The film is a recording of a lecture given to SUNY Plattsburgh students by Australian physician and anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott about the dangers posed by nuclear weapons.

While Caldicott speaks about the dangers of nuclear war and what it could mean in terms of casualties, Nash cuts from the speech to black-and-white images of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[5] The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation declined to broadcast the film, "because it takes a strong position on nuclear arms and does not give a balanced and objective view of the subject", and that they could not counter the film as it would be difficult to assemble a discussion panel including supporters of nuclear war.

[3] On 13 January 1983,[7] the American distributors of If You Love This Planet, Acid Rain: Requiem or Recovery, and Acid from Heaven were ordered to register as foreign agents by the United States Department of Justice citing the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

In 1986, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear the case; on 28 April 1987, in Meese v. Keene, it ruled five to three in favor of the DOJ.