A Sea Change
November 30, 2009 – 9:10 pm
A Sea Change
(Barbara Ettinger, Norway, 85min)
Imagine a world without fish.
Climate change affects more than the air we breathe; that extra carbon dioxide, the hidden cost of modern life, is dissolving in the oceans. Scientists around the world are now measuring and documenting an increase in ocean acidity, a state that will last for millions of years. Most of the world’s fisheries will experience a total bottom-up collapse.
This little-reported issue is particularly vivid to Sven Huseby. Raised in fishing communities from Norway to Alaska to Seattle, Sven’s own sense of identity is tightly bound to the life and lore of the seas. When he learned about this dramatic side effect of CO2 emissions, Sven committed himself to a personal odyssey to find answers. Beginning from his home in the Hudson Valley, Sven’s travels take him around the world. His first destination is a pivotal Seattle conference of top oceanographic scientists. The journey then takes him to Alaska to meet with environmental activists, scientists and fishermen, and finally to his homeland of Norway to a remote Arctic research station where some of the first effects of acidification are being seen and measured. In the United States, Sven seeks out entrepreneurs, investors and politicians to discover out what is being done about these issues. Sven’s visits with his five-year-old grandson, Elias, make the issue personal for us, highlighting the wonderment of our relation to the sea, the sadness of the catastrophe we may be creating as his heritage, and the hope for the future as the next generation accepts the challenge of making global changes.
A Sea Change is both a personal and scientifically rigorous, sometimes humorous, and unflinchingly honest look at a reality that we all must act upon before the oceans of our youth are lost to our grandchildren.
