Director Robert Stone concocts an inspiring and hopeful work in Earth Days, a feature documentary that recounts the history of the modern environmental movement from its beginnings nearly four decades ago. Environmental activism really began with the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, and precipitated an unexpected and galvanizing effect on the national psyche. Told through the eyes of nine very divergent witnesses, including a secretary of the interior, Stewart Udall, who actually cared about the environment; a biologist, Paul Ehrlich; a congressman, Pete McCloskey; and an astronaut, Rusty Schweickart, Earth Days is a visually stunning, globe-spanning chronicle of watershed events and consciousness-changing realizations that prompted a new awareness: the post–World War II American dream of a future world created by scientific progress, new technology, and economic expansion was rapidly changing into a nightmare. To the twenty million Americans who demanded change and political action to protect the environment on that first Earth Day, the urgency and scale of the current crisis would have seemed extreme and alarmist. Earth Days is a truly cogent and powerful depiction of the awakening of the world to environmental reality by a dedicated and skilled filmmaker; ignoring its message could imperil us all!