Communicating
jjacquet | May 14, 2008Today, my review of Taras Grescoe's recently published book Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood is up at The Tyee.
When Taras Grescoe declares he will try anything on his voyage around the world in search of ethical seafood, he means it. He eats poisonous pufferfish, morally questionable shark fin soup, and potentially dangerous oysters during months without r's. He even samples fishmeal (yuck). After 18 months of eating his way up and down the marine food chain, Grescoe exits a bottom-feeder -- committed to consuming fish lower on the marine food web, with the…
jjacquet | May 14, 2008After doing podcasts with Genie Scott, PZ Myers, and Richard Dawkins regarding the movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," Skepticality decided to bring back Randy Olson (they did a first podcast with him last October) to let him have the last word on the debut of "Expelled." In his discussion he goes through six ways in which he feels the evolution crowd played into the hands of the producers of "Expelled," and unintentionally helped them promote the movie.
You can hear it here.
For being interviewed in the movie, Skeptic Magazine editor Michael Shermer wins a souvenir "Expelled"…
jjacquet | April 25, 2008Check out this 4-minute clip of Dr. Rashid Sumaila, head of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit here at the UBC Fisheries Centre (and also one of my committee members), as he discusses overfishing, subsidies, and what we can do about it. The clip is an out-take from the PBS series Strange Days on Planet Earth and Rashid also gave a nice interview for the Strange Days website. He forgot to mention his motto: Just keep pushing. (Also note that Rashid has been invited to TED Talks in Africa this fall so this won't be the last clip from him!)
jjacquet | April 23, 2008We didn't have time to review the film "Expelled" here at Shifting Baselines but here are a handful of reviews by a handful of interesting characters:
Is I.D. Ready for Its Close-up? by Peter Manseau, Editor of Science & Spirit
Hearts and Minds by Chris Mooney, science writer and Intersection blogger
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed--Ben Stein Launches a Science-free Attack on Darwin by Michael Shermer, Skeptic Society and Scientific American contributor
Resentment Over Darwin Evolves into a Documentary by Jeanette Catsoulis for The New York Times
And finally, from Fox News, a review of…
jjacquet | April 23, 2008There are some great campaigns around the world right now. For instance, just this morning at the Brussels Seafood Expo, 80 Greenpeace activists from 15 countries covered the stands with fishing nets, chained themselves to the stands and put up banners in 13 languages saying 'Time and Tuna are running out' and closed down several seafood trading stands. According to Greenpeace:
The Brussels Seafood Expo is the world's largest seafood trading event. If you want to see the world's remaining fish stocks literally served up on a plate, this is the place to come. 1,600 companies from 80…
rolson | April 20, 2008It's a dark day for the subject of evolution in the U.S. Two years ago I made a pro-evolution movie, "Flock of Dodos," trying to warn the evolution community they are not good with mass communication, and that the people behind the attacks on evolution are VERY, VERY good. This weekend Ben Stein's anti-evolution movie, "Expelled," had a HUGE opening, estimated to rake in over $3 million dollars. One of the top openings EVER for a documentary.
Ben Stein says evolution is for losers, and nobody seems to be able to answer him.
jjacquet | April 16, 2008Today the Shifting Baselines blog is proud to host a guest post from Dr. Jeremy Jackson, marine paleoecologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and long-term scientific proponent and communicator of the shifting baselines syndrome. He finds similarity in Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project founder Randy Olson and former Vice President Al Gore:
Having served as America's Vice President, having created a slideshow powerful enough to win an Oscar, and having won a Nobel Prize, one can assume Al Gore is a smart man. Everyone should have been interested, then, when two weeks ago…
rolson | April 13, 2008bellwether - a person or thing that assumes the leadership or forefront, as of a profession or industry: Paris is a bellwether of the fashion industry.
I can't say enough good things about what the Science Debate 2008 group has managed to achieve so far. And enough bad things about some of the crotchety old farts who naysayed the idea from it's inception (always great to hear the fading echoes of last century's science community, like John Horgan, official fuddydud). Sheril Kirshenbaum has spearheaded a short note in Science about the future of SD 2008. The entire project seems to be saying…
jjacquet | April 10, 2008Just in time for the one year anniversary: Check out this sweet new hoodie designed by Sarika Cullis-Suzuki, another graduate student of Daniel Pauly's here at the UBC Fisheries Centre. She insists she made the gyotaku (fishprint) and THEN shrank it--so her hook-and-line caught rockfish was not really that small.
jjacquet | April 8, 2008Last fall I was contacted by the folks at the newly created Puget Sound Partnership regarding the "shifting baselines" predicament they face with Puget Sound. Their phone polling showed that over 90% of the people of Seattle are in favor of protecting Puget Sound, but over 70% think the Sound, as it is today, is pretty much pristine. That is a case for shifting baselines.
