A Sea Change Gives New Insight to Ocean Acidification

Last night Howard Ferren and I had the pleasure of co-hosting, together with Alan Parks from the Alaska Marine Conservation Council (http://www.akmarine.org/) the Seward premiere of "A Sea Change" (http://www.aseachange.net/) a new award winning documentary about ocean acidification. The screening was held in the AVTEC theater and despite competition from City budget meetings (or perhaps because of same...), we attracted an excellent crowd of more than 70 people.

According to the film promoters, “A Sea Change is the first documentary about ocean acidification, directed by Barbara Ettinger and co-produced by Sven Huseby of Niijii Films. Chock full of scientific information, the feature-length film is also a beautiful paen to the ocean world and an intimate story of a Norwegian-American family whose heritage is bound up with the sea. A Sea Change is also a touching portrait of Sven’s relationship with his grandchild Elias. As Sven keeps a correspondence with the little boy, he mulls over the world that he is leaving for future generations. A disturbing and essential companion piece to An Inconvenient Truth, A Sea Change brings home the indisputable fact that our lifestyle is changing the earth, despite our rhetoric or wishful thinking".

I was struck by three things in the movie. First up, there was a big focus on Alaska and Alaskans who are at the forefront of this issue such as Dr Jeff Short (pictured in this excerpt photo) who is a member of our Science Advisory Council and Deborah Williams who led a series of climate change trainings for our staff and partners earlier this year. Secondly, it was evident that relatively few people know about this issue – a straw poll of folks at this premiere suggests that ocean acidification is a much less appreciated issue than climate change generally and yet equally as alarming. Finally, I was as pleased a punch that one of the key solutions promoted in the film is the same sea water heat pump technology that we have been promoting for 8 months (and which we made a presentation to the Denali Commission on just 2 days ago)!

In all a compelling film and one that we really ought to promote even more widely as this is an issue of huge concern to all Alaskans. Our next co-hosted event is slated for the Anchorage Museum at 7pm on November 12th – hope to see you there… or you can buy a copy online for $25 and host your own sea change event!