Ocean Acidification and Education
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
By Daniel de la Calle

Inspired by our upcoming screenings for students this Thursday and Friday in the Southern Chilean town of Puerto Montt we want to post information for and about students and Ocean Acidification:

»Students from the Ridgeway School (Plymouth, UK) were commissioned by the European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA) and the UK Plymouth Marine Laboratory to produce an animation film to explain the issue of Ocean Acidification to young people.  They talked to scientists, conducted their own research both at school and in the National Marine Aquarium and were involved in the whole process of animation.  The result was this 8 minute film that won the Royal Society of Chemistry's Bill Bryson Prize.


»Last month youngsters from Ivybridge Community College,UK, and from Brest, Brittany got together and exchanged ideas and oppinions on invasive non-native species and Ocean Acidification.  The event was supported by Marinexus, a cross-channel research and outreach project to bring together marine science and outreach in Devon and Brittany to raise awareness of marine ecosystems in the Western Channel and of their ability to cope with the effects of human activity.

»The classic Ocean Acidification experiment with vinegar and white chalkboard chalk carried out at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in San Diego, California. Easy to replicate in any school:


»Santa Monica High School’s "Car Team" students of Team Marine won First Place out of 35 high schools in the 2011-12 QuikSCience Challenge, a regional environmental science ocean stewardship competition. Since the beginning of the school year, “Car Team” students have worked to convert a 1971 red convertible Volkswagen Super Beetle into a 100 percent electric vehicle (short video). With their zero-emission car awaiting its final step (installation of the battery pack), the students’ “lesson plan on wheels” will soon be wrapped with the logos of all sponsors and showcased across Los Angeles County at schools and community events to promote cleaner alternative transportation. As part of their competition, they also went to Lincoln and John Adams Middle Schools to educate youth about the problems of and solutions to climate change and ocean acidification.
As part of the conversion process, the students have created a manual with pictures intended to help others repeat the process. Students have worked with local electric car experts, including Paul Pearson of Gas to Electric Conversions, as well as Samohi's automotive teacher Dan Cox, and City Hall's Rick Sikes to develop the manual.
Photo: Team Marine
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»Links to another Acidification test you can do at home or in the class.  All you will need is a red cabbage, drinking straws and very small cups.  Details can be found HERE and if you prefer to watch a quick demo video of the experiment and meet a young student preparing herself to be the first person on Mars click HERE.
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»University of Miami grad student Rachel Heuer has received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to study how Gulf toadfish (Opsanus beta) might cope with Ocean Acidification.
Photo: FAO
 "Her initial findings indicate that toadfish exposed to elevated CO2 levels, relevant for the near future and current upwelling regions, lose increased amounts of base from the body through the intestine. This is problematic since toadfish and other marine fishes need to retain bases to help them cope with acidic environments. Heuer's preliminary findings suggest that this intestinal base loss negatively affects their overall pH balance and health.
"During my NSF Fellowship, I hope to build upon these findings by assessing the energetic cost and exploring the effects of long-term CO2 exposure in the Gulf toadfish. I am excited to utilize this fellowship to contribute to a rapidly expanding field of ocean acidification research," says Heuer."
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»College of Charleston graduate student Jennifer Bennet is one of the recipients of the Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship this year.  She earned her M.S. in marine biology and will serve at the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmostpheric Research Ocean Acidification Program helping scientists there optimize and standardize  data collection so it can be easily translated for the public.  Bennett will also engage stakeholder groups to determine their information needs for effective decision-making about Ocean Acidification impacts.
Photo (Jennifer Bennett): www.steminaction.org
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»Finally, for those that have finished their studies and are looking for work the Imperial College London offers a 3 year Postdoc in Modelling Biodiversity Responses to Human Impact.  The main research objective is to develop a rigorous global model of how local biodiversity responds to human impacts, in order to support projections of how alternative socio-political scenarios will affect global and regional biodiversity. Biodiversity data will come from published comparisons of assemblage composition along gradients of threat intensity. You will develop and populate a database of precise measures of threat intensity corresponding to the diversity data, developing new measures from remote-sensed data as necessary; you will also develop a database to hold species=92 functional trait data. You will employ advanced statistical modelling tool, such as generalized additive mixed models, to relate diversity to threat intensity. The successful candidate will work closely with Professor Andy Purvis (the Principal Investigator).
You must have a PhD in Ecology or Environmental Science or have equivalent level of professional qualifications and experience.  For more details, click HERE
Information & Communication
Thursday, March 15, 2012
By Daniel de la Calle

