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Browse the original reporting from the staff at Cinema Verde and GoGreenNation.

Cinema Verde Newsletter April 2025

Check out these Cinema Verde films and more!

We are delighted to announce that we have selected 45 new films to be presented in our 2025 Cinema Verde film festival! As we celebrate the selection of this year’s films, we also face turbulent times. Like so many others in the environmental justice field, we face an uncertain future. We are a team of committed volunteers working eagerly toward a festival to be held in 2025. As an independent nonprofit, we're currently facing a shortage of funding and support, and we need a community more than ever. If Cinema Verde has inspired you, informed you, or sparked your curiosity, we invite you to contribute. Your support—big or small—can bring these stories to life. At this time we are working to produce Cinema Verde 2025 a virtual festival and we hope to open on Earth Day, April 22. We also hope to present some of our official selections in person in the coming year. Please stay tuned for details. Donation Page Featured Films: Now Playing Explore the Cinema Verde channel for a selection of thought-provoking films like the ones below—and so many more! Dive into powerful stories that inspire change and raise awareness about our planet's future. Cinema Verde Channel Mayday Terranean Mayday Terranean is a documentary film portraying the problems of the Mediterranean Sea as well as the beauty it still has to offer. Scientists, conservationists and activists from countries around the Mediterranean Sea talk about the topic, their relationship to ocean conservation and shed light on the story of this wonderful but endangered place. Watch Trailer TUPUNGATO - empathy In Death Tupungato - empathy in death, follows Rafael Pease’s six year obsession of visibilizing a threatened area. A winter expedition to the highest peak, Volcano Tupungato 21,555ft, evolves into a fight for conservation. In hopes of creating a national park, containing 340,000 acres in one of the worlds biodiversity hotspots, as well as a significant source of water for 40% of Chile’s population. Interviews with renowned scientists and activists unveil a web of corruption in the government and multinational corporations, stemming from imperial religion and a dictators constitution. This explosive film is set against the backdrop of historic protests, as the people of Chile rise up for social and environmental rights. Watch Trailer Confessions of An Ecoterrorist A feature length documentary film. A unique look at eco-history from one who was there for 40 years: Peter Jay Brown, and a humorous examination of the word “eco-terrorist” in today’s reality. Watch Trailer Get Involved Today! We’re currently seeking sponsors, partners, advertisers, and small businesses to collaborate with! Fill out the form below to place an ad on our Roku channel and support our mission of showcasing powerful films that inspire action toward a more sustainable world. Let’s work together to create lasting impact. Contact us Copyright (C) * 2025 All rights reserved *

Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge is power

Cinema Verde provides environmental education to the public to help ensure that students, their parents, our political leaders and the titans of industry can learn about the problems we are facing so we can all work together to solve these problems. We all want our children to have the best possible future and to be able to enjoy happy, healthy lives. Students in Florida - and everywhere - have a resource to learn essential information about the environment and the challenges we face. 

The Florida Department of Education has agreed to suppress knowledge about environmental issues that are visibly threatening our future - essentially disabling our children from solving the problems that our generation and our parents’ generation have created. What parent would want their children to perish in fires like those in Maui and California or floods such as those in Maine and Vermont? When we send our children to school, we want to educate them so they can lead better lives - we are arming them with knowledge to build a safe and prosperous future for themselves and the world. What value is there in providing them with false information that will prevent them from that brighter future? Fossil fuel companies profit from poisoning our planet and they literally pay some of our government leaders to keep their profits flowing. Cinema Verde provides environmental education to the public to help ensure that students, their parents, our political leaders and the titans of industry can learn about the problems we are facing so we can all work together to solve these problems. We all want our children to have the best possible future and to be able to enjoy happy, healthy lives. Students in Florida - and everywhere - have a resource to learn essential information about the environment and the challenges we face. Cinema Verde offers a discount program for professors and students to access our films via our website at www.CinemaVerde.org. [More info: Discount for Professors and Students] Or anyone with a Roku tv or roku device can access our films for free. The films are organized in both places by category - you can search for water films or films on Florida, etc., to see what you want. https://www.cinemaverde.org/roku We gather articles from reputable sources around the world to provide environmental news on our GoGreenNation environmental news page: https://www.cinemaverde.org/news We’re not like Nazi’s, as the propaganda being fed to our children under the guise and sanction of education in Florida suggests. We at Cinema Verde are dedicated to helping and protecting our children and all children - even those of fossil fuel company executives and sold-out politicians who continue to spew lies - they’re trading our lives to fill their pockets with cash. We don’t have to allow this. Knowledge is power. Tune in to Cinema Verde - we are powering the planet for a successful future. – By Trish Riley, Director of Cinema Verde and award-winning investigative environmental journalist and author.

