Book: Alanna Mitchell 'Sea Sick' (2009)

Did you know that, according to the sorts of scientists who crank out obscure trivia, every tear you cry eventually ends up in the ocean? This is relevant here because Mitchell's book might cause you to shed tears of pure rage. Tackling the difficult subject of ocean change (a massive contributing factor to global climate change), she lists example after example of horrifying things that the human race has done to the seas and everything in them, including plastic islands, oxygenless 'dead zones' of water where nothing can live, and entire species fished to the brink of extinction. Thankfully she also lists things that can, could, and should be done to try and halt (or at least assuage) the potentially catastrophic effects of ocean and climate change. The question, as always, is whether enough people will give enough of a damn to change anything at all.

Sore subject aside, it's fascinating just to follow her research expedition as she travels the world visiting coral reefs, universities, Australians, starving Tanzanian villagers, floating laboratories, a marine conference in China, a paleoecological dig in Spain, and the bottom of the sea. I learned a ton of incredibly cool facts about phytoplankton (which produce about half of the world's atmospheric oxygen) and corals, and some rather less cool facts about modern fishing practises and why there are certain types of seafood we simply oughtn't to eat.

In case you might think that Mitchell is simply a paranoid alarmist or a bleeding-heart crackpot commie Canadian liberal, I'd like to point out that she was named by Reuters as the best environmental reporter in the world. That's hardly the title of a crackpot, rather the label of a great writer and a fanatically accurate researcher. Please do read her book.

Film: 'The End of the Line' (2009)

 Imagine a world with no fish. This should bother you. If it does, watch this film. If it doesn't (you hate fish, you never eat them; or, you love fish, but you know there are plenty of them in the sea), watch it anyway. I'm f*cking serious this time, kids. Most of what I review here is for my own amusement, and I don't really mind whether or not you seek it out beyond the reviews. This one is different; I really, really want you to go and watch it.

Yeah, I know - I hate nature docs, and I never recommend them. This is not a nature doc. This is a documentary about the horrifying impact human appetite and avarice has on the no-longer-natural world. Ever gone out for sushi? Surf 'n' turf? Made good old-fashioned chowder, or baked a nice filet of haddock? Do you know where the filling in your tuna sandwich was caught, and how? These are easy questions to answer, though the simple-enough answers may lead you towards rather more frightening truths.

Please watch the film. It's easy to get, via netflix or a library. Make your friends watch it. Make your mom watch it (maybe she'll stop making that really horrible salmon casserole every time you visit). I know it's tough. I know you don't want to know what your fellow humans have done to the world you live in, and how you've inadvertently helped them out with that. I sure as hell wish I didn't have to know any of it. But I do know, and I want and wish and hope and pray for you to know too, because I would like to have some world left for us to keep on living in.

For more information regarding what this is all about (and what you can do about it), visit  http://endoftheline.com/campaign/.

You can (and I hope you will) also read journalist Charles Clover's book, The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat, upon which this film was based.

Film: 'Microcosmos' (1996)

Cinematography: Doubleplusgood.
Narration: N/A (= fail).
Soundtrack: WTF?!

I hate nature documentaries. Nature is supercool, generally speaking, but the makers of these wretched pieces of work have an incredible penchant for stripping all semblance of meaning from the natural world. This one is no exception. Though filmed in impressive and often beautiful (and sometimes incredibly disgusting) close-up detail, the almost total lack of narration means that one spends the whole film going "but why are those bugs fighting?" "but WHY are the caterpillars marching in lines, is someone about to snort them or something?" "what is that thing?" 
The soundtrack is nothing short of execrable. It sounds as if they remixed a really awful early-20th-century opera with Tom Waits' worst drunken moments and also a gentrified circus side show.
Highlight: a pheasant eating ants. 

This film would probably be perfect if you projected it on the ceiling during a party and spiked the punch with LSD.