Information and communication, going hand in hand as should be:
»Lecture near Lake Tahoe: Dr. Howard Spero, UC Davis, will deliver a lecture titled Changing Seas about the earth's climate, climate change throughout history and ocean (and Lake Tahoe) acidification. The date is March 22nd at 5:30PM and the location the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences, 291 Country Club Drive, Incline Village.
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»Four wave glider robots made by Liquid Robotics have broken the world distance traveled by unmanned wave power vehicles record by covering over 3,200 nautical miles from San Francisco to Hawaii.  The drones consist of an underwater glider that is attached by a cable to a floating section.  They convert the endless motion of the oceans into forward thrust, allowing them to travel thousands of miles with no fuel consumption.  These new generation of robots are capable of monitoring everything from shrinking fisheries or natural disasters to Ocean Acidification.
Photo credit: Liquid Robotics
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»Audio story on Ocean Acidification along the shores of the West Coast by APRN's Steve Heimel. Heimel looks at the circulation patterns that may already be acidifying fish habitat in the Arctic.
AUDIO and SOURCE

»"In order to develop consistent messaging and education and communication tools for ocean acidification, the West Coast National Marine Sanctuaries are partnering with the Monterrey Bay Sanctuary Foundation and Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute to host an Effective Practices for Ocean Acidification (OA) Communication and Education workshop.  This workshop is planned to take place in conjunction with and immediately following the International Science Symposium, The Ocean in a High CO2 World: Ocean Acidification, in Monterrey in September 2012.
[…]
Following the workshop, the NOAA OA Education working group will develop a National NOAA OA Education Action Plan, which will incorporate some of the results and outcomes from the Effective Practices Workshop.
Topics to be covered during the workshop will include the following:

•    Development and implementation of effective messaging

•    How to frame messaging for varying audiences


•    Linkage of science to education and outreach

•    Creation of a resource inventory to bring together scientific information with educational tools


•    The scope of the problem and its relation to west coast sanctuary and estuary sites and regional as well as national issues


•    Research linkages and regionally relevant case studies including how tangible resource impacts may affect local economies."

SOURCE

»The Darwin Center for Biogeosciences will have a Summer School Program in Utrecht and Texel, the Netherlands, July 1st-12th, 2012.  "Main subjects will be Ocean Acidification, the carbon cycle, microbial ecology, biomarkers, terrestrial carbon cycling and climate reconstructions in the past, present and future."
More INFO and SOURCE

»The British Oceanographic Data Centre has announced the launch of the data management area for the UK Ocean Acidification (UKOA) research program.  UKOA is a five-year, £12 million research program that started in 2010 and involves 27 institutes in the UK and has close links to other similar programs around the world.
How to gain access UKOA data HERE
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News Wire
Thursday, March 01, 2012
By Daniel de la Calle

Woke up today missing Jimmy McNulty, hence the title.  News, unstoppable, like rolling trains filled with sea adventures, awards, money, great videos and mahi mahi.  Who could possibly offer you more?:

•MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) researchers started carrying out this past February a three month expedition along the Gulf of California, that 700 mile long finger of water between the peninsula of Baja California and mainland Mexico.  You can check on their website logbook for updates on their research, which involves no less than two vessels, over 25 ROV pilots, 60 scientists plus the ship's crew.  Since the scope of research is quite broad, the expedition has been divided into seven legs, each one lasting around ten days.  Leg number four will be about greenhouse gases in the deep sea.  It will be led by Peter Brewer (buscar) and the marine chemists present will study the behavior of methane and carbon dioxide in the high-pressure and low-temperature environment of the gulf's deep basins.  They are hoping that Brewer's work will help in the design of future experiments to test the effects  of Ocean Acidification on a variety of marine organisms.
Also, check this mesmerizing, soothing and informative video on jellyfish made by MBARI staff.  It won honorable mention in the National Science Foundation's 2011 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.
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•University of Miami student Sean Bignami has received a $5,000 scholarship as winner of the Guy Harvey Scholarship Award. Mr. Bignami is a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. at the Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science.  The focus of his study is how the changing chemistry of the marine waters as a result of Ocean Acidification might affect the early development of large marine fish.  His work uses mahi mahi and cobias as case studies.
He intends to devote much of his career to sharing the results of his research with decision-makers to ensure marine resources are managed effectively. He has also been teaching marine science to teachers and students, and for the last two years has worked with the “Science Made Sensible” outreach program, an effort that pairs Miami graduate students in science, math and engineering disciplines with middle school science teachers to provide students with more hands-on learning experiences.
"Communication is often not the strongest of a scientist's skill set, at least not when considering the general public's need for information to be delivered in a simple way that highlights its application to everyday life," Bignami wrote in his scholarship application. "Reaching the public at a young age may be the most important way to instill love and appreciation for the ocean and the services it provides."
Photo credit: UM/RSMAS
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•Youtube video animation showing "how aragonite saturation at the ocean's surface is projected to decrease towards the end of the 21st century as man-made carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere continues to rise."
The animation was generated as part of a project funded by the National Science Foundation, The Nature Conservancy and JAMSTEC.


