Well, Louie has had quite a week since then. On Sunday, his feature documentary, The Cove, won the Oscar. On Tuesday, news spread around the world that the sting operation he was working on secretly video-taped the illegal sale of whale meat at one of southern California’s most prominent sushi restaurants, The Hump.
Killing marine mammals is a federal crime, as is importation of marine mammal products. Violators face fines and prison time. Yesterday, my colleague Joel Reynolds, director of NRDC’s Marine Mammal Protection Project, wrote a letter to the Santa Monica City Council urging them to “take immediate action to investigate and, if the allegations are confirmed, take whatever actions are necessary to ensure that this activity will cease, including revoking the business license for this and any other restaurant that is serving or has served whale meat.”
I can’t imagine why anyone would want to eat these intelligent and majestic creatures. Perhaps it’s safe to assume that the big spenders willing to throw down $600 for an “exotic” sushi dinner aren’t that concerned about the ethical use of animals. But morals aside, there’s another reason marine mammals are a peculiar choice for dinner: their meat is toxic.
That’s right: whales and dolphins are at the top of the ocean food chain, where the toxins we blithely pump into the ocean become most highly concentrated. So whales have insanely high concentrations of mercury, PCBs, DDT and other harmful toxins. Poison on a plate.
I guess Hollywood’s cool patrol hasn’t read that memo yet. Maybe Louie Psihoyos’ latest piece of daring journalism will wake them up. Go Louie.
]]>Before an enthusiastic audience of 470 NRDC supporters, Cameron screened excerpts of Avatar and then spoke with Elvis Mitchell, host of The Treatment on KCRW 89.9 FM, about the environmental message of his Oscar nominated, sci-fi blockbuster. Here’s coverage of the event by The New York Times.
Cameron said that Avatar, which has been attacked by right-wing commentators, was meant to grab audiences by the heart and motivate them to defend the natural world. Just as in Avatar, Cameron said, all of Earth’s creatures must work together to meet the challenges of global warming and ocean acidification.
After the interview, Cameron screened NRDC’s new This is Our Moment PSA with Leonardo DiCaprio and friends, www.thisisourmoment.org. It was the perfect way to end an inspiring evening all about taking a stand to defend our environment.
Suzy Amis Cameron, the filmmaker’s wife, is a member of NRDC’s L.A. Leadership Council, and worked with NRDC’s L.A. development team in make this terrific event happen.
Update: I've included a slideshow of more photos from the event.
To me, the core message of Avatar is that life is sacred and deserves the utmost respect. Its story of environmental destruction, both on Earth and on the fictional Pandora, reflects our actual behavior as we rush blindly to burn every bit of fossil fuel we can get our hands on, heedless of the consequences. That narrative couldn’t be more important, and yet it seems to have really irked a number of conservative commentators. Their attacks were summarized by Patrick Goldstein in the L.A. Times.
So it should be a lively discussion.
If you're based in LA, get your tickets now by calling 310-815-9152 or sending an email to NRDC@5bEvents.com.
]]>Sigourney’s other environmentally themed film this year is called ACID TEST, a documentary I co-directed about the global challenge of ocean acidification.
Since having the opportunity to work with Sigourney, it’s been a real treat to go back and watch, with new perspective, her performances in films like The Ice Storm, Working Girl, Gorillas in the Mist, and Alien. I can’t wait to see how Sigourney inhabits the role of Dr. Grace Augustine, the botanist she plays in AVATAR.
Since ACID TEST premiered on Discovery Planet Green in August, Sigourney has done a brilliant job raising awareness about the threat to our oceans from rising acidity caused by CO2 pollution. She’s given TV, radio print and web interviews, appeared at screenings, including one on Capitol Hill for U.S. senators and their staff, and pulled off an amazing Trojan Horse gambit on Fox and Friends, using a segment that was supposed to be largely about AVATAR to focus exclusively on ACID TEST and the looming crisis of ocean acidification.
Sigourney’s commitment to environmental protection is really admirable, and it’s great that her new blockbuster will bring a message about respect for nature to an audience of millions.
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As proponents of dirty fuels natter on about the safety of new offshore drilling techniques, it’s tempting to counter them with a spiel about the toxic mess caused by Ike: “See! Pumping oil out of the ocean floor is inherently risky, so the more we do, the more collateral damage we’ll suffer.”
But we should beware how this plays to our own weakness, which is a tendency to focus our communications on problems instead of solutions, and to think too much in environmental terms, and not enough in economic ones.
Sure, Ike spilled a bunch of oil, and future hurricanes will spill much more. But we’ve got to remember that the whole offshore debate is just another distraction from what we should be talking about, namely, the virtues of a clean energy economy and how we can build that economy as quickly as possible.
The more time we spend pointing out the pitfalls of offshore drilling, the happier it makes Big Oil, which wants nothing more than to stop Americans from thinking about the very real economic benefits they’ll reap from a transition to clean energy. So, sure, let’s point out in passing that offshore drilling is inherently dirty and dangerous. But let’s keep our eye on the prize, which is convincing Americans that a much better future awaits us if we get serious about clean energy.
What does that mean in practice? Well, the next time a reporter asks you to comment on the liabilities of offshore drilling (which will probably be later today), let her know that you want your quote to be about the huge opportunity we have for offshore wind power.
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