Washington snowpacks are among the most sensitive to warming in the West because of their relatively low elevation.

Editor’s note: This post marks the first in a series of updates from our 2009 Grant for Change grantees, Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele. The Seattle-based documentary team will be sending us monthly updates from the field, as they work to build eight new stories for their long-term project, Facing Climate Change.

My partner Benj and I are a documentary team that specializes in multimedia stories about people, nature and climate change. A few months ago Nau awarded us their first annual Grant for Change to support our long-term documentary project, Facing Climate Change. Throughout this year, we’ll post periodic updates about our work in The Thought Kitchen, and we wanted to start off by introducing ourselves and explaining a little bit more about what exactly we’re doing.

Facing Climate Change uses photography and multimedia to personalize the story of global change through local people. We began this work back in 2006 with a series of stories about Sámi reindeer herders in Norway, volunteer glacier monitors from Iceland and fishermen of the North Atlantic. The G4C is going to help us create a new series of stories that explore the impacts of climate change through people who live and work in the Pacific Northwest. From wildfire fighters and apple growers, to coastal tribes, paramedics and snowmakers, people throughout this region must confront and adapt to the consequences of warming. Their unique stories about who they are and what they do, their everyday challenges and long-term ambitions will help to make an abstract issue more accessible to local audiences, while also contributing to a global conversation.

In the Pacific Northwest region, the area burned by fire is projected to double by the 2040’s and triple by the 2080’s.

We think that our own backyard is an ideal region for a case study, not only because of its diverse ecological, cultural and economic landscapes, but also because of an unprecedented new assessment that downscales global trends into local projections. At more than 400 pages, the Washington Climate Change Impacts Assessment documents the latest research on how climate change will likely affect eight sectors of our environment and economy by the end of this century: agriculture, coasts, energy, forests, human health, salmon, urban stormwater infrastructure and water resources.  Read More »

There’s this band called MGMT (pronounced Management) and most of their music sounds like a debaucherous 3AM party soundtrack, but I was listening to their song “Kids” the other day and I heard these lyrics:

“Control yourself,
Take only what you need from it.
A family of trees falling,
To be haunted.

…

The water is warm,
But it’s sending me shivers…

…

Decisions are made and not bought
But I thought this wouldn’t hurt a lot
I guess not…”

My interpretation is that these guys are talking about sustainability, global warming and considering the consequences of our actions, so that there will be something left for the “kids” in the future. I could be wrong. Whatever the meaning is, it’s a pretty good jam for a Friday.

A few years ago I had the good fortune of paddling the Mountain River located in the Mackenzie River Valley in the Northwest Territories. That adventure inspired a trip that is currently in planning. I depart on June 27th for a two-week paddling trip on the Snake River in the Yukon. Those trips and others like them, combined with the fact that I’m Canadian, have engendered a life-long interest in wilderness preservation.

That’s why I read with interest the Canadian government’s announcement about the creation of a new national park. It’s called Naats’ihch’oh, which in the Dene language refers to Mount Wilson, a major landmark in the area and means “pointed like a porcupine quill.” The plan is to convert 25.5 million acres of northern boreal forest into a new national park and wildlife protection areas. For those who are counting, that’s about 11.5 times the size of Yellowstone Park.

The boreal forest comprises a band of trees about 1600 miles wide that spans across much of Canada ” just below the arctic tundra ” and continues in northern Scotland, Scandinavia and Russia. Large numbers of migratory birds and waterfowl make their summer home in the boreal. It’s also an important habitat for grizzly bears, dall sheep and woodland caribou and its trees are believed to play an important role in offsetting the rise of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also excellent news, given the accelerating industrial activities such as the Mackenzie Gas project (including a proposed pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley) and unprecedented uranium exploration east of Great Slave Lake.

I’m at that stupid age where all your friends decide to get married at once. You know how it is: where you get to pretend that you LOOOVE pink silk bridesmaid dresses (I do love it, Rebekah!) and that you are excited to celebrate unity and togetherness ad nauseum by flying around the country for frantic three-day visits. Being the nerd I am, I’m not actually concerned about retaining my mental sanity in the midst of the summer of love. Honestly, I’m concerned about my carbon emissions.

Seriously. I bought this plane ticket a few days ago and was offered the option of, for $5.99, purchasing a one trip “TerraPass.” Apparently, with my four trips this year, I am using 129 gallons of fuel, and producing 2,527 lbs of CO2! TerraPass offered me the option of paying to offset these appalling numbers and using that money to fund wind farms, landfill gas capture, and the like. These seemed like worthy causes so I paid my carbon dues for the flight, but I still felt sheepish and slightly evil about flying in the first place.
Read More »

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Clarke and Dawe comedy duo appear weekly on a show called “A Current Affair.” Here they engage in an hysterically funny sketch pertaining to a 1991 oil spill off the coast of Western Australia when a tanker named Kirki lost its bow. Think corporate spin at its finest. Exxon could have used these guys when the Valdez went down.

Walking through my neighborhood, I came across a wooden post near the sidewalk with a small case at its top. Inside the box frame, there was a poem called “Bird Watching,” available to anyone who might be walking by. I was impressed with the work, especially a part that asked what the point is of bird watching:

What is the point
of spending precious time
and hard-earned dollars
to wander the globe, only to learn
that someone has gobbled up
the nesting ground,
or filled the marsh,
or paved the meadow,
or poisoned the pond,
or clear-cut the forest,
or built a boundary wall
at the river’s edge?

Read More »

In this video a high school science teacher takes a Pascal’s Wager approach to climate change. The protagonist artfully applies 17th century French Philosophy and rational thinking to an otherwise mixed scientific/emotional decision analysis. It’s a fun, philosophical, “monologue-debate” on the world’s hottest topic. Check it out.

It’s not often that I envy other cities for their bike-related policies (Portland being such a poster child, in that department), but this is pretty impressive: a formalized bike-sharing program in Barcelona that’s much like Zip Car here in the states, only better, because it cuts out the car part.

Only begs one question: Why haven’t we done this yet in the States? Or have we?
Found via Out There Biking.

Intelligent Debate. Passionate Media. How rare is that? If you found it, would you engage with it? I ask because I recently discovered Scribemedia.org. That’s exactly what they promise and that’s definitely what they deliver. The folks at Scribemedia travel extensively to capture and deliver speeches, roundtables and interviews of thought leaders across an incredibly diverse range of disciplines from technology, fashion, business, design, media and the arts. My samplings included a talk by Chris Jordan at the recent Greener Gadgets Conference where he artfully illustrates our staggering quantities of mass consumption and a speech by Lord John Browne of Madingley (former Managing Director of the colossus oil company British Petroleum) about the future of world energy markets.

Scribemedia serves up intelligent dialogue, versus the usual sound-bite approach that has become all too prevalent in our national dialogue. As they say, they “deliver content where and how people want to receive it.”

I finally got a chance to download the short movie Pulp, Poo and Perfection that addresses two issues threatening water quality in Chile: Pichilemu’s sewage pipeline and forest industry pollution in the South. It’s a great piece that shows how surfers and organizations like Save the Waves can rally public awareness of corporate irresponsibility and environmental disregard. Between scenes that document the chewing and spewing of paper mills, there’s some great footage of the treasured left point breaks that are at risk”If you’re a goofyfooter like me, you’ll be even more pissed off! Released in Chile in November 2007, the short has been screened at several film festivals over the past few months, including Earth Vision in Santa Cruz and the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival.

You can download the full podcast of the documentary HERE. (under podcasts/ppp_english)
To support Save the Waves in their fight against the Chilean pulp mills, go HERE.