•This news piece is not so new.  A team of 19 scientists, using sensors developed at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego reported this past January results about the broadest worldwide Ocean Acidification study to date.  They measured acidity in 15 ocean locations, from the Antarctic to the temperate and tropical seawater and results were very different from one place to the other.  While in places like the Line Islands of the South Pacific and Antarctica the range of pH variance is limited, in sections of the California coast subject to upwelling pH fluctuations are intense.  In some of the study areas the decrease in seawater pH deriving from CO2 emissions was still within bounds of natural pH fluctuation, but other areas already experience daily acidity levels expected to only be seen at the end of the century.
The study was made possible because all sensors were designed by Todd Martz, marine chemistry researcher at Scripps, so he "was in a unique position to assimilate a number of datasets, collected independently by researchers who otherwise would not have been in communication with each other.  Each time someone deployed a sensor they would send me the data, and eventually it became clear that a synthesis should be done to cross-compare this diverse collection of measurements," he said.  That was when Gretchen E. Hofmann, an eco-physiologist and professor in UCSB's Department of Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology, worked with Mr. Martz to put together the research team to create that synthesis.
The authors noted that they only worked with information about coastal surface oceans, so more study is needed in deeper ocean regions further off the coast.
These two great videos show the deployment of a SeaFET pH sensor in the Ross Sea and a chilly visit to a SeaFET sensor in the very deep water under ice near McMurdo Station, Antarctica.



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Reconsider Your Shrimp
Thursday, February 23, 2012
By Daniel de la Calle

» Williams College, in Williamstown, Mass. is hosting an Oceans Symposium and next Monday, Feb. 27, at 7 p.m., Elizabeth Kolbert, staff writer at The New Yorker, will lead a discussion following a showing of A Sea Change, Imagine a World Without Fish.

» Beautiful new documentary on the oceans is out this year: The Last Reef, Cities Beneath The Sea. Go to their website (www.thelastreef.co.uk) and read how this project, that started out as a 3D "macro movie based in Palau", turned into an alarm call on the biggest threat to coral reefs worldwide: Ocean Acidification.


» Reconsider your shrimp.  A one pound bag of frozen shrimp raised on a typical Asian fish farm produces an astounding one ton of CO2.  At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science biologist J. Boone Kauffman (Oregon State University) developed the comparison to help the public understand the environmental impact of land use decisions.  "The carbon footprint of the shrimp from this land use is about 10-fold greater than the land use carbon footprint of an equivalent amount of beef produced from a pasture formed from a tropical rainforest."
Mr. Kauffman said 50 to 60 percent of shrimp farms are located in tidal zones in Asian countries, mostly on cleared mangrove forests.  The farms are inefficient, producing just one kilogram of shrimp for 13.4 square meters of mangrove, while the ponds created are abandoned in just three to nine years because disease, soil acidification and contamination destroy them.  After abandonment, the soil takes 35 to 40 years to recover.
LINK to the original article, from Agence France Presse.

» Lecture on Ocean Acidification and the Future of Native Oysters in California Estuaries taking place tomorrow, February 24, at noon at Stanford University. It is sponsored by Hopkins Marine Station. More info HERE.

» And from the other side of the Atlantic, "Analyses of the effects of Ocean Acidification on the larval development of Crassostrea gigas", AKA Pacific oyster on Ms. Patrícia Barros Masters Theses. Info HERE.

» New video filled with European flair on Ocean Acidification, the EPOCA program and the public's awareness on the issue.


