Communicating
jjacquet | May 8, 2009Check out my new blog Guilty Planet and please join in with your thoughts on conservation...
jjacquet | January 15, 2009A Guilt Trip for Obama
I sent a million emails
Cheering you on in every line.
I watched Will.I.Am's video
About a thousand times.
I stood strong against my parents
(Both McCain supporters).
I recruited my brother:
A first time and Obama voter.
I made inspirational cds,
Sending them to friends in every state.
I bought an Obama-sized cutout
And motored him 'cross the U.S.A.--
He was kicked out in Florida,
Photo-opped in Tennessee,
And adored by all in L.A.
Knowing you were a champ,
I customized a YES WE CAN stamp.
I posted on YouTube,
I read your news every day,
I wrote many rants,
I hoped and…
jjacquet | January 13, 2009Yesterday, the New York Times ran a profile of Sylvia Earle and the marine environment, which included some wonderful photographs and a nice introductory anecdote about how, in 1953, when Earle began studying algae, the marine plants and related microbes were often considered weeds or worse. Today, Earle says that one type -- Prochlorococcus -- releases countless tons of oxygen into the atmosphere and provides the oxygen for "one in every five breaths we take." Read the full article here.
rolson | December 20, 2008When Oppenheimer watched the atomic bomb go off he felt he had played a part in the destruction of humanity. I know the feeling.
Last week I got a nice email from a group of graduate students in marine ecology at Northeastern University who apparently are losing their minds as badly as I did in the early 90s. They sent me links to these two videos which they said were inspired by my early Prairie Starfish videos (particularly Barnacles Tell No Lies I'm guessing). But these folks have taken it to "a ho nuva leva." They've figured out ways to rap about everything from trochophores to veligers…
jjacquet | November 25, 2008Randy Olson travels a lot these days, and frequently calls me from airports to whine about how much he hates to travel. Randy, this clip of stand up comedian Louis CK talking about how times have changed is for you (with thanks to Dale of Faith in Honest Doubt for titling this piece with the symptom it describes: shifting baselines).
jjacquet | November 17, 2008In his New York Times article, A Seafood Snob Ponders the Future of Fish, Mark Bittman laments the bygone days of "fishermen unloading boxes of flounder at the funky Fulton Fish Market" and seems annoyed at the fact most most fish on the menus these days are farmed. He should be. For one, the fishmeal industry is horrendous. For two, seafood is one of the last wild food sources we eat with any regularity aside from mushrooms. Bittman remains optimistic about the future for fish and adamant about his stance on the farmed vs. wild debate; he would "rather eat wild cod once a month and…
jjacquet | November 7, 2008My local paper, The Vancouver Sun, ran a great 5-part series on the oceans this week written by Larry Pynn titled Shifting Seas.
Part One gives an overview of fishing (both past and present) on the British Columbia coast. Part Two is all about the B.C. trawl fishery and their movement to buy and sell catch shares. This new approach to regulating the fishery means the little guys are gone but the fishery is supposedly better managed (given the obscene amounts of bycatch, I'm not sure it qualifies as well managed).
Part 3 presents the dismal state of commercial sockeye fishing while Part 4…
josh donlan | October 18, 2008Every year Houghton-Mifflin puts out a edited volume entitled "The Best American Science and Nature Writing". The latest volume looks like some delightful bedtime reading (although I may be biased because I was chosen as one of the authors). It includes works by Freeman Dyson, Edward Hoagland, David Quammen, Oliver Sachs, and many others. Editor Jerome Groopman pulls from a variety of publications including the New Yorker, Outside Magazine, and Scientific American. He suggests "the articles...draw the reader more tightly into the web of the world. They forge links in unexpected ways. They…
jjacquet | October 8, 2008A lowdown of what's happening with the oceans and the people that care about them:
1) Dr. Jeremy Jackson delivers a lecture on the Brave New Ocean tonight at Harvey Mudd College.
