college student who first saw a massive environmental crisis looming; to a young Senator facing a harrowing family tragedy that altered his perspective, to the man who almost became President but instead returned to the most important cause of his life convinced that there is still time to make a difference.

With wit, smarts and hope, “An Inconvenient Truth” ultimately brings home Gore's persuasive argument that we can no longer afford to view global warming as a political issue rather, it is the biggest moral challenges facing our global civilization.
-from www.climatecrisis.net

Film: Silent Killer: The Unfinished Campaign Against Hunger (56 min.)
1 p.m., Room 111, WERC
“Silent Killer” begins in the 100-degree heat of South Africa's Kalahari Desert. Three members of the Khomani San tribe – commonly called Bushmen – search for, and find, the Hoodia, a cactuslike plant with appetitesuppressant properties. The razorthin San use the cactus to fend off hunger, but now, a pharmaceutical firm has patented the appetitesuppressant properties of Hoodia and is using it to make a diet product for obese Americans and Europeans. The Hoodia is a metaphor for a world where some people have too much food, but millions of others have far too little.

Can we end hunger or will it always be with us? Why should we try? What will it take? What are we doing now? How do U.S. efforts to end hunger compare with those of other developed countries? Can biotechnology play a role, and if so, how? Is hunger just a problem of distribution or do we still need to produce more and better crops? These are the questions addressed in Silent Killer.” Compelling stories and characters raise and answer these questions in a powerful, exquisitely photographed documentary that will get people talking again about an international crisis that keeps haunting the world.
-from www.silentkillerfilm.org