Lois Gibbs with daughter Missy/First Run Features

“People who have grown up in the last twenty years really haven’t had much of a sense of movement,” the director contends. “There have been some pretty grim issues that appear intractable and you have a lot of handwringing but not much sense of movement.”

In the aim of proving that this stasis hasn’t always prevailed, some of the key figures who have led the way during the past half-century are introduced through interviews. Their voices are woven together to create an oral history of environmental crusades past and present, and interspersed with archival footage, they shed light on famous news events with the added perspective afforded by the passage of time.

Lois Gibbs of Love Canal infamy is one such figure. As a young mother in the late 1970’s, she was horrified to discover that her neighborhood in Niagara Falls, NY had been built atop thousands of tons of harmful chemicals. She organized her community to take action and eventually persuaded the federal government to declare a health emergency, which facilitated the relocation of the area’s residents. Today, she continues to dedicate her life to the service of helping those caught in similar circumstances. While she sees room for improvement, she also acknowledges progress in the nation’s response to environmental hazards compared to what she experienced during her showdown with the Carter Administration.

“We’ve passed a number of laws and regulations,” Gibbs tells PLANET. “The Superfund law provides a financial disincentive for industry to create another Love Canal. We have right-to-know laws.