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Couple's new film seeks to promulgate key environmental issue
 |
| Germantown resident Sven Huseby, co-producer with his wife Barbara Ettinger of the film “A Sea Change,” rows a boat in Norway during the filming of the new documentary on ocean acidification. (Contributed photo) |
Ettinger and Huseby’s new film “A Sea Change”
By Andrew Amelinckx
Hudson-Catskill Newspapers
GERMANTOWN — A local couple is helping to bring to light a potentially devastating environmental issue involving the world’s oceans through their latest film.
“A Sea Change,” directed and produced by Barbara Ettinger and co-produced by her husband Sven Huseby, looks at the effects of ocean acidification.
For some time scientists have warned that carbon dioxide released into the Earth’s atmosphere was responsible for global warming, but another, and equally dangerous aspect of carbon emissions is occurring in the world’s oceans with little ballyhoo.
Carbon dioxide reacts with seawater to lower its potential of Hydrogen, or PH, and the more CO2 we produce the lower the PH levels in the world’s oceans.
“When PH goes down, acidity goes up,” said Huseby via phone from Cape Cod, where he and Ettinger were for a film festival.
Lower PH reduces the availability of carbonate ions, which are used by a variety of marine organisms — from tiny phytoplankton to lobsters — to help form their shells and exoskeletons.
A number of the tiniest calcifying creatures, like phytoplankton, are the main food source of larger marine organisms.
“They’re at the bottom of the food web,” Huseby said, stressing the word “web” as opposed to “chain,” intimating that the entire system is connected from the bottom straight up to humans.
“It’s moving up the food web to affect humans,” he said. “Thirty percent of our protein comes from the sea.”
Another casualty of ocean acidification is coral reefs, which are already dying due to other forms of pollution, warmer ocean temperatures and through “international fishing practices,” according to Huseby.
Huseby called all these factors the prefect storm for the demise of reefs.
Coral reefs are important for providing protection and shelter for a variety of different species of fish, which live and reproduce there. This too affects humans, since reef fish and mollusks provide food for around 40 million people a year based on one estimate.
Research has also shown that higher acid levels in the world’s oceans are affecting larval fish. According to research published by the National Academy of Sciences, ocean acidification disrupts the olfactory sense of clownfish larvae making it harder for them to find a habitat.
Huseby said the oceans might be heading for a “bottom up collapse.”
The level of CO2 being absorbed by the oceans has been steadily increasing since the dawn of the industrial age, going from 280 parts per million in pre-industrial times to 389 ppm now, and still continuing to increase.
As to when we will reach the tipping point, Huseby said that know one knows for sure.
He said environmentalist Bill McKibben has suggested 350 ppm as the number, which we’ve already passed.
“Others say 400 or 450,” he said.
If current rates continue by mid-century the oceans will be twice as high as pre-industrial levels; higher than they have been in 500,000 years or more.
This phenomenon wasn’t discovered until the late 1990s according to Huseby.
“Nobody was looking for it,” he said. Nobody believed that the oceans, which cover 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, were at risk from carbon dioxide.
One thing Huseby was struck by was the lack of “nay sayers” on the subject. He said that every scientist they had spoken to believed ocean acidification was real.
Huseby and Ettinger were unfamiliar with ocean acidification until they read an article on the subject by Elizabeth Kolbert in the November 2006 edition of The New Yorker, titled The Darkening Sea.
He said neither of them had been aware of the phenomenon.
“We were flabbergasted,” he said. “We considered ourselves environmentally aware.”
At the time the couple had just finished work on their film “Two Square Miles” about the battle surrounding the proposed St. Lawrence cement plant in Hudson.
“We decided to take a little break,” he said. But it wasn’t to be. After reading the article and doing a Google search that turned up a half page of hits, their interest was piqued and they began a deeper investigation into the subject.
“We concluded there might be a story here,” he said.