Highlights of Cinema Verde's 2023 Earth Day Celebration

Cinema Verde’s 2023 Three-Day Earth Day Celebration began with a clean-up of Ashley Creek on April 21st where community members came together and got their hands dirty while making a visible difference. Thank you to Keep Alachua County Beautiful and Current Problems for providing all the supplies to make this day successful! Attendees also had the opportunity to learn about waste dangers and management.

Cinema Verde’s 2023 Three-Day Earth Day Celebration began with a clean-up of Ashley Creek on April 21st where community members came together and got their hands dirty while making a visible difference. Thank you to Keep Alachua County Beautiful and Current Problems for providing all the supplies to make this day successful! Attendees also had the opportunity to learn about waste dangers and management. Then, everyone was welcome to relax and get to know one another over dinner at the afterparty, generously hosted by Son Vo at Swamp Boil restaurant. On April 22nd, Cinema Verde partnered with #UNLITTER UF to present a Sustainable Showcase which featured local vendors with unique designs and individual missions, all with the shared goal of bettering the environment. Some of the products included handmade crochet designs by Crochizzydesigns, jewelry made from preserved plant materials by Flores de Miel, and artwork of lesser-known animal species by Colorful Creature Shop which donates to conservation institutions, to name a few. It was a blast getting to know every vendor present. Afterward, attendees got to sit back and relax at Cypress & Grove where Cinema Verde held a casual screening of the 2023 Cinema Verde award-winning festival films. One highlight of the evening was Keil Trosiri from the notorious culture-jamming collective The Yes Men, who presented documentary shorts that were comedic, surprising, and unafraid to push the boundaries in order to promote environmental justice campaigns. He discussed mischief-activism techniques, how to hack media attention, and how to undermine oppressive systems through humor, shock, and play.On April 23rd, Cinema Verde sponsors, filmmakers, and valued guests arrived at Passions Field, a lovely wildflower farm that utilizes regenerative agriculture techniques to maintain the natural beauty of the landscape, thanks to Txong Moua who generously provided the venue and taught attendees all about her landscape. The evening was a true celebration of mother earth as guests dined among the flowers and under a large oak that provided the perfect amount of shade. Louis Marks, founder of The Carnivore Connection, a carnivorous plant expert and conservation enthusiast, gave guests a talk about indigenous carnivorous plants and what makes them so unique. Then, Txong took guests on a tour of the farm grounds and gave them a more in-depth look into the diverse plant life as well as an interesting discussion on invasive species and more. Floridian landscape painter Peter Carolin provided a few of his sought-after art pieces for guests to browse on sight, as well as generously pledged half his proceeds that day to Cinema Verde as a donation. Later, renowned chef Mark Newman of the iconic Leonardo’s 706 restaurants provided a colorful, sustainable dining experience. Guests could not get enough of the unique, delectable display which included fresh fruit, Mediterranean salad, tuna tartar, baked salmon with a dill sauce, rustic homemade pita bread, a garlic hummus to die for, spanakopita, the list goes on. Once everyone was seated and the dining experience was wrapping up, Dr. Ed Kellerman, the emcee of the evening, took to the mic to emphasize the importance of environmental awareness and Cinema Verde’s role in that mission. Then, he introduced the organization’s director Trish Riley to say a few words as well as honor some of the 14th annual Cinema Verde festival filmmakers with awards. Some of the filmmakers honored included Keil Troisi in collaboration with Molly Gore for their film Total Disaster and winner of the strategic targeting award, Megan Cahill, director of Nature Nut: Wet N’ Wild and winner of the education award, Alycin Hayes for her work with Jimmy Evans on the film Wild Florida’s Vanishing Call and winner of the local award. Marin Best, only fourteen, was also honored for her role in the film Home Waters in which she trekked through Rainbow Springs State Park with a small group of conservationists to film, a 50-mile trip, and no small venture. Marin talked about her experience and hopes to inspire other young women in conservation. The evening slowly came to a close as guests continued to socialize and enjoy the atmosphere as the sun set on the beautiful, natural landscape.

Beauty Berry: Nature’s Insect Repellant

Walking along the edge of the woods in the southern United States you may have stopped in awe at the sight of vibrant magenta berries waving with broad leaves under the canopy of trees in the fall. In the spring a hiker may stop to view the lilac clusters of flowers that are attracting the bumble bees. This magnificent shrub is the American Beautyberry, a natural plant to the southern U.S. states that feeds birds, wildlife and historically, indigenous people. If you are lucky you will find them growing without care on your property for vase cuttings that last many weeks on the table.

