Down to Earth Film Features Maine Climate Activists

In the uplifting and thought-provoking feature-length film Down to Earth: Climate Justice Stories, thirteen Maine people of diverse ages, cultures, and gender identities—your neighbors—passionately share their experiences and wisdom addressing climate injustices. Some challenge institutions and their own communities to say “no” to fossil fuels expansion. Some embrace their ancestors’ and present-day struggles for land and water sovereignty. Some are creating a model for fossil-fuel free living. Some risked arrest in solidarity with front-line and indigenous communities in the southwest and Alberta, Canada, who are experiencing the pain of environmental and social injustices. The Maine storytellers are teachers, students, an indigenous historian, retired corporate lawyer, psychologist, social worker, and land conservationist—all bound together by their determination to act for a socially and environmentally just society in Maine and beyond.

What were the seeds for their activism? Where do they find courage, hope and support to continue to work on the global crisis of climate change?  What can we learn from their experiences and incorporate into our own lives?  

Please join Maine film producer Anne D. (Andy) Burt for a film screening and discussion. She will share her journey from social and environmental justice program developer to film producer and lead an interactive response to the filmed stories.

To learn more about the Down to Earth Storytelling Project and watch a trailer for the film, visit the website (downtoearthstories.org).

Support for the Ted Exford Climate Stewards lecture series is provided by Dave & Loretta (Exford) Hoglund.  

Andy Burt has a four-decade career of program development and leadership in fields as diverse as homelessness and affordable housing, domestic violence, faith-based environmental and social justice education and advocacy, and local foods from farm and sea promotion. From 2000-2016 she was the environmental justice program director and consultant for the Maine Council of Churches, where she continues today as a volunteer legislative advocate on environmental justice. In 2015 she felt a nudge to bring to light the stories of climate activism unfolding across Maine and elsewhere. Some of her young friends convinced her to make a film and the rest is history.