» Post Doctoral position at IMR.  The Institute of Marine Research has a 3 year position as postdoctoral researcher on the effects of Ocean Acidification on marine zoooplankton, with special emphasis on krill. The position is located in Bergen, Norway. Find out about qualifications and further details HERE.

» The Second UK Ocean Acidification Research Programme annual science meeting will take place at the University of Exeter from Monday, April 16th to Wednesday, April 18th.  If you are a UKOARP particiant you can register online HERE.  For further reading, click HERE.
Books, Projects and PhDs
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
By Daniel de la Calle

“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer

    ¤The European Union is launching this April a new three-year project called Mediterranean Sea Acidification in a changing climate (MedSeA).  Its goal is to "assess uncertainties, risks and thresholds related to Mediterranean acidification at organismal, ecosystem and economical scales." From their website it appears that their headquarters are at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, but over 16 institutions from 10 different countries are participating in the project with a total budget of € 6 million.

   ¤ If you have read previous blog posts you know that I often look for jobs and research scholarships on Ocean Acidification. This week I found not one, nor two, but three PhD projects:
1-   The British Antarctic Survey is funding a PhD research project for UK students to assess the impact of Ocean Acidification on life in the sea. The details are quite technical, so it is best if you go to THIS LINK and read further.
2-   The second PhD research project comes from the University of East Anglia and is for European students. The purpose: to characterize the calcium carbonate cycle in the Southern Ocean. Again, go to THIS LINK to learn more.
3-   The University of Exeter offers a three-year funded doctoral studentship starting this coming fall on "The Implications of Ocean Acidification in Combination with Chemical Stressors for Juvenile Fish".  Details HERE.

    ¤The Institute of Marine Research in Tromsø, Norway wants to organize a "Workshop on acidification in aquatic environments: what can marine science learn from limnological studies of acid rain?".  The goal of this workshop is to bring together experts on acid rain with those working on Ocean Acidification to facilitate "discussions focused on questions such as how AR research can inform and cross-fertilize OA research" and "the rates of change of AR and OA and how different organismal groups cope with that over different time scales". The dates: 27th-29th September, 2011.
Soon there will be more information HERE.
You can also contact organizer Howard Browman HERE.

The Tromsø we saw when shooting A Sea Change.

    ¤I am very happy to announce that we have yet another public figure lending his face and voice to defend our oceans. Joining Sigourney Weaver and Sven Huseby, actor Ted Danson has published a book titled "Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do to Save Them".  Produced together with Oceana, it is said to have beautiful photographs, illustrations and numerous expert testimonies. I have ordered a copy and intend to review it for our site, but for now you can listen to a interview with Mr. Danson on Southern California Public Radio HERE and read an interview HERE if you are thirsty for more information.

    ¤There is another recently published book that has caught my eye. It is titled Deep Future, The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth, by author Curt Stager. I know that during those hypothetical next 100,000 years described throughout the pages he talks about Ocean Acidification, and I'll be able to hand you more detailed information in a couple weeks.  Made you curious enough?  Purchase a copy from Amazon, click HERE.

    ¤NOAA is offering a web seminar to introduce a new "Data-in-the-Classroom Module" on Ocean Acidification; it is aimed at High School science educators. It will go from 6:30 to 8:00PM Eastern Time on April 14th. You can register today HERE and read more about it HERE.
Monday's Smorgasbord
Monday, March 14, 2011
By Daniel de la Calle

Every few weeks there is a new one, March was not going to be an exception. Here you go, the list of A Sea Change news, Ocean Acidification videos and assorted internet links.

    ¤¤  Barbara and Sven spent this past month on the West Coast attending screenings, meeting people, seeing family, reflecting on future projects, maybe playing a little tennis as well. Just a few days ago they were at the University of Washington, where they delivered an hour lecture titled "Science, Media and Messaging" to graduate students from the School of Fisheries and Aquatic Studies. The link to the Bevan Series on Sustainable Fisheries on Ocean Acidification? Voila!:
http://courses.washington.edu/susfish/2011/huseby.html


    ¤¤  NOAA released in February an aquaculture program intended to "increase the US supply of healthy seafood, create jobs in coastal and other communities, spur innovation in technology and help restore depleted species and marine habitats." To give you an idea of its relevance, aquaculture has overtaken wild fisheries as the main source of seafood in the world. And let's not forget either that 84% of the seafood Americans put in their mouths is imported, making fish and shellfish the greatest natural resource contributors to the national trade deficit after…crude oil and natural gas!
Visit the specific NOAA page, read the policy, even submit your own comments here:
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/aquaculture/doc_policy/index.htm