2) Oceana is again running their Freakiest Fish contest. Check out their site and vote for your favorite freak fish. Currently the vampire squid is in the lead.
3)Another deep-sea dwelling fish that is "surprisingly cute" (and thus not up for freakiest fish) has been filmed for the first time by a Japan-UK team. It is suspected Pseudoliparis amblystomopsis is the deepest living fish found to date. Watch footage…
jjacquet | October 6, 2008Today in Barcelona, Dr. Daniel Pauly, who, among other things, is the brain behind the term 'shifting baselines', was awarded the Ramon Margelef prize in ecology.
josh donlan | October 1, 2008I am hastily heading to the World Conservation Forum in Barcelona, which starts next week. Here, more than 8,000 of the world's leading decision makers in sustainable development will convene: from governments, NGOs, business, the UN and academia. Together in one place for 10 days, they will to debate, share, network, learn, commit, vote and decide. Their objectives: ideas, action and solutions for a diverse and sustainable world.
Many of the session will be streamed live, including dozens of marine-focused sessions. Here is a link to those sessions.
jjacquet | September 30, 2008The latest video from Randy Olson's Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project is here and highlights the differences between two sailors' experiences: one describing his voyage in 1958 and one (the leader of the junk raft expedition) describing the exact same voyage but 50 years later. You can probably discern from the video title that the results aren't pretty. Also, Andy Revkin has a more detailed post on the project at his New York Times Dot Earth Blog and will post a short interview with Olson later today...
jjacquet | September 28, 2008The New York TImes reviewed the new Sant Ocean Hall, which opened this weekend at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. The new exhibit on the oceans is the largest renovation in the museum's century-long history and it sounds and looks promising. I wonder what the child's perspective is on it...
rolson | September 16, 2008On the morning after our east coast premiere of "Sizzle" at the Woods Hole Film Festival on July 26 we had a really good panel discussion which WGBH video taped and has just posted. Andy Revkin (of the NY Times) and Naomi Oreskes (star of "Sizzle") are both excellent. Scott Doney doesn't quite get enough time and I take too much, but aside from that, I'd encourage you to give it a listen (just play the audio like a podcast, there's not much to watch). At 1:04 is a wonderful moment for me -- a member of the audience tells about the profound effect "Sizzle" had upon his 15 year old daughter…
jjacquet | September 11, 2008Here ye, here ye! For those of you in the Vancouver neighborhood, Dave Ng (from World's Fair) and I are hosting an event to celebrate ScienceBlogs millionth comment on Thursday, September 18th, from 6pm at Koerner's Pub (on UBC's campus). Come by! We have a little pocket money from SEED, which means you should come even if you're broke.
Dave set up a Facebook event page just so that we have a general sense of how many folks might show up. Hope to see you in a week!
jjacquet | August 21, 2008NewScientist's Thomas Hayden just reviewed Sizzle and liked what he saw. He recognized the film wasn't playing to the interests and expectations of the science world (Al Gore already did that) but about the importance of using humor to open hearts and minds to the topic of climate change. Read his review here.
josh donlan | August 9, 2008In this month's issue of High Country News, journalist Kim Todd writes about northern spotted and barred owls. A new arrival to the Pacific Northwest, barred owls appear to be outcompeting the spotted owl. Managers are in a conundrum and are considering lethal control of barred owls in order to halt a decline of spotted owls. Killing one native species to save another? With on-coming climate change, such complex ecological situations were certainly be more common. In the same issue, Todd writes about a similar situation with golden eagles on the California Channel Islands.
josh donlan | July 31, 2008Here is recent article about beavers in the UK newspaper - The Guardian. This is a classic example of how a lack of appreciation for ecological history leads to ignorance. The journalist tries to compare the ecological consequences of North American beaver that have been introduced to southern South America some 50 years ago with the reintroduction plans of European beaver to the UK - where they were present just a couple of hundred years ago! Beavers were an important ecosystem driver in Europe for millennia; we should be reintroducing them when and where we can. North American beaver are…