Thoreau is relevant today because we continue to confirm his observations. He taught us that treating the environment with respect not only made economic sense, it made even more sense as a moral imperative. “We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander,” he wrote. “In Wildness is the preservation of the World.”

Even within the context of climate change’s devastating and disproportionate impact on communities of color, black politicos won’t follow the president’s lead on the issue. The Congressional Black Caucus didn’t say if it would, at the very least, take a look at the rules—nor does it list climate change as an issue of focus (leaving it to the multicultural Congressional Progressive Caucus). 

Unfortunately, the Kyoto emission cuts didn’t go into force until 2008; Canada, one of the world’s biggest oil producers, wouldn’t sign it; the U.S. didn’t ratify it, nor did Australia, one of the world’s top coal producers; China, India and the rest of the developing world weren’t covered by it; and its limits lasted only until 2012.  The result of the treaty was that 20 percent of the growth of atmospheric carbon dioxide since people lived in caves occurred between 2000 and 2011.

This sprawling city east of San Francisco is home to Chevron’s oil refinery, which has made it a battleground between the company’s business interests and environmental activists who are calling for checks on air quality and safety. Now, as part of the company’s latest effort to rehabilitate its image in the city, Chevron is launching its own community news site. Chevron spokesperson Melissa Ritchie said that Chevron wanted to start the site because, “We want to make sure there’s a way to have a conversation with Richmond.”

The subject is so vast that it demands a director up to the task.  No stranger to activist movements, Kitchell created Berkeley in the Sixties, one of the defining protest films of its era, and the winner of many awards, including the the Best Documentary by the National Society of Film Critics.  Undaunted by the amount of research required, the mountains of archival footage to unearth, the spokespersons and narrators—Ashley Judd, Meryl Streep and Isabelle Allende, among others—necessary to make a relevant case for the survival of planet Earth, Kitchell has succeeded brilliantly.