    ¤¤  To continue with seafood, Sven sent me some weeks ago an interesting page from the EPOCA site about the first day of the SeaWeb International Seafood Summit 2011 in Vancouver. Within the text there was a call by marine experts to "the global seafood industry and all other ocean stakeholders to avoid a defeatist attitude with ocean acidification and to instead pile pressure on scientists to provide solid data and advise on the potentially catastrophic problem, which could then be used to create concrete solutions." There are also valuable words from Dick Feely and Henry Demone, the president and CEO of High Liner Foods, a major Canadian seafood supplier seriously concerned with the problem and long-term implications of Ocean Acidification.

    ¤¤  This is a video from San Francisco State University about recent research on how one type of phytoplankton (E. huxleyi) will adapt to growing Ocean Acidification.

This form of phytoplankton is a power player in the ocean's ability to absorb greenhouse gases. If you watch it you will discover in more detail E. huxleyi's vital abilities. It is beautiful under the microscope.


    ¤¤  Here is a United Nations PDF about Ocean Acidification. Thought it could come in handy to some of you, there is no such thing as too many PDFs in the Documents folder.

    ¤¤  An hour long video from the Center for Biological Diversity's website with a lecture by Miyoko Sakashita on Ocean Acidification at the Bevan Series on Sustainable Fisheries. Not the most impressive video production, but the message is there:


    ¤¤  Are you a UK or EU science student looking for a PhD project on the effects of Ocean Acidification on shell characteristics in articulated brachiopods? Look no further!:
http://www.findaphd.com/search/showproject.asp?projectid=32366&searchtype=n&page=2

    ¤¤  Costa Rica has decided to expand its marine protected area around Cocos Island National Park. The protected area now covers 2,900 nautical square miles of ocean waters rich with endangered sharks and sea turtles.
In the photograph below, President Laura Chinchilla Miranda and her Environmental Minister Teófilo de la Torre signing the decree.


    ¤¤  Would you like your child, niece or the neighbor's kid, maybe your grandson to learn about Ocean Acidification but do not have a DVD copy of A Sea Change, our very educational documentary on the subject? Here is an article tailored to kids about Ocean Acidification that will do the job as well. Do not expect the same level of fun as if you were watching A Sea Change, though.
More November News on Ocean Acidification and the Environment
Friday, November 19, 2010
By Daniel de la Calle

This November I'm looking for traces of "Ocean Acidification", not in water, but on the internet.  I found the following news and links I thought could/would/should interest you.

¤
Britain sets up the world's largest marine reserve.
Since November 1st, the world's largest fully protected marine reserve is located in the British territorial waters of Chagos Archipelago, in the Indian Ocean.  This should be something to celebrate, but as Jonathan Owen from The Independent explains in THIS article, it is more of an embarrassment and an indicator of how the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity and the World Summit on Sustainable Development's commitment to protect 10% of the world's oceans by 2012 fell short of its mark.  Today, less than two years away from the deadline to meet that scrawny goal, "1.17% of the oceans are under some form of protection, and a mere 0.08% classified as 'no-take' zones".

My pictures of sea breams at the Paris Aquarium.


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Student video competition on Ocean Acidification.
Dialogue Earth is looking for smart and creative 90-second videos on Ocean Acidification "that manage to communicate this relevant science topic in a way that is engaging to wide-ranging audiences".  If you are a student and are up for the challenge, the total prize purse is $10,000 ($5,000 for the first prize video).  Read more about it HERE.  Visit the Dialogue Earth project page on Tongal.com HERE.

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Olivine as Carbon Dioxide antidote.
I am opposed to the idea of geoengineering, as I have previously written on this blog.  Many of the "solutions" proposed ignore Ocean Acidification and would, because of this, be extremely detrimental to our oceans.  This is an interesting article (HERE) on the possible use of the mineral olivine to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and to "counteract the current trend toward ocean acidification".
Read it, see what you think.

