"You Can’t Have Infinite Growth on a Finite Planet" (7 minutes)
The earth is full. It's full of us. Full of our stuff. Full of our waste. Full of our demands. Our economy is now bigger than its host, our planet. What this means is our economy is unsustainable. When things aren't sustainable, they stop. Economic growth will stop because of the end of cheap resources. It will stop because of the growing demand of us on all the systems of the earth. It is based a crazy idea. The crazy idea being that we're going to have infinite growth on a finite planet. The earth doesn't care what we need. Mother Nature doesn't negotiate. She just sets rules and describes consequences. We tend to look at the world not as an integrated system that it is, but as a series of individual issues. We see the occupy protest. We see spiraling debt crises. We see growing inequality. We see money's influence on politics.
But we mistakenly see each of these issues as individual problems to be solved. In fact, it's the system in the painful process of breaking down.
We can choose this moment of crisis to ask and answer the big questions of society's evolution. Like, what do we want to be when we grow up? When we move past this bumbling adolescence, will we think there are no limits and suffer delusions of immorality? Well, it's time to grow up. To do wiser. To be calmer. To be more considered. Like generations before us, we'll be growing up in war. Not a war between civilizations, but a war for civilization. This could be our finest hour.
"Three Thoughtful Ways to Conserve Water" (11.5 minutes)
According to the UN, nearly one in three people worldwide live in a country facing a water crisis, and less than five percent of the world lives in a country that has more water today than it did 20 years ago. Lana Mazahreh grew up in Jordan, a state that has experienced absolute water scarcity since 1973, where she learned how to conserve water as soon as she was old enough to learn how to write her name. In this practical talk, she shares three lessons from water-poor countries on how to save water and address what's fast becoming a global crisis.
"How Martin Luther King's Dream Became A Nightmare" (10 minutes)
When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave the "I Have a Dream" 50 years ago, he had no idea Jim Crow would be replaced with another oppressive system: mass incarceration and the drug war. Nixon started the drug war just 8 years after King's "I have a Dream" speech. Both Reagan and Clinton continued it.
In 2013 a study found that more black men were incarcerated then were enslaved in the 1850. It's our turn to dream how to end mass incarceration. If you have a felony on your record, it's harder to get a job and you also cannot get many forms of public assistance.
In Dothan, Alabama, T.O.P.S. is offering support for people just getting out of jail-everything from clothes to GED. This is one way to end mass incarceration. It is important to see the links between civil rights, voting rights, and the drug war.
"Immigrants For Sale" (33 minutes)
Immigrants For Sale is a ground-breaking documentary that goes inside the private immigrant detention industry, through the lens of those most impacted, the players behind the trade and the multi-billion dollar profits that fuel it all.
"Catching Fire" (54 minutes)
Catching Fire tells a compelling story of how a small but committed group of local, tribal, state and federal land managers are bringing back the use of prescribed fire as a tool to protect communities and ecosystems across Northern California. It examines the use of fire by the Karuk Tribe of California, and the connection between the rise of megafires across the West and the last century of fire suppression. Drawing on interviews with fire scientists, tribal and federal land managers, and fire savvy residents from across the North State, this film provides insight on how our relationship to fire can be restored through strategic use of fire as a powerful management tool.