Not long afterwards the couple went to a conference on the subject in Seattle hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“We had to go out there,” he said.
The gathering of scientists and environmentalists had about 80 attendees. Huseby and Ettinger realized that the subject had yet to be disseminated to a broader audience.
The couple dove into the project and have become involved in not just publicizing their film, but in spreading the word on ocean acidification.
“We believe in what we’re doing,” he said.
The film follows Huseby on his international journey to try and understand the phenomenon. The film also delves into his past and his personal connection to the sea.
Huseby was born in Norway and grew up in Alaska and Seattle. In the film he visits his birthplace where his family ran a fish market and the village in Alaska where he once lived and where his father ran a fish cannery.
He said that Ettinger strived to make the film “a human tale” and in so doing asked him to be in front of the camera.
His grandson Elias is also in the film and, he said, helps to make the connection between the generations.
The film has been getting a good amount of press, no doubt due in part to the couple’s non-stop schedule.
They have been traveling on and off since January promoting the film and speaking on the subject.
The film has been shown internationally in Spain, Australia and Brazil, among other countries, and was recently purchased by Discovery Channel to air starting Sept. 26, 2009 at 8 p.m. on its Planet Green Network.
The film will be shown in Manhattan at the American Museum of Natural History as well, beginning Sept. 13.
“We can’t keep track of it all,” Huseby laughed.
The couple is also hoping to go to the international climate summit in Copenhagen this December.
“We’re trying to make that happen,” he said.
In late June Huseby and others went to Washington, D.C. to discuss the issue with Capitol Hill staffers.
Huseby said it bodes well that the new head of NOAA, Jane Lubchenko, has been on the forefront of the research on the phenomenon.
“She’s fully aware of the issue,” he said, “and what needs to be done.”
He said that there needed to be a huge reduction in the amount of CO2 being produced by humans.
“We are producing 22 million tons a day,” he said.
During the film’s production, Huseby said he became rather depressed, but towards the end of filming felt there was hope.
“There’s so much more to do,” he said with what sounded like a sigh of hope.
To reach reporter Andrew Amelinckx call 518- 828-1616, ext. 2267 or e-mail aamelinckx@registerstar.com
To comment directly on this story, go to www.registerstar.com.
“A Sea Change,” directed and produced by Barbara Ettinger and co-produced by her husband Sven Huseby, looks at the effects of ocean acidification.
For some time scientists have warned that carbon dioxide released into the Earth’s atmosphere was responsible for global warming, but another, and equally dangerous aspect of carbon emissions is occurring in the world’s oceans with little ballyhoo.
Carbon dioxide reacts with seawater to lower its potential of Hydrogen, or PH, and the more CO2 we produce the lower the PH levels in the world’s oceans.
“When PH goes down, acidity goes up,” said Huseby via phone from Cape Cod, where he and Ettinger were for a film festival.
Lower PH reduces the availability of carbonate ions, which are used by a variety of marine organisms — from tiny phytoplankton to lobsters — to help form their shells and exoskeletons.
A number of the tiniest calcifying creatures, like phytoplankton, are the main food source of larger marine organisms.
“They’re at the bottom of the food web,” Huseby said, stressing the word “web” as opposed to “chain,” intimating that the entire system is connected from the bottom straight up to humans.
“It’s moving up the food web to affect humans,” he said. “Thirty percent of our protein comes from the sea.”
Another casualty of ocean acidification is coral reefs, which are already dying due to other forms of pollution, warmer ocean temperatures and through “international fishing practices,” according to Huseby.
Huseby called all these factors the prefect storm for the demise of reefs.
Coral reefs are important for providing protection and shelter for a variety of different species of fish, which live and reproduce there. This too affects humans, since reef fish and mollusks provide food for around 40 million people a year based on one estimate.
Research has also shown that higher acid levels in the world’s oceans are affecting larval fish. According to research published by the National Academy of Sciences, ocean acidification disrupts the olfactory sense of clownfish larvae making it harder for them to find a habitat.