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New study on Ocean Acidification illustrates its threat to coral reproduction.
Scientists from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science believe that over the next century recruitment of new corals could drop by 73% as acidity levels rise.  Recent studies such as this one are beginning to reveal how ocean acidification affects non-calcifying stages of marine organisms, such as reproduction.  Read more HERE or watch Rebecca Albright, a graduate student at Rosenstiel School, talk about the study:


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Ocean pH is dropping faster than models predicted.
At a Geological Society of America meeting in Denver in early November researchers came to this alarming conclusion.  “Models are probably underestimating at least by a few years the impact of ocean acidification in the Arctic,” says Jeremy Mathis, a chemical oceanographer at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.  “We don’t know what the organisms’ responses are yet, but the conditions are already there to potentially be disruptive to the ecosystems.”  NOAA's Richard Feely, our Richard Feely, warned that seawater acidity could double by the end of the century.  Read about it HERE.

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"Atlantic", the first biography of a body of water.
One of my favorite nonfiction writers, Simon Winchester, has just released a new book on the Atlantic Ocean.  I have not had the chance to read it yet, but from the reviews online I am certain it will make for 500 pages of discovery, amusement, joy and some sadness.  At the end of the book he deals with man's impact on the Atlantic, including how Ocean Acidification is altering equatorial reefs. The full title is: ATLANTIC: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories.  Simon Winchester is this year's recipient of the Order of Magellan from the Circumnavigators Club.

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Research cruise opportunities for ocean acidification studies.
Are you a scientist looking for a way to run your Ocean Acidification experiments on a boat?  Look no more, three cruises from June 2011 to February 2012 by the UK programme on Ocean Acidification offer you that possibility.  You can find more information HERE, on the Ocean Partners website.

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UK Ocean Acidification annual science meeting 2011 in Cambridge.
Continuing with the aforementioned program(me), their first meeting will take place at Downing College, Cambridge from 9:00 AM on January 6th to 1:30 PM January 7th, 2011.  HERE is the online registration form and HERE you can read more about it.

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New underwater robot could assist in Ocean Acidification research.
The new robot, baptized Tethys, can function in the ocean for months, hundreds of miles from shore.  The first experiments were carried out this past October in Monterrey Bay, where it spent almost a week tracking algal blooms.  Researchers are  now working on a way for the Tethys to bring back water samples and more sensors could be added later, including some that would track ocean carbon and acidification.  Read more HERE.  A picture of busy Tethys at work.
Back to Brazil, back to FICA
Friday, July 09, 2010
By Daniel de la Calle

I really wanted to visit some of the cerrado National Parks during the screening tour in Brazil in March and April, but it was not possible.  The dates did not leave a window of time big enough to "escape" to the countryside between each city.   I thought it would be a long time before I had another chance to fly to South America and fulfill this desire, but I was so wrong.  Not even a week after my return to the US the production company received an invitation to take part in FICA again, the film festival that A Sea Change won last year, this time as part of a series of films to be screened for school children from the State of Goias.  I wrote to the organizers and suggested we did a little more than just show the film; I wanted to go down there and meet them, talk to them about ocean acidification and do a simple chemistry experiment to exemplify what an acidic ocean does to shell forming organisms.  They liked the idea and so it was that, barely a month after leaving Río, that I was heading South again on an early June night.

My expectations were very high, but even so the cerrado did not disappoint me at all. It is wild, it is pure, it is extremely beautiful, bizarre and surprising. Animals, birds and plants seem to have come out of a Dr. Seuss book.  The giant anteater with its long hairs, nose and tongue, the toucans and parrots, the palms, sticky plants, fragrant leaves, thorny bushes. Everything was new and unique to me.  And for good reason, forty some percent of all I saw was endemic;  this ecosystem is so important that, in a country like Brazil that holds the Amazon jungle, the cerrado still counts for over thirty percent of all the biodiversity in the nation.  The big threat to these gorgeous savannas and bushy areas are the dry season fires and the clearings done for soy and cattle farming.  Fires are strictly forbidden, but one would think that they are actually encouraged. Everywhere I went people were burning grass and low bush by the side of the road, in farms, in the forests.  This practice could not be more dangerous.  The dry season lasts half of the year and usually, once a fire gets out of control during these months there is absolutely no way people will manage to stop it. Some plants have adapted to fires and have the most ingenious ways of "escaping" or surviving fires, but many others and all animals caught in it perish and take an awful long time to repopulate the area because conditions in the cerrado are extreme and hard (six months of rain, six months of "seca", the dry season).  I came to realize that legislation is not going to do much to discourage "winter" burnings, that the only way to dissuade Brazilians from eradicating the mato is to educate them, to teach them to love this magnificent environment that they take for granted and to teach them about the consequences of fires. The cerrado, as I have already mentioned on previous posts in this blog, is the most threatened environment in all Brazil, way above the Amazonia.

