- EarthFest - a free Earth Day concert featuring Michael Franti & Spearhead, Carolina Liar and SafetySuit - starts at 6 at the Gallivan Center, 239 S. Main St., Salt Lake City. Free.

- Three different Earth Day documentary screenings - each of them starting at 7:

• "Earth Days," about the pioneers of the environmental movement, at the Tower Theatre, 876 E. 900 South, Salt Lake City. Free.
• "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Nuclear Power* (*But Were Afraid To Ask)" at Brewvies Cinema Pub, 667 S. 200 West, Salt Lake City. A $10 donation to HEAL Utah is requested.
• "Who Killed the Electric Car?," an examination of how the first electric-powered car entered and left the U.S. market, at the I.J. and Jeanné Wagner Jewish Community Center, 2 North Medical Drive (across from University Hospital), Salt Lake City. Free.

- Self-described "flower punk" band Black Lips - with opening acts Flowers Forever and FURS - plays, starting at 9, at the Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 East, Salt Lake City. Tickets are $14, at 24Tix or at the door.

Labels: environment, Tonight's schedule

In today's print edition of The Salt Lake Tribune, the Culture Vulture column discusses the bevy of environmentally related movies that played the recently concluded Sundance Film Festival - and the coincidence of timing that Salt Lake City was inundated by a blanket of lung-choking smog during much of festival.

One interesting footnote: "The Cove," Louie Psihoyos' activist doc that gets the evidence on a secret dolphin slaughter in a Japanese fishing village, may be getting some attention in Japan. The Japan Times, the English-language daily in that country, has this story from Sundance. Whether any other news outlets in Japan pick up on it remains to be seen.

Labels: environment, Sundance

The Congress of Racial Equality, the civil-rights group/shill for Big Oil, showed up as promised Wednesday to protest outside the Broadway Centre Cinemas - calling out Robert Redford for his efforts to prevent oil drilling in southern Utah wild lands.

CORE (led by Niger Ennis, pictured) makes the argument that blocking oil drilling raises the price of fuel, which hurts poor people more than anyone else. (What CORE doesn't say is how much money the group receives from the oil industry.)

"The high energy prices we're going to see this winter are essentially discriminatory," said Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. of the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md. and chairman of an oil-industry advocacy group, the High-Impact Leadership Coalition.

The Tribune's Patty Henetz dutifully reported on Wednesday's protest. Tribune columnist Rebecca Walsh went deeper, as columnists can do in ways reporters cannot, decried the protest as "a dog-and-pony show":

"They slapped down the race card in front of a Sundance movie theater. It was brilliant. Movie star plus lots of Hollywood in town for the film festival plus middle-class white guilt equals exponential increase in media coverage. ... Turns out the 77-parcel sale to which Redford objected would amount to two days worth of U.S. consumption. But facts are beside the point. This is theater, media manipulation, politics -- or all three."

It's also patent nonsense. How many movies about the plight of the poor - "Frozen River" and "Trouble the Water" from last year's festival, just for examples - gained national recognition because of Sundance?

Labels: environment, Robert Redford

The story of Tim DeChristopher, the U. of Utah student who became an instant environmental activist when he bid on southern Utah oil and gas leases, is going global.

The Times of London profiled DeChristopher in its Sunday editions - and paint him the economics student as an accidental folk hero.

Here's a bit of the story:

He decided to go inside and cause a bit of disruption. Instead, something unexpected happened. An official approached him and said: "Hi, are you here for the auction?" He thought for a second. "Er, yes. I am."

"Are you a bidder?" she asked, smiling. "Well, er, yes I am."

DeChristopher found himself handing over his driving licence and a minute later had signed up. He took his bidding paddle, number 70, and sat down.

In the interview, DeChristopher gave a harsh assessment of the establishment environmental movement: "Their basic approach is that environmentalists should sign petitions and send donations. They want to make change one concession at a time, which gives them a seat at the table of power."

Labels: BLM, environment

The news sounds impressive, and dire: A storied civil-rights organization, the Congress of Racial Equality, is protesting actor/activist Robert Redford's call to stop oil and gas leases in southern Utah wild lands - and claiming Redford's stand is hurting low-income families.

But there's more than meets the eye to this story, which was reported Thursday by Lee Davidson in the Deseret News.

The Congress of Racial Equality - or CORE - was founded in 1942 to promote civil disobedience to stop discrimination against African-Americans. The group organized the "freedom riders" who protested segregated interstate travel through the South. It also helped organize the March on Washington in 1963, in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

But, since 1968, when Roy Innes took over the leadership of CORE, the group went hard to the right - as Innes threw his support to Richard Nixon. In recent years, Nigel Innes, Roy's son and CORE's current national chairman, has spoken out in support of oil drilling and against "eco-imperialism" - the idea that environmentalists' actions are damaging to the world's poor. The Center for Media and Democracy reports that, between 2003 and 2006, ExxonMobil gave CORE $275,000.

Labels: environment, Robert Redford

Robert Redford has put his considerable celebrity behind a federal lawsuit to stop the lame-duck Bush administration from selling off oil and gas leases near Utah's red-rock national parks.

As reported by Matt Canham, one of The Salt Lake Tribune's Washington correspondents, the lawsuit - announced in a D.C. press conference Wednesday - challenges 80 leases that go up for sale Friday.

Redford - participating in the press conference via satellite from L.A. - called the Bush administration "morally criminal" for announcing the sale on Election Day, a day Americans voted to reject Bush policies.

"No place on earth can speak to the balance of beauty and nature like these areas," Redford said.

Labels: BLM, environment, George W. Bush, Robert Redford

The old adage that "you can't fight City Hall" has required modification in recent years, to include corporations as something one isn't supposed to fight.

But the short documentary "Fighting Goliath," narrated and backed by Robert Redford and screening for free tonight in three Utah cities, shows an instance of determined local activists fighting a big corporation and (for now, at least) winning.

The documentary shows what happened when the energy giant TXU proposed building 11 coal-fired power plants in central and eastern Texas, with a regulatory process fast-tracked by Gov. Rick Perry. Ranchers, small-town residents and big-city mayors banded together to fight the plan, citing the environmental and health dangers the plants posed.

The movie is supported by The Redford Center at Sundance Preserve, founded in 2007 and "devoted to a distinct brand of problem solving that brings artists to the table to collaborate with diverse groups of policy makers."

Redford told the Associated Press he was inspired by the coalition of divergent interests coming together on this issue. "To me, that was a sign of changing times," he said.

The movie is screening tonight at 7 p.m. at three Utah locations: The Tower Theatre, 876 E. 900 South, Salt Lake City; the Quality Inn in Richfield; and Grace Episcopal Church in St. George. The screenings are free to the public.

Labels: environment, politics, Robert Redford