That Cranky Old Man
By Daniel de la Calle A few years from now I will inevitably become an insufferable cranky old man. I am actually almost there now: On World Water Day last week I turned my forgotten TV set on, the one that comes back to life during cycling season, and watched the 3 p.m. news. […]
Pearls in Vinegar
By Daniel de la Calle I am a very slow museum visitor. Last month I went to the Louvre for a couple of hours on three consecutive days and did not even make it through the marvelous Egyptian wing. When I was a kid, one of the first stories that fascinated me about ancient Egypt […]
THE CENSUS OF MARINE LIFE
By Daniel de la Calle This month the Census of Marine Life (COML) project announced the results of their mammoth work since the year 2000, one of the biggest collaborations in the history of science with 2,700 researchers from 80 countries embarked in a total of 540 logged ocean expeditions. The total cost of the […]
Coevolution
By Daniel de la Calle I am in Paris now, just for a couple weeks, and my visit has coincided with a fantastic documentary film festival called Pariscience. From medicine to biology, botany to meteorology, computer or space science, the selection encompasses an impressively broad range of fields of study and research. For example, yesterday […]
When You Reach Maturity
By Daniel de la Calle A couple blog entries ago I mentioned A Sea Change has been present so far at more than fifty film festivals worldwide. We have a saying in Spanish that goes: “life is but a sigh”, partly to show our tragic sense of life, but mainly to stress its brevity. The […]
The Highest High, The Lowest Low
By Daniel de la Calle Today is World Water Day. All kinds of events must be taking place around the planet with the spotlight on water, on its current state and its importance to us living creatures. Some of them will surely point out our dependency on good water and the paradoxical way we treat […]
The Price of Flying High
By Daniel de la Calle In his book How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, Chris Goodall breaks down the average 12.5 tonnes of CO2 per person yearly emissions in the UK into around 6 directly generated by the individual and another 6.5 generated by such things as “running offices, making fertilizer, smelting iron ore and […]
Anthropocentric Geoengineering!
By Daniel de la Calle If there is one possible scenario that frightens me more than our current lack of action to stop the countless maladies we are inflicting upon the planet it is this very tempting flight forward casino gamble of geoengineering. Just two unoriginal thoughts I want to throw out there: No scientist […]
Teaching Moments
By Ben Kalina It’s been two years now since we filmed A Sea Change along the northern California coast and the journey continues with screenings scheduled globally as we plan another celebration of World Ocean Day in early June. As if ocean acidification wasn’t enough and we needed another reason to wean ourselves quickly from […]
10 Good News, 10
By Daniel de la Calle It might be the cosmetic work of politicians, it may be hard to see the good side of it, could even leave you a bit confused, but here are 10 pieces of news that could ignite (emissions free, of course) true, authentic change: 1 Britain decides to stop airport growth around […]
Day 2
Barbara and I are here in Copenhagen at COP-15 to continue our efforts to get oceans and ocean acidification onto the global climate agenda. We are part of the team from Scripps and the University of California. Towards that end, I was asked to give a talk yesterday on Ocean Acidification and its Human Impacts. […]
A refreshing take
I stumbled across this on YouTube today. I was definitely ready for something slightly cheerful on this topic, with all this dark news. Ok, the first act, the seafood parade, could be slightly shorter. Granted. But stay with it, cause the animation that follows is not only cute, it’s on the money with the facts. […]
Will Florida lead the way?
A coalition of major conservation groups published a report outlining key steps the state of Florida can take to respond to pressing environmental concerns, including the big OA. The full report can be downloaded from docuticker. The summary alludes vaguely to "restoring coastal and marine ecosystems so they can better cope with the stress of […]
Devil (fish) in the details
This week the European Union’s initiative for studying ocean acidification kicks off in Nice, France. The name’s a bit unwieldy—the European Project of Ocean Acidification (EPOCA)—but we’re just glad a governmental entity’s paying serious attention and putting some resources and publicity behind the effort. It’s truly an international effort focused on filling in "the numerous […]
A Sea Change–Alaska vignette
Click to Play In which we start to get a sense of the deep economic and social implications of ocean acidification. The Exxon Valdez catatrosphe gives us a hint of what could happen. Includes comments from Verner Wilson, III, Alaska native and youth activist. Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)
Republicans block U.S. Senate’s global warming bill
Last night Democrats failed to break the Republican filibuster of major global warming legislation. The bill would have capped carbon dioxide coming from power plants,refineries and factories, with a target of cutting greenhouse gasemissions by 71 percent by the middle of this century. Notably crossing the aisle was John Warner (R-VA), arguing that the bill […]
Twenty years later
An eloquent statement from the man who first announced global warming in the U.S. Congress, James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, published in The Guardian. An excerpt: ". . . we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed todefuse the global warming time bomb. The next […]
Subcommittee Reviews Legislation to Research and Monitor Ocean Acidification
(Washington, DC) th Today, the House Committee on Science andTechnology’s Subcommittee on Energy and Environment held a hearing toreview H.R. 4174, the Federal Ocean Acidification Research andMonitoring Act. Committee Members examined the current status ofscience on ocean acidification and research and monitoring activitiesfocused on ocean acidification and its potential impacts on marineorganisms and marine ecosystems. […]
Another sea change
This courtesy of economist Mark Thomas’ blog Economist’s View: "Americans consider global warming an urgent threat, according to poll,EurekAlert: A growing number of Americans consider global warming animportant threat that calls for drastic action, and 40% say that a presidentialcandidate’s position on the issue will strongly influence how they vote,according to a national survey conducted […]
Green screen in NYC
We’re glad to see the New York City Mayor’s Office giving support to lightening the production footprint. The website offers tips and resources for saving energy while making movies in the Big A. Many of the tips apply more to big-budget features; however, those are the folks making the most waste, so it makes sense. […]
Will Bush turn blue? Possible blue legacy in the works
National Public Radio has just reported that President Bush is considering the creation of a number of marine reserves. If created, they would represent a huge conservation program, one of the largest ever. This would be cool, if it happens. Evidently it’s all still in the planning stages, and the Bush administration has not commented […]
Eco Geek
The name says it all. These guys blog about green technology. Our attention was caught by a product review, an electric product producing compost in your apt. or house. Priced around $300, this product is a luxury—you can actually make compost in a 5-gallon pickle bucket (which you can usually get for free by asking […]
A win-win
Do you wonder what the quickest way to get to work might be? Here’s the 7th annual Commuter Challenge in New York City sponsored by Transportation Alternatives. Car, mass transit, and bike go up against each other: we check travel time, carbon footprint, and cost. Elizabeth Press of Streetfilms produced this. She’s also dabbling in […]
ABC News Covers Ocean Acidification
We were glad to stumble upon this report filed by Clayton Sandell for ABC News. The basics on ocean acidification in less than two minutes. Also amused to see corrosive becoming a meme, vis a vis seawater, hitting the mainstream.
Up-to-date info on climate issues from scientists
RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists.Their goal: " to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary." They eschew discussion of the political and economic implications of their reports; however, their posts often engender extensive, […]