What Would Rachel Say?

15th Annual Environmental Film Festival
Thursday March 15th - Sunday March 25th, 2007

http://www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org/

At the end of 2006, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote:
We reached a tipping point this year ; where living, acting, designing, investing and manufacturing green came to be understood by a critical mass of citizens, entrepreneurs and officials as the most patriotic, capitalistic, geopolitical, healthy and competitive thing they could do. Hence my own motto: Green is the new red, white and blue...

Beginning this month, to mark the 100th anniversary of Rachel 's birth, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service , working with the Friends of the National Conservation Training Center , will celebrate the achievements of its most notable employee by launching the Rachel Carson Online Book Club , free and open to anyone.  The March book discussion topic is Carson's Life and Legacy; you can find the full schedule of books and topics  here .

Locally, the Green Decade Coalition/Newton MA works on environmental issues, and GDC's  GreenCAP Committee for Alternatives to Pesticides has a display about Rachel Carson in the library's lobby this month.  The Green Decade Coalition also has several upcoming  events at the library, including a free showing this Saturday, March 10 at 1:00 p.m. of Al Gore's Academy Award-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth" with discussion afterward led by Professor Eric Olson of Brandeis University, and special guest Mayor David Cohen.

In addition, The New England Mobile Book Fair   joins the birthday celebration with a 30% discount on books by and about Rachel Carson throughout the month.

What is new, and what is not new, as we approach Rachel Carson's 100th birthday 

NRDC's " On Earth ,"  Spring, 2007 "Reviews:   Is Spring Still Silent?/
What Is New and What Is not New" by E. Kolbert and reviews of: "Courage for the Earth /Writers, Scientists, and Activist Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson " edited by Peter Matthiessen and also a review of "Silent Spring."

COURAGE FOR THE EARTH, Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson, Edited by Peter Matthiessen, Mariner Books, 224 pp., $14.95

SILENT SPRING, By Rachel Carson, Mariner Books, 378 pp., $14

Here you can see all the parts of the Sea this coastal Maine salt marsh. From critical edge through creeks, salt pannes, marsh grass, beach and ocean, it is a network of soils, water, plants and wildlife that functions as a whole, forming a unique and fragile community. As Rachel Carson wrote,"All the life of the planet is interrelated...each species has its own ties to others, and...all are related to the earth." (Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us)   

Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge Trail Guide, www.fws.gov/northeast/rachelcarson/brochure.html