The ocean-advocacy group Shifting Baselines aims to jazz up conservation by enlisting Hollywood, and their new crop of video shorts looks promising.
The only serious one is also the best of the lot. It starts with voiceover from Pat O’Connell, the eternally stoked young ripper in Endless Summer II (see above and below, left).
He does a pretty good job of not sounding like he’s reading (“I woke up this morning bummed out…”) and he nails the phenomenon the group founded itself to confront: the way we gradually become satisfied with environmental conditions that would have horrified our predecessors.
Marine biologist/filmmaker Randy Olson takes over and offers some vivid examples, many drawn from SoCal water-quality problems, which are deeply gnarly. In San Diego, if you want to surf for your high school, you have to get an annual hepatitis A shot. One city bragged about its water quality, saying 90 percent of its beaches were clean enough for swimming last summer. (Is there some reason why that target shouldn’t be 100 percent?)
Other PSAs include Jack Black conducting a symphony of dissonance and a pretty funny bit with one of the Reno 911 guys.There’s a short documentary where inner-city black San Diegans demonstrate that ocean issues really don’t register on their political agenda. (The site notes that you could get similar levels of cluelessness nearly anywhere outside of a marine science department.) Once again, in a field currently directed at old, educated white males, science and conservation needs to break some new ground.
The Groundlings comedy troupe seem to have found one approach, working a gratuitous Cher joke into a funny skit about the catch of the day at an upscale restaurant. Check’em out.
Your comment about marine science being directed at old, educated white males hit on something that I don’t think gets addressed nearly often enough. I don’t think I’ve seen any other field that is quite so racially uniform. One thought is that marine issues are removed from the daily existence of most people in this country so it’s only the upper-middle class educated whites who decide to go into the field. But I haven’t seen much of an effort in terms of doing anything about the homogeneity or even acknowledging it. I’m not saying every field needs to reflect the demographics of the country, but at times I feel a bit out of touch with the rest of the world- and not in a good way.
thanks c.a.h., whoever you are…
Your comment is right on – but it’s also only half the story. Who could blame anyone for staying out of academic science when a candid economic analysis screams “Stay away”? Part of the reason the sciences are left to the upper middle class is because the poor are more concerned with financial stability and the rich are too business savvy to fall for such a line of work. Calls to build minority participation in the sciences are everywhere, but they need to be backed up by a dramatic improvement in job prospects.
oh, and by the way, good luck in grad school…
[...] and catch the ex-pro surfer, who last made a Scribble appearance in connection with shifting baselines. He’ll be posting interviews with new guests every two [...]
Lots of truths in your post. I currently live and surf in San Diego and I must admit that having 90% clean beaches doesn’t sound bad at all. I’m from Mexico, and I don’t even want to think what percentage of beaches are “safe” to swim in down in my homeland. I understand what you’re saying about the sciences being left to a small group and it really is a shame because if we don’t have a healthy environment to live in what good will having money do us? I recently started a blog called Surfing Mexico and Beyond, which is obviously about surfing but I like your info on conservation, the ocean, and climate change. Would you be interested in exchanging links? Also, since you’re an avid bird watcher, there’s a small village near my hometown (San Blas) which is well-known for its bird watching, you can find some info at http://www.singayta.com/.