So over the past four months we produced this new 5 minute Flash video to help convey the fact that even though, when you stand on the ferry and look out at Puget Sound it all appears flawless, the real situation is…
jjacquet | April 3, 2008The green issue of Vanity Fair is out again this year (along with a barrage of other green issues of magazines) and the Board of Directors for Oceana is featured in the Green Heroes section, including my advisor and inventor of the term 'shifting baselines' Dr. Daniel Pauly (4th from the left)!
It's easy being green. What's hard is effecting real change. Here are the activists, agitators, scientists, and superstars who are fighting for us all.
jjacquet | March 31, 2008Jason Ensler, Hollywood director and co-founder of the Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project, released a short film he made on living locally in a digital age. The film spotlights NPR correspondent and now goat-herder Doug Fine and is a segue to Fine's latest book Farewell My Subaru--a disclosure of Fine's mistakes during his first year of going green. Watch the beautiful little piece here (or at BoingBoing).
p.s. For more on green living, check back here tomorrow.
jjacquet | March 24, 2008As the folks behind Science Debate 2008 continue to push for a broader voice for the science world, David Sloan Wilson is probing into a similar issue with his column on the Huffington Post. He's asking whether the HuffPost should have an entire section dedicated to science. We think so. If you do, too, then register your vote with him.
josh donlan | March 23, 2008spending money on your friends and strangers? According to new research published in Science, spending money on other people has a more positive impact on happiness than spending money on oneself. This may come to a surprise to some, but makes perfect sense to others.
Given that we are creatures of reciprocity and live our lives not in absolute terms but in relative ones - both spending less money and spending it on others seems a reasonable path to increased happiness. Ethicist Jonathon Haidt has written a length about such dilemmas in his book The Happiness Hypothesis. There are important…
josh donlan | March 14, 2008Shifting Baselines' very own Jeremy Jackson was awarded the 11th Annual Roger Tory Peterson Medal presented by the Harvard Museum of Natural History. The Harvard Museum initiated the award in 1997 to honor the pioneering naturalist and author of the classic Peterson Field Guide to Birds. Dr. Jackson joins an impressive list of past recipients that include E.O. Wilson, Jared Diamond, Bruce Babbitt, Peter Matthiessen, David Attenborough, and David Suzuki.
Dr. Jackson will deliver a lecture entitled Brave New Ocean on April 6th at 3pm at Harvard. For more information go to http://www.hmnh.…
jjacquet | March 12, 2008Q1: How do you skillfully publicize a mediocre movie?
Create a good story around it.
Q2: What lies at the heart of a good story?
A good source of tension or conflict.
Q3: Are preview screenings of a mediocre movie a good source of tension or conflict?
No.
Q4: Are preview screenings where you have to sign non-disclosure agreements a good source of tension or conflict?
Yes. Very good.
Q5: Would The New York Times be likely to cover preview screenings of a mediocre movie?
Only if the screenings had non-disclosure agreements required.
Q6: Does the evolution community take the bait every…
jjacquet | March 9, 2008This is the bottom line I've been waiting for. I've been sort of picking up this vibe with the advance word, but here it officially is--the film critic for the Orlando Sentinel reviewed Ben Stein's anti-evolution movie, "Expelled," and, bottom line, said:
"It just isn't particularly funny."
That's all that matters. End of story. It's not entertainment. Film is first and foremost an entertainment medium. Anything on film that isn't entertaining is an attempt to drive a square peg into a round hole. Michael Moore's films are entertaining. "Super Size Me" is entertaining. "Flock of Dodos,"…
jjacquet | February 25, 2008I spend a lot of time complaining about the ineptitude of the science world when it comes to mass communication and function in mainstream society. But all of a sudden here is this Science Debate 2008 effort that is being run with shockingly good style and savvy. Who in the world is behind such a non-science-like effort? It all tracks back to Matthew Chapman, science writer, screenwriter, descendent of Charles Darwin, and member of the general public who was disappointed at the lack of discussion of science and technology by the presidential candidates. I contacted him and asked 5 simple…
jjacquet | February 21, 2008Randy Olson (co-founder of Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project) has been hard at work for the past two months on a collaboration with the new Puget Sound Partnership on a 5 minute Flash slide show, "Shifting Baselines in the Sound." Pearl Jam has officially lent their song, "Oceans," to the piece and the enviro web design firm, Tree Media, producers of "The 11th Hour" (with Leonardo Dicaprio) are doing the graphics and Flash programming. The finished project will fit right in with the two previous and very popular Shifting Baselines Flash pieces, Pristine? (2003) and Shifting Baselines…