May 18, 2022 – Malibu, California – Plastic Oceans International and Great Lakes Outreach Media continue to see signs that their joint film production, The Erie Situation, is striking the right chord with audiences, critics and topic experts alike.
Two concepts that are well familiar to anyone keeping up with environmental issues are climate change and plastic pollution. Up until recently, these two threats to environmental and community health have coexisted peacefully beside one another. That isn’t the case anymore.
Consider a published paper with this line, front and center, as a highlight of the paper itself. “Plastic is not as great a threat to oceans as climate change or overfishing”1.
It seems as if we are now at the point where we find it necessary to rank threats to the planet against one another. Is this the proper path forward to advance science towards a healthier planet? No. In fact, this type of thinking may do more harm than good. Let me explain.
In the foothills of the exquisite Sierra Nevada mountain range in Colombia, a small organization is doing great big beautiful things. Here, the team at La Sierra Artist Residency works tirelessly in three main areas: environmental education; community empowerment; and recovery of the ancestral arts.
When confronting the overwhelming challenge that is the environmental crisis, it can be hard to find your footing. With the addition of Transformando Futuros (Transforming Futures) to the ever-growing Plastic Oceans International BlueCommunities family, methods of challenging the issue are being skillfully woven into the lives of those within the northern Spanish province of Cantabria. Work that is showing us how change can happen one step at a time.
Maktub; it is written.
In Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, the young Santiago encounters this word – loosely translated from the Arabic – when he is taking important steps on his journey towards achieving his life’s purpose.
Copacabana – a word which conjures an entire Brazilian beach experience: beautiful golden sand; bright lights; parties; and caipirinhas.
And, plastic?
Amidst the flurry of activity, a group of volunteers regularly gathers to tackle the litter left on the beach, and to promote a message: we must change our habits now, or risk losing our oceans’ biodiversity forever.
Albert Font de Rubinat, Co-Founder and CEO of Good Karma Projects, proves that there is something in a name.
“We are here to do something good,” he says, “to do something for the people, and to do something for the planet.”
Thrumming with good energy and positive motivation to make a change, the titular good karma is ever present in Barcelona. Founded in 2007, this year Good Karma Projects is joining nearly 50 other members of Plastic Oceans International’s groundbreaking BlueCommunities initiative.
Mike Lewis, Marketing Director at Zeal Optics, does images.
Centerpoints, juxtapositions, offsets, contrasts; Lewis is a human and professional who has made a career and a life in visuals.
But as with many individuals in the field of optics, he knows that the most significant visual is not an image, but a certain kind of truth.
A fundamental.
So for Lewis and the team at Zeal Optics, manufacturing and selling sunglasses and goggles without core innate values is a missed opportunity. Which is how their partnership with Plastic Oceans International on their #Shades4Seas campaign came to fruition.
The Erie Situation recently made its world premiere at the Cleveland International Film Festival, where it had three great screenings and took home the award for top film at the Global Health Competition.
On Monday, April 18, director David J. Ruck joined The Sound of Ideas show on Cleveland’s NPR station, WKSU. Host Rick Jackson interviewed David about the film and the toxic algal blooms that it examines. Enjoy the full interview here:
How does the ocean make you feel? Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How to combine both to inspire conservation?
These are some of the questions explored through the conversations and stories in this article.
