Heinz Awards 2010
By Daniel de la Calle In a case of unprecedented coincidence, two of this year’s Heinz Awards winners are very closely related to A Sea Change and Ocean Acidification. Richard Feely, one of our favorite NOAA scientists, and Elizabeth Kolbert, the New Yorker journalist that wrote the article “The Darkening Sea” that inspired the film […]
NIIJII FILMS WIN 2010 NOAA ENVIRONMENTAL HERO AWARD
On Earth Day this week, Barbara and Sven were announced as 2010 NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Environmental Heroes for their tireless work to bring attention to ocean acidification through A Sea Change. To see the official announcement, click here.
Live from the Protests
Helicopters are making a deafening noise today, as they follow the protesters who have taken to the streets. We can barely hear ourselves think as we wait it out, this time in our warm apartment. Today is Oceans Day at COP-15, and there is a surge of interest in ocean acidification. We attended a conference […]
Our COP-15 Action Plan – Upcoming Weekend Events
Here is our schedule of events for the next few days, from today Friday December 11 through to Monday December 14, designated as Ocean Day at the COP-15. Today we have plenty to do–organize an upcoming press conference for Barbara and Sven at the Klimaforum, hand out our postcards with the events on the back, […]
Ocean Acidification Breaks the Surface
Today is Ocean Day at COP-15. The day began with a bang with a major piece from the BBC quoting the UK’s Environmental Minister, Hilary Benn, regarding the importance of ocean acidification. Barbara and I attended panel presentations at the European Environmental Agency (EEA) here in Copenhagen. Speaker after speaker spoke about the changes […]
Sao Paulo de Janeiro
By Daniel de la Calle It is 60 degrees, cloudy and windy at times and I am listening to the National’s new record surrounded by maple, oak and pine tress in my office. No more Tim Maia, Marisa Monte, funky carioca or forró. No more Os Mutantes. I will need to close my eyes really […]
SCRIPPS and A Sea Change: Science and Cinema on a Mission
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 […]
Sea Level Rise, Ocean Warming and Ocean Acidification
By Daniel de la Calle If you can spare 18 minutes, please watch this video of a conference about the oceans delivered by Professor Rob Dunbar, of Stanford University. I believe it was held in the Galapagos Islands not long ago. Professor Dunbar talks about sea level rise, ocean warming and about what “frightens [him] […]
South of Africa
A couple weeks ago we had several screenings at the Labia Theatre in Cape Town, South Africa. Thanks to the efforts from the Sustainable Seas Trust, Andreas Spath with his While You Were Sleeping team, and Tessa Hempson from the University of Cape Town it was a great success that even took them by surprise. […]
Stirring it up on the West Coast
In our last entry, we were touring the gold mining town of Nevada city in our new t-shirts, sporting the logo “make films, not war”. This was during the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City, just east of Sacramento in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. An established environmental film festival, it brings […]
Strange Demand
By Daniel de la Calle Hello Everybody, My name is Daniel de la Calle and I was the production photographer in “A Sea Change”. Barbara Ettinger and Sven Huseby recently asked me to continue collaborating by working on the website, so I hope to write some posts over these upcoming months. Today I was feeling […]
Summer Winds
By Daniel de la Calle Over twenty years ago I saw my first wind farm around the Gibraltar Strait. I was going with my parents and brothers to the town of Tarifa, on the Cádiz coast, “the windsurfing capital of the world” as they called it back then. Tarifa has a much higher suicide rate […]
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 […]
The “Oceans Are Talking” CD is out
Congratulations, Sam, on a great video (below), and many fantastic songs for us all to enjoy on your new CD, “Oceans Are Talking.” Sam has included a catchy tune called Pteropods, inspired by A Sea Change. The CD is available in our store on our website. You are amazing, Sam. Thank you!
The Journey Continues
We had thought that the film festival cycle was over for “A Sea Change”. But a few months ago, we learned that we had been accepted into the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival in Nevada City, California (the center of the Gold Rush in the 1850’s) and the Sonoma Film Festival. We arrived in Nevada City today and were fascinated with […]
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 […]
Thoughts on our oceans from Málaga, Spain
By Daniel de la Calle Back in the early 80s, when I was a kid, I loved going to the harbor in my hometown to watch locals fishing from the pier. The most fascinating technique was how cuttle fish was caught. Fishermen would have a live female in a bucket, carefully tie it up with […]
Understanding Hens
By Daniel de la Calle Brazilians do not like Brasilia, Brasilienses do. I guess it must be the LA of the Southern Hemisphere. Brasilia was conceived after a dream, but some think of it as a vision, even see it as a prophecy. In the mid 18th century some Salesian priest in Italy (!) prophesied […]
We Need Your Help!
We’ve just received word from Netflix that A Sea Change is officially a ‘saved’ film in their terminology. This means that they’re waiting to see how many people put it in their queue before they decide if they’ll carry it. With over 50 film festivals worldwide, a national broadcast on Planet Green and hundreds of […]
Webcombing
By Daniel de la Calle I did a little webcombing this afternoon and found some news that could interest you, whoever you are, the reader of this blog. These are the fruits of that labor: 1 NOAA is proposing to establish a research area in Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary. Their idea is to designate an […]
Where will the U.S. be?
The impression we have of COP-15 is that we are two of 50,000 people plus working steadily to focus this process towards a similar goal, lowering global CO2 concentrations. There are several critical fault lines, but the largest is still, “Where is the US going to be by the end of next week?” -Sven
Winner in Calabria
We just received news that on June 27th A Sea Change won the competition for Best Video at the Gaia International Festival in Calabria, Italy. The film was screened in the beautiful Aieta Renaissance Palace: Michael Leonardi, the Festival Organizer, wrote Barbara Ettinger to tell her the wonderful news and complement the film: “With all […]
World Champions
By Daniel de la Calle Three days ago Spain, “we” since I am Spanish, won the Soccer World Championship for the first time. While I was in Brazil in June I attended, absolutely mesmerized, all the Brazilian games and witnessed a paralyzed country absolutely mad about their 11 heroes. People gathered in bars, drank beer […]
Coral Reefs Vulnerable to Ocean Acidification
Coral reefs may be even more sensitive than previously thought to ocean acidification. See this recent news on a study conducted by USGS.
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. […]