Huseby said the oceans might be heading for a “bottom up collapse.”
The level of CO2 being absorbed by the oceans has been steadily increasing since the dawn of the industrial age, going from 280 parts per million in pre-industrial times to 389 ppm now, and still continuing to increase.
As to when we will reach the tipping point, Huseby said that know one knows for sure.
He said environmentalist Bill McKibben has suggested 350 ppm as the number, which we’ve already passed.
“Others say 400 or 450,” he said.
If current rates continue by mid-century the oceans will be twice as high as pre-industrial levels; higher than they have been in 500,000 years or more.
This phenomenon wasn’t discovered until the late 1990s according to Huseby.
“Nobody was looking for it,” he said. Nobody believed that the oceans, which cover 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, were at risk from carbon dioxide.
One thing Huseby was struck by was the lack of “nay sayers” on the subject. He said that every scientist they had spoken to believed ocean acidification was real.
Huseby and Ettinger were unfamiliar with ocean acidification until they read an article on the subject by Elizabeth Kolbert in the November 2006 edition of The New Yorker, titled The Darkening Sea.
He said neither of them had been aware of the phenomenon.
“We were flabbergasted,” he said. “We considered ourselves environmentally aware.”
At the time the couple had just finished work on their film “Two Square Miles” about the battle surrounding the proposed St. Lawrence cement plant in Hudson.
“We decided to take a little break,” he said. But it wasn’t to be. After reading the article and doing a Google search that turned up a half page of hits, their interest was piqued and they began a deeper investigation into the subject.
“We concluded there might be a story here,” he said.
Not long afterwards the couple went to a conference on the subject in Seattle hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“We had to go out there,” he said.
The gathering of scientists and environmentalists had about 80 attendees. Huseby and Ettinger realized that the subject had yet to be disseminated to a broader audience.
The couple dove into the project and have become involved in not just publicizing their film, but in spreading the word on ocean acidification.
“We believe in what we’re doing,” he said.
The film follows Huseby on his international journey to try and understand the phenomenon. The film also delves into his past and his personal connection to the sea.
Huseby was born in Norway and grew up in Alaska and Seattle. In the film he visits his birthplace where his family ran a fish market and the village in Alaska where he once lived and where his father ran a fish cannery.
He said that Ettinger strived to make the film “a human tale” and in so doing asked him to be in front of the camera.
His grandson Elias is also in the film and, he said, helps to make the connection between the generations.
The film has been getting a good amount of press, no doubt due in part to the couple’s non-stop schedule.
They have been traveling on and off since January promoting the film and speaking on the subject.
The film has been shown internationally in Spain, Australia and Brazil, among other countries, and was recently purchased by Discovery Channel to air starting Sept. 26, 2009 at 8 p.m. on its Planet Green Network.
The film will be shown in Manhattan at the American Museum of Natural History as well, beginning Sept. 13.
“We can’t keep track of it all,” Huseby laughed.
The couple is also hoping to go to the international climate summit in Copenhagen this December.
“We’re trying to make that happen,” he said.
In late June Huseby and others went to Washington, D.C. to discuss the issue with Capitol Hill staffers.
Huseby said it bodes well that the new head of NOAA, Jane Lubchenko, has been on the forefront of the research on the phenomenon.
“She’s fully aware of the issue,” he said, “and what needs to be done.”
He said that there needed to be a huge reduction in the amount of CO2 being produced by humans.
“We are producing 22 million tons a day,” he said.
During the film’s production, Huseby said he became rather depressed, but towards the end of filming felt there was hope.
“There’s so much more to do,” he said with what sounded like a sigh of hope.
To reach reporter Andrew Amelinckx call 518- 828-1616, ext. 2267 or e-mail aamelinckx@registerstar.com
To comment directly on this story, go to www.registerstar.com.
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