COP15 Post | News from the UN Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009

By Brittany Shoot

They say one article won’t change the world, but it certainly altered the course of one couple’s life. Several years ago, after reading a piece in The New Yorker, ‘The Darkening Sea’ by Elizabeth Kolbert, filmmaking team – and married couple – producer Sven Huseby and director Barbara Ettinger set out to make a documentary film about the oceans, marine life, and the fishing industry. Huseby, a retired history teacher, grew up around the Oslo fish markets before his parents relocated to the Norwegian-American fishing community in Seattle, Washington. Ettinger, a documentary photographer turned filmmaker, has long been immersed in artistic storytelling. Moving beyond her own uniquely personal films, Ettinger wanted to work with Huseby to utilise their combined passion and interest in history and environmental issues. Following up the success of their environmental documentary Two Square Miles, A Sea Change uses powerful imagery and Sven’s relationship with his grandson Elias reach across the political spectrum and explore what ocean acidification may mean for future generations.

The film centres on the concept of ocean acidification, a term coined by atmospheric scientist Dr. Ken Caldeira referring to the phenomenon that occurs when carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans, where it combines with the water to form carbonic acid. When too much acid is present in salt water, it begins to corrode the necessary chalk present for marine organisms. As CO2 levels rise on land, it directly effects the acidification of the ocean. With too much acid in the waters, the entire oceanic food chain could collapse. If the ecosystem that currently covers 70 percent of the earth were to break down – let alone completely collapse – the devastation would be unfathomable.

“Carbonic acid is the same thing we see in sparkling water or soda,” Huseby explained during a recent interview. “We all know carbonic acid, but in the oceans, it tends to corrode or attack the calcium carbonate which is necessary for all calcified organisms. This includes terrapods at the base of the food web, as well as clams and lobsters closer to the top.”

Like many effects of global warming, the issue is not the amount of change but the rate. “The biggest danger is at the base of the food web,” Huseby pointed out, explaining that sea life simply will not have adequate time to adapt. While the pH level of the ocean may only change by a tenth of a percent, he points out that most marine life has adapted to survive in a very narrow range of acidity. Even the slightest modification to that balance can have catastrophic effects. Glacial melting will further compound these effects by adding an abundance of fresh water to the ocean, which has a much lower pH level than salt water.

One of the main challenges in making A Sea Change was to avoid some of the mistakes made in previous environmental documentaries – which included the strategy necessary to make sure that the message of ocean acidification was not hindered by confusing information or political celebrity.

“My feeling is that it’s been buried in all the controversy around global warming, and while I’m sure it’s the last thing he intended, Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth opened the eyes of many people, but created anger in so many others,” said Huseby. “For so many people, it was a film about graphs and charts and Al Gore, and less about the issues. We made a very conscious effort to make a film that had no graphs and one in which the science was straightforward. People never had a finger pointed at them and were never lectured.”

“The science came from the scientists,” Ettinger said. “As a result, when we have screenings now for conservative audiences they say, ‘Thank you so much for not exaggerating the science.’”

Huseby went on to explain that in fact, there’s no need to exaggerate anything. He cited examples in Alaska, Washington, and Oregon where salmon are not returning for their yearly runs and oyster production is down. “It’s not that the adult calcifying organisms are so affected. It’s the ones trying to grow that are affected. They can’t get the calcium carbonate they need.”

Together with many of the scientists who worked on the film, Huseby and Ettinger will be screening their documentary around town during COP15 with a special panel discussion following their presentation of A Sea Change at Klimaforum on December 14.

For more upcoming events and additional behind-the-scenes information, visit http://aseachange.net.