Music & Film

Polar bears on the Svalbard ice sheets. The photo is a gift from Kathleen’s dear friend, photographer Kim Heacox.

Press/Interviews

Podcasts

Lectures/Presentations

“The Language of Trees: A Conversation with Alison Hawthorne Deming and Kathleen Dean Moore” with MaryEvelyn Tucker, Yale School of the Environment (April 2022)

“Third Tuesday Author: Kathleen Dean Moore” Lake Oswego Public Library (Nov 2021)

“Barns Burnt Down” Creatively United for the Planet (May 2021)

“What Could Possibly Go Right?” Post Carbon Institute (Dec 15, 2020)

“Contemporary Writers Series” Aquinas College (Nov 14, 2019)

“Kathleen Dean Moore Lecture” University of Arizona College Center for Compassion Studies (2018)

“Moral Urgency of Climate Action” Davis Media Access (Mar 2015)

“Questions for a Resilient Future” Center for Humans and Nature (2014)

Book Launches

Take Heart: Encouragement for Earth’s Weary Lovers

Launched June 1, 2022

In the book launch event for Take Heart: Encouragement for Earth’s Weary Lovers, author Kathleen Dean Moore and illustrator Bob Haverluck join in conversation about how to keep showing up and doing good work for the world. The book offers not another to-do list or empty promise of hope, but courage, and deep and honest reasons to remember why the struggle matters.

Bearing Witness: The Human Rights Case Against Fracking and Climate Change

Launched May 12, 2021

This event marks the publication of a paradigm-shifting book, Bearing Witness: The Human Rights Case Against Fracking and Climate Change, edited by Tom Kerns and Kathleen Dean Moore.

Drawing on recent rulings from an international human rights court, the book argues that climate change, and the extreme extraction techniques that fuel it, directly violate rights guaranteed by international law. Further, governments are in deep collusion with oil and gas companies, abdicating their responsibilities to protect the rights of their citizens.

During this virtual book launch, the co-editors are joined in conversation by several special guests:

  • Robin Bronen, director, Alaska Institute for Justice
  • David James Duncan, author, Heart of the Monster
  • Emily Johnston, climate activist, Valve Turner
  • John Knox, First United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment
  • Teresa Mills, author/activist, Center for Health, Environment, and Justice

Earth’s Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World

Launched March 8, 2021

Kathleen Dean Moore is joined by special guests to launch her new book: Earth’s Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World. The event includes music, video, and sound clips. Special guests include:

  • Hank Lentfer, sound recordist, author of Faith of Cranes and Raven’s Witness
  • Libby Roderick, singer/songwriter, “How Could Anyone?”
  • Hob Osterlund, albatross advocate, author of Holy Moli
  • Rachelle McCabe, classical pianist

Music/Film

Bedrock Rights: A New Foundation for Global Action Against Fracking and Climate Change

Released June 2, 2021

Produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University, with production and videography by Fire+Bird Films.

Description

The documentary film “Bedrock Rights: A New Foundation for Global Action Against Fracking and Climate Change” explores how fracking and climate change violate human rights. According to the findings of an international human rights tribunal, the violations include the right to health, the right to clean water, the rights of Indigenous people, and the right to information and participation.

Climate change is of course a scientific and technological problem, but it is fundamentally a problem of environmental justice. Learn how a rights-based argument can empower new global action against fracking and climate change.

The film features:

  • Poetry by Debra Marquart, a writer, singer, and teacher who has taught writing workshops in Bakken oil field communities most affected by fracking
  • Interviews with Tom Kerns and Kathleen Dean Moore, co-editors of the book Bearing Witness: The Human Rights Case Against Fracking and Climate Change
  • Stories from those on the front lines of fracking
  • Comments from environmental justice activists, including Sandra Steingraber and Jacqueline Patterson
  • Comments from legal experts and key points from the advisory opinion of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal Session on Human Rights, Fracking, and Climate Change

The Extinctions Variations

Released January 23, 2021

Description

Filmed on the concert stage and in the Pacific Northwest’s landscapes of coastal tidepools, volcanic fields, and clear-cut mountainsides, this film is a moving call to action on climate disruption and mass extinction. In a unique creative collaboration, classical pianist Rachelle McCabe’s performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Variations on a Theme of Corelli” weaves through essayist Kathleen Dean Moore’s words, carrying them from despair to bewilderment to hope and moral resolve. Scriptwriter, Kathleen Dean Moore; Nara Garber, filmmaker.

Music to Save Earth’s Songs

Series produced by the Spring Creek Project, Scriptwriter Kathleen Dean Moore

Description

“Music to Save Earth’s Songs” is a series that features excerpts from Kathleen Dean Moore’s book Earth’s Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World (Counterpoint Press, Feb. 2021). It includes three public keynote events as well as 20 tiny concert videos called Animal Interludes. Each video, just a few minutes long, is an original composition of words and music in honor of a threatened or beloved animal. For example, Robin Kimmerer reads a passage from Earth’s Wild Music about seabirds, with a string duet. Lauret Savoy reads about sage grouse, accompanied by Mark Weaver playing tuba. Aimee Nezhukumatathil reads from an essay about meadowlarks, with an original flute composition by Jane Rigler.

The series is hosted and produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University and co-sponsored by the Center for Humans and Nature, Counterpoint Press, Greenbelt Land Trust, McKenzie River Trust, Orion Magazine, and The Safina Center.

Spadefoot Toad read by Kathleen Dean Moore with music by Jane Rigler.

Humpback Whale read by Ishmael Hope with music by Mark Weaver

Sidewinder Rattlesnake read by Craig Childs with music by Jonathan Rodriguez

Raven read by Aimee Nezhukumatathil with music by Brian Elyo

Black-spotted Croaker read by Elena Passarello with music by Laura Brophy

Wolf read by Kathleen Dean Moore with music by Rachelle McCabe

Timber Wolf Pups read by Robin Wall Kimmerer with music by Jazmyn Crosby

Western Sage Grouse read by Lauret Savoy with music by Mark Weaver

Meadowlark read by Aimee Nezhukumatathil with music by Jane Rigler

Tyrannosaurus Rex read by Michael Paul Nelson with music by Rachelle McCabe

Bald Eagle read by Mosley WOtta with music by Tom Foe

Passenger Pigeon read by Michael Branch with music by Erika Nagamoto

Common Loon read by Charles Goodrich with music by Jan-Michael Looking Wolf

Sapsucker read by Elena Passarello with music by Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena

Dawn Chorus read by Lauret Savoy with sound design by Hank Lentfer

Albatross read by Jane Hirshfield with music by Rachelle McCabe

Space Aliens read by Kim Heacox with music by claire rousay

Grizzly Bear read by Jonathan Moore with music by Tom Foe

Common Murre read by Robin Wall Kimmerer with music by Erika Nagamoto and Titus Young