Walking along the edge of the woods in the southern United States you may have stopped in awe at the sight of vibrant magenta berries waving with broad leaves under the canopy of trees in the fall. In the spring a hiker may stop to view the lilac clusters of flowers that are attracting the bumble bees. This magnificent shrub is the American Beautyberry, a natural plant to the southern U.S. states that feeds birds, wildlife and historically, indigenous people. If you are lucky you will find them growing without care on your property for vase cuttings that last many weeks on the table. ‍An ethnobotanic story of the beautyberry is that the chemical properties stored in the roots, leaves, and berries were historically used by the southern Choctaw, Creek and Seminole Native American tribes for medicinal purposes. They used the roots to treat dizziness, stomachaches and dysentery. Roots and berries were boiled and consumed to treat colic. Sweat baths were conducted using the roots to treat malarial fevers and rheumatism. The beautyberry was recently brought back into a study led by scientists at Emory University and the University of Notre Dame for treatment of COVID-19. Beautyberry studies are proving the plant extract as an innovative solution to treat the issue of antibiotic resistance to infectious diseases.‍To prevent insect bites one can simply crumple the fresh leaves in hand and rub them directly on the skin. A preferred alternative to questionable DEET products is to boil leaves in water on the stove to release the compound, allow to cool and transfer the liquid to a spray bottle for use to repel mosquitoes, red ants and ticks. However, amateur home herbalists can easily make this organic recipe shared by Out More USA as a moisturizing cream that can be applied safely to people and pet paws to deter biting insects:‍Beauty Berry Insect Cream‍Vitamin E is great for your skin and citronella has insect repellent properties of its own so this cream is likely more effective than using Beautyberry alone.‍Ingredients:3 cups boiling water1 cup Beautyberry leaves, chopped2 tablespoons beeswax 1/3 cup Grapeseed Oil1 teaspoon Vitamin E Oil10 drops Lemongrass essential oil (optional)10 drops Citronella essential oil (optional)Directions:Gently simmer chopped leaves for 20 minutes, covered. Pour the water into a jar while straining out the leaves. Melt the bees wax and the grapeseed oil by putting them in a glass canning jar and place the jar in a pot of water on medium heat. As soon as the wax is melted, remove the jar and add Vitamin E oil. Add 1/2 a cup strained water (make sure it is still warm) to the wax/oil and mix well until it becomes creamy. Add the citronella and lemongrass essential oils, cover and shake well. If you see any separation between the water and oil as it cools, shake more until it is well emulsified.One can purchase an American Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana shrub or dried seeds to add to gardens in zone 6b-11a. We’ve attached a wonderful growing guide provided by the Florida Native Plant Society for successful planting.

Lights, Camera, Action: Cinema Verde's 2023 Festival Films and Sustainable Showcase are a Must-See!

Cinema Verde is hosting a three-day Earth Day celebration from April 21-23, 2023. The celebration includes a community clean-up event, a sustainable showcase, and a celebration dinner to honor the talented filmmakers who showcased their inspiring work during the February Cinema Verde festival.

Cinema Verde is proud to announce its upcoming three-day Earth Day celebration, a series of events designed to inspire, educate and engage the local community in environmental stewardship. The event, which will take place from April 21st to April 23rd, includes a community clean-up, a sustainable showcase, and an awards dinner celebrating the best of green cinema. The first event, a community clean-up at Ashley Creek located just north of NW 19th Lane, will take place on April 21st from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm. The event is free to attend, and all necessary supplies will be provided by Keep Alachua County Beautiful, including gloves, bags, and tools. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about the impact of waste on our environment and the ways we can all make a difference. Swampboil will host a kick-off reception at 6:30 p.m. to celebrate Cinema Verde and our filmmakers. The second event, a sustainable showcase and 2023 Cinema Verde festival films screening at Cypress & Grove, will take place on April 22nd from 4 pm to 7 pm. The event is free to attend and has been organized in partnership with #UNLITTER UF. The showcase will feature organizations and vendors, all with a shared commitment to protecting the environment and promoting social responsibility. Afterward, attendees can wind down at Cypress & Grove with a screening of select 2023 Cinema Verde festival films, which will run until 10 pm. Friends and family are welcome to attend for a great night of fun and learning. The third event, the Cinema Verde Earth Day Celebration Dinner at Passions Field, will take place on April 23rd from 4 to 8 pm. The exclusive event will celebrate the talented filmmakers who showcased their inspiring work during the February Cinema Verde festival. The dinner will be hosted at a beautiful flower farm, providing the perfect setting for an elegant and sustainable dining experience. Tickets are limited, and attendees are encouraged to secure their spot at the table today. As a token of appreciation, all tickets include an annual membership at Cinema Verde valued at $60. Bring a friend, and receive a half-price discount on your second ticket. The three-day Earth Day celebration promises to be an unforgettable experience, providing a platform to raise awareness and promote sustainable practices in the local community. Cinema Verde, with its long-standing commitment to environmental conservation, hopes to inspire individuals to make positive changes and live a more sustainable lifestyle. In conclusion, the upcoming Earth Day celebration hosted by Cinema Verde is a testament to the organization's unwavering commitment to environmental conservation. Through a series of inspiring events, including a community clean-up, a sustainable showcase, and an awards dinner, the organization aims to raise awareness, educate, and encourage individuals to take action in protecting the environment. The events are free to attend, with the exception of the Celebration Dinner, and participants are guaranteed a unique and unforgettable experience. The three-day celebration is a great opportunity to learn and engage with like-minded individuals and organizations committed to environmental sustainability.

