The Earth Sciences Department’s Earth Week Film Festival aimed to educate students on different issues affecting our planet by screening a different documentary on environmentalism each day from April 20-22.

Earth Day is a national holiday that began in America 45 years ago but is currently celebrated worldwide. This day is now dedicated to raising awareness on environmentalism and sustainability for this rapidly changing planet.

Events, rallies and festivals are held throughout local communities to show support for this important cause.

One of the films shown,”Chasing Ice,” followed environmental photographer James Balog on an assignment to capture the diminishing glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere.

On a Tuesday evening, the room was filled with a majority of students attending solely for the purpose of an extra credit assignment, but they all hopefully left gaining more knowledge on how severe the global warming issue is for this world.

This eye-opening documentary showed just how passionate some people are at alerting and informing the public of the history and impact that humans have on the environment. Balor explains in the film that time-lapse photography is a powerful way of showing how history is unfolding and did everything he knew how to do to make a difference on the issue.

“What people need is visual evidence and something that emotionally grabs them,” Balor said.

The film emphasizes that America needs to realize that they are the biggest threat to global warming from the multiple ways they burn carbon dioxide. It is evident that the purpose of the documentary is to inform the audience that serious changes to people’s lifestyle need to be made and quickly.

He believes that glaciers are evocative and even started to cry as he talked about the seriousness of the rapidly melting icecaps.

Balor mentions that humans are capable of changing basic physics and chemistry and are so oblivious to the effect that they have on sustainability. The air is drastically changing from these diminishing glaciers, which then affects the sea water levels, which then creates harsher natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis. It all affects one another.

Balor added the main problem is people’s perception and a lack of education plus ignorance that some don’t believe is a timely issue, but he asks, “What about your kids and future generations?”

“We have a deep connection with nature and you can’t divorce civilization from it,” Balor said.