There may not be much activity here on the blog for the next two weeks as I take up residence at the Tribeca Film Festival. The world premiere of "Flock of Dodos," will be on Sunday night, April 30. It's sold out, but there are still tickets for the screenings on Monday, May 1 and Friday, May 5. Watch the media for coverage of our three Dodos (we had three very amazing dodo costumes made and are hiring three actors in NYC to walk around in them). Gonna be a wild time in the Big Apple.
Ahhh, run away! Run away!
This is pretty interesting. "A new study has traced almost 80 percent of the nitrogen-based fertilizers to a relatively small number of Midwest counties that make up just 15 percent of the Mississippi Basin. Three northeast Louisiana parishes - East Carroll, Tensas and Madison - also are involved."
ZONING: To the left, LIVE ZONE. To the right, DEAD ZONE.
What do you do when you hold a fish photography contest and the fish are all too small to photograph?
And today's winning fish is ...
It's the mass media, stupid. That's what we've been saying for about, oh, maybe 4 years now. And though we've had to listen to one foundation after another say they don't fund mass media (because they think its too ephemeral), at least Environmental Defense has figured it out. Mass communication is a key component to motivating people. If you don't communicate, people don't get motivated and nothing works smoothly. You'd think it would just be common sense.
To be totally honest, I don't like the spots (the whining, self-righteous kids are annoying) but I applaud the basic idea and willingness to experiment.
Our hero Mark Dowie tried to warn us it was coming. Now the Bush Administration is full tilt behind turning the EEZ (3 to 200 miles offshore) into fish farmland.. What does the future hold for the oceans?
Ah, wilderness
I suppose this really falls under the heading of the attack on global warming scientists, but regardless, here's Australia's voice of doubt when it comes to the warnings issued by coral reef scientists. It actually sounds very American these days.
Bad times for California salmon fishermen. We sent a cameraman to Sacramento to cover their rally on Tuesday morning -- we'll have a short film about it soon. From the LA Times article about it: "You could save all the salmon in the ocean, but they're going to die when they reach the Klamath River," said Scott Smith, a sport fisherman from Fort Bragg, Calif.
It's kind of a sad day when even the environmentalists who have been battling the fishermen feel bad for the mess they have been dealt with the Klamath River
Take your pick. What do you want ... Record deaths of coral reefs in the Caribbean? Clams unable to build their shells because the oceans are becoming too acid? Or fish changing sex unintentionally because of low oxygen levels in dead zones? That's some sad f***king sh**.
Seawater: I wouldn't step in that stuff -- you don't know where it's been.
Just keeps on growing, though probably half of the volume is spammage. What can you do. But we're probably getting at least 1000 real visitors a day.
One nice thing ... a lot of ocean conservation communications "experts" nay-sayed this project back in 2002 when we were just trying to get started, saying the term "shifting baselines" was too technical, and because we didn't have any specific "actions" we were asking people to take that we would be gone in a few months. Well ... ALL of those people are no longer with the organizations they were with back then. And we're still here, chugging along. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
And stay tuned, we've got some major changes in the works for this year.
The shiftin' just keeps on comin'
It's a sad and complex tale that continues to unfold this week. Sad enough that a lot of environmentalists are at least partially siding with the fishermen. The diversion of water in the Klamath River, Oregon, to feed agricultural interests in September of 2002 left 50,000 to 70,000 salmon rotting along the river. Now, a few years later, the size of the returning salmon population has shown a predictable catastrophic drop. As our buddy Rod Fujita of Environmental Defense in Oakland is quoted in the San Jose Mercury News, "Overfishing is not the problem. It's under-watering of the river."
NOAA is considering closing the $150 million salmon season to help the stocks recover. The impact would be huge. The members of Coastside Fishing Club are organizing a rally on Tuesday morning, April 4, in Sacramento.
Salmon Catastrophe: what happened when Klamath River water was diverted for agriculture in 2002