Offshore Wind Moves Forward on California Coast

Progress continues on the controversial proposal to install a multi-billion dollar wind farm off the California coast. The five project areas will provide future power needs equivalent to the electricity produced by Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, which was on schedule to be retired until this past legislative session. On November 21, PG&E received a federal grant of $1.1 billion to keep it operating for another five years.

Progress continues on the controversial proposal to install a multi-billion dollar wind farm off the California coast. The five project areas will provide future power needs equivalent to the electricity produced by Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, which was on schedule to be retired until this past legislative session. On November 21, PG&E received a federal grant of $1.1 billion to keep it operating for another five years. California’s deep waters, 3,000 feet, are three times as deep as any floating wind turbines have been launched. Forging into the unknown presents a number of concerns and promises that engineers, officials and citizens are weighing out. Leases to Outer Continental Land, needed to locate as many as 1,300 mega-sized wind turbines, will be auctioned off December 6. The process for building 2-5 GigaWatt offshore wind projects, producing more electricity than Diablo Canyon, gets underway with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s lease sale auction starting at 7 a.m. Pacific. They will warm up with a practice auction the day before. The auction could take two days to reach a conclusion and settle on five winning bidders. The lease sale includes three Morro Bay areas, (80,062 acres, 80,418 acres, 80,418 acres), and two Humboldt areas, (673,338 acres and 69,031 acres) totaling 373,268 acres of the Outer Continental Shelf, 20-30 miles offshore. Forty-three bidders have qualified and ponied up the $5 million bid deposit to participate.‍ Bidding credits‍ Bids will be considered not only on amount of money, but also on how they propose to use the bidding credits. Bidders can qualify for up to 20 percent credit by committing to investing in workforce training and supply chain development. They can also get up to five percent credit for a Lease Area Use Community Benefit Agreement and five percent for a General Community Benefit Agreement. CBAs are intended to mitigate potential impacts on- and offshore to communities, tribal, or other stakeholder groups and may assist fishing and related industries by supporting their resilience and ability to adapt to impacts that may arise from the development of the lease area. A Lease Area Use CBA would be between the lessee and a community or stakeholder group “whose use of the geographic space of the Lease Area, or whose use of resources harvested from that geographic space, is directly impacted by the Lessee’s potential offshore wind development. ”The General CBA would be with communities, tribes, or stakeholder groups that are expected to be affected by the potential impacts on the marine, coastal, and/or human environment from activities resulting from lease development that are not otherwise addressed by the Lease Area Use CBA. Eric Endersby, Morro Bay’s harbor director, sees how those credits can help the waterfront. “We are the closest port to the Morro Bay area, and we are a protected port, so it makes sense for the operations and maintenance boats to be coming and going out of Morro Bay,” he said in an interview. “There would be a lot of fuel sales, a lot of high-dollar, high-skilled jobs. The cable is coming into Morro Bay, through the grid system, so there’ll be that aspect to it. We see a revitalization of our working waterfront.” Other ocean users The leases require consideration of other users, from commercial fishing and Department of Defense national security to vessel speed requirements, use of low-energy geophysical survey equipment and coordinating with the Coastal Commission on plan submissions. Bidders know that BOEM has no authority to issue leases in national marine sanctuaries. The Morro Bay wind areas are adjacent to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the proposed Chumash Heritage NMS. Violet Sage Walker, chair of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council, wrote in an op-ed in The Tribune, “The Northern Chumash Tribal Council advocates for marine conservation, equitable mitigation measures and fair community benefits. We believe offshore wind must coexist and cooperate with marine protections, and we see this as a unique opportunity for a collaborative effort, not a combative one.” Frankie Myers, vice chair of the Yurok Tribe in Northern California, said at the Floating Wind USA 2022 conference in San Francisco, that the ocean is the last place his people have to pray. “We can’t go any further west,” he said. “What will our descendants see? Another colonial resource or a collaborative partner?” Lines on a map are abstractions that are irrelevant to fisheries and tribal lands. Full details are in the Final Sale Notice National and state goals The West Coast Floating Offshore Wind projects, with a goal of 4.5 GW of power by 2030, are part of the Biden administration’s goal for Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, a commitment to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 and at least 25 gigawatts of onshore renewable energy by 2025.The state of California has set a target of 2-5 GW of offshore wind power by 2030 and 25 GW by 2045. Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant’s two units combined produce 2.2 GW. Although intended to be retired in 2024 and 2025, in 2022 the legislature extended the plant’s licenses five years. ‍New port terminals needed Ten additional port terminals along California’s coast will be required to support the projects. None of California’s current ports is large enough or strong enough to support the wind turbine staging and fabrication. Terminals may be located in existing ports such as Long Beach and San Francisco, but construction of entirely new ports may be required. ‍Building the turbines Turbines are 1,100 feet tall on a base 425 feet wide. About 1,300 are projected to be installed in the West Coast projects. The size of the turbines presents problems yet unsolved, including moving the assembled turbines from the manufacturing facility into the water. It could take two weeks or longer to tow them out to the site where they will be tethered. The size and complications of constructing the turbines and setting them in place presents risks that are difficult to evaluate and insure. “What keeps me up at night is a project that is uninsurable,” one insurance executive said.‍ Deeper waters, bigger ships Hanson Wood, regional senior vice president for development in the West Region, EDF Renewables, said that although technical lessons have been learned from projects in Asia, there is no precedent for a wind project in California’s depths, around 3,000 feet. The chains tethering the turbines to sea floor anchors could put marine mammals at risk by catching drifting fishing gear and ensnaring them. The area is known as the Blue Serengeti for its migration routes of whales and seals. A ship large enough to transport the turbine parts, in compliance with U.S. Jones Law, is under construction in Texas. The 472-foot-long Charybdis is estimated to cost around $500 million. Humboldt has already received a grant for $10.5 million to renovate its facilities into the Humboldt Bay Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal, which will be capable of handling large heavy cargo vessels, offshore wind floating platform development and integration and decommissioning, and other maritime activities. Developing the Central Coast wind area could create around 15,000 new jobs, according to a report on the economic impact by REACH Central Coast and Cal Poly. Environmental impacts Environmental impacts such as the loss of wind energy that drives the ocean upwelling which is the central feature of ocean ecology in the area remain to be evaluated in the future. The amount of money involved is staggering, hundreds of billions of dollars, so those credits – 20 percent for workforce and supply chain, and five percent each for offshore and onshore impacts – will represent large amounts of money to communities like Morro Bay and Humboldt. It’s not without significant risk, though. In mid-November, Shell, with partners China General Nuclear Power Group and France’s Caisse des dépôts et consignations (CDC) canceled a demonstration floating wind project offshore France. Shell’s statement cited ”technical, commercial and financial challenges” in the execution of the project as the main reasons for the decision to cancel the EUR 300 million, 28.5 MW Groix & Belle-Île pilot wind farm, Le Parisien reports.“ The economic conditions linked to the project have been significantly modified, calling into question, for all the partners of the consortium, the economic viability of the project,” Shell was quoted as saying in a statement. State regulators Representatives of California’s State Lands Commission and the Coastal Commission attended the San Francisco conference, supporting the projects. Governor Gavin Newsom is committed to floating offshore wind and the regulatory agencies are on board. All projects will be subjected to California's notoriously contentious permitting process, but the pressure is on to get turbines in the water by 2030. With the workforce development required – it will take as long as two years to train welders to the skill level needed – new port terminals to be constructed, and techniques for anchoring the turbines in such deep water refined, sussing out the risks of screwing it up is needed. Yurok Vice Chair Myers said, “The path to messing it up is just so wide. ”While the powers behind the idea and the money are moving forward, those communities that will be most affected are watching from the sidelines. “I’m afraid that it will be just such a bright, shiny object that it will distract us from the changes we need to make,” one conference participant said privately. The question of whether this provides the solution California needs for its future power requirements, or if expenses and technical problems overwhelm it remains to be seen. We will keep you posted.

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