Education has always looked to me like the only true key to hope and change in all matters, including the way we treat the planet, so I was elated to have the opportunity to show the film to 500 kids and talk to them for a couple minutes. There were children and teenagers of all ages, from 5 to 17. They were loud, they were having fun, they were nervous. The room was huge, it is the same one used for the Festival's closing ceremony, but in less than five minutes it filled up. They were making so much noise during the opening scene that you could not hear a thing. How loud were they? About this LOUD

Unfortunately, some of them had to leave before it was over because they had come by bus from distant towns and villages and had to begin their way back, but a good number of them stayed until the end.  I had promised to ask a few simple questions about the film and reward those that knew the answers with some of our merchandise, so the kids (and quite many adults) were pretty excited.  I also asked the younger children to please make a drawing with whatever part of the documentary or animal shown in it that they liked and we quickly assembled an informal jury to reward the best five or six with a Niijii Films baseball cap as well.  I wished I had brought 100 and not just a handful, it was heartbreaking to see some of those disappointed eyes. The most difficult question I asked seemed to be to name in an understandable way the little shell with wings that appears several times throughout the film.  The word "pteropod" is not the easiest one to pronounce for a 12 year old Brazilian kid; some pretty comical and unintelligible replies, formed mostly by the urge to own a baseball cap, came out of those mouths.  Finally, I told them all to come close to the stage and hold two cups in their hands, one filled with water and one filled with vinegar. Then we gave each one of them several pieces of chalk while I explained that they should imagine the acidic ocean being the cup of vinegar and the shell forming organism being the pieces of chalk. There was some initial confusion because the chalk was bubbling in the water as well as in the vinegar, but once the air inside it had come out they could see the vinegar getting all murky and the chalk stick slowly dissolving. I knew all this was quite a stretch for a little girl that has never seen the ocean or eaten shellfish and is at the beginning of her school years, but I think they got the essence of the message and both students and teachers were absolutely fascinated by the chemistry behind the terrible problem of ocean acidification. I believe and hope the experiment is going to be replicated in classrooms during the next few months.

Here are a few of the drawings I took with me, all of them winners of the Niijii Films cap that is now often seen around the State of Goias:
SCRIPPS and A Sea Change: Science and Cinema on a Mission
Sunday, February 07, 2010
On Friday night we had a reunion in La Jolla with our colleagues from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.  It was the first time we had gotten together since we stormed COP15.  After much strategizing, we have decided to have a repeat performance at COP16 in November.  We concluded that we had, in fact, made a difference, and we need to continue as an effective team on the ground.
Many blog entries and articles were written in Copenhagen on ocean acidification and A Sea Change, and here is one example (also pasted below) from a graduate student at Scripps:

A Sea Change
This film is amazing. If every parent could see this film, they would be set on fire to do something to stop ocean acidification. It follows the journey of one man, the filmmaker, Sven Huseby, who, after reading an article in the New Yorker about ocean acidification, becomes determined to save the beautiful fragile pteropods who are in the most danger of losing their shells if we continue emitting carbon dioxide and acidifying the oceans, so his grandson will grow up in a world will an ocean teeming with life.

After a screening of the film on December 10, there was a Q&A with Vicki Fabry, Andrew Dickson, Tony Haymet, and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg. The moderator, Brad Warren, kicked off this portion of the Q&A with an attempt to address two criticisms: Two kinds of hope being peddled at COP-15, both of which deserve to be thrown out of the window of a tall building. Geoengineering in the form of ocean fertilization. And the fact that adult lobsters grow thicker shells in a more acidic sea sometimes. You can click on the link to hear the panelists’ response: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp-A-qCMhgY

Tamara Beitzel, Scripps graduate student
Helping get the word out
Thursday, August 27, 2009

We have two new partners helping get the word out about ocean acidification, and we're very grateful.Alternativechannel_web_contour_en

First, Alternative Channel, an international Web TV (in 3 languages) devoted to sustainable development. It's a free platform where citizens, corporations, NGOs and NPOs can share uploading videos about sustainable development and humanitarian causes. The channel has 100,000 monthly visitors coming from 156 different countries. Sustainable development is clearly a global concern.

And the North American Assocation for Environmental Education (NAAEE) is letting their members know about the film. If anyone can use A Sea Change, they can!

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