While we were unable to gather for our Earth Fair with so many local environmental groups as planned, you can see the film we'd intended for our community screening. Celebrate alone and together as you enjoy this important Earth Day documentary film from your living room.

Watch the film on Kanopy. All you need is your library card!

Stream Earth Days: Seeds of a Revolution

In December 1969, Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson hired 25-year-old Denis Hayes to organize a national teach-in about the environment. Just four months later, on April 22, 1970, more than 20 million Americans across the country participated in celebrations and demonstrations — the largest in American history — demanding political action to protect the environment. Their grassroots call to action led to groundbreaking national legislation and created a new consciousness about the fragility of the earth’s resources.

The collective strength of the public’s outcry gave Washington a mandate for environmental action. In the years that followed, Congress was flooded with environmental legislation. Between 1972 and 1974, Congress passed the Clean Water Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, Coastal Zone Management Act, Endangered Species Act, Energy Supply and Environmental Coordination Act, Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The documentary film Earth Days looks at the road to April 22, 1970, to the dawn and development of the modern environmental movement through the extraordinary stories of the era’s pioneers — among them Former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, biologist/Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich, Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand, Apollo Nine astronaut Rusty Schweickart, and renewable energy pioneer Hunter Lovins. Earth Days is a meditation on man’s complex relationship with nature and an engaging history of the revolutionary achievements and missed opportunities of groundbreaking eco-activism.