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Interview with Jeff Orlowski, Director of ‘Chasing Ice’
With all this talk in Doha about climate change and what the international community should be doing about it, sometimes it’s good to get a reality check from those out in the field. A new film being screened this week (December 7 – 11) at the Bytowne Theatre in Ottawa does just that.
Dubbed by some as the new “Inconvenient Truth,” Chasing Ice chronicles the work of National Geographic photographer James Balog and his Extreme Ice Survey, which is a visual legacy of how climate change and other human activity is impacting the planet. The documentary looks at how Balog captured climate change on film by placing two dozen time-lapse cameras throughout the Arctic and other areas to document melting glaciers. Using these cameras, his videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate.
To find out more about Chasing Ice, I caught up with the director Jeff Orlowski, on the phone from Boulder, Colorado. Jeff began filming on the initial expedition of the Extreme Ice Survey. That winter, the team scouted and filmed glaciers that now appear in the documentary feature film. In our interview, Geoff tells me about the filmmakers’ incredible journey and how the entire crew was both stunned and transformed by what they witnessed.
Right click here to download the interview.
Earthgauge Radio December 6 2012: Over the climate cliff! Special program on the Doha Climate Change Conference
This week on Earthgauge Radio, it’s our Doha Climate Change Conference special broadcast. We have several features on the program today:
- On the ground reporting and news from the Doha summit courtesy of Deutsche Welle Living Planet
- An interview from Doha with Beatrice Yeung who is attending the conference on behalf of the Students on Ice Alumni Delegation
- An interview with Jeff Orlowski, director of ‘Chasing Ice‘, a new film that chronicles the astonishing changes currently taking place in the Arctic as a result of human-caused climate change
We also have our usual update from Ecology Ottawa on local environmental events and campaigns. Click the audio player above to stream the whole show or right click here to download. Individual interviews will be posted shortly.
I’m feeling a little rough today and you’ll hear it in my raspy voice (apologies!) but the show must go on and today it’s our Doha Climate Change Conference special. To kick things off, we hear three reports from correspondents on the ground in Qatar reporting for Deutsche Welle Living Planet who give us some context on the lead up to the Doha conference, what is happening on the ground at the summit, and what is at stake.
Next I speak with Beatrice Yeung who is in Qatar representing the Students on Ice Alumni Delegation. Students on Ice is an organization based in Gatineau, Quebec that offers unique educational expeditions to the Antarctic and the Arctic. The alumni delegation is composed of students such as Beatrice who have visited the polar regions and are now advocating on behalf of polar conservation. Given the rapid changes taking place in these parts of the world, this entails taking serious and immediate action on climate change.
In the second half hour today, we hear a feature interview with the director of the remarkable new documentary film ‘Chasing Ice‘. With all this talk about climate change and what the international community should be doing about it in Doha, sometimes it’s good to get a reality check from those out in the field. Dubbed by some as the new “Inconvenient Truth,” Chasing Ice chronicles the work of National Geographic photographer James Balog and his Extreme Ice Survey, which is a visual legacy of how climate change and other human activity is impacting the planet. Using time-lapse cameras, his videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. To find out more about the film, I caught up with the director Jeff Orlowski on the phone from Boulder, Colorado. The film is being screened at the Bytowne Theatre in Ottawa from December 7 – 11 and Geoff tells us more about the filmmakers’ incredible journey to provide incontrovertible proof that our planet is in crisis and what we do to it matters.
We’ll also have our usual update from Ecology Ottawa on local environmental events and campaigns.
Earthgauge Radio airs Thursday mornings from 7-8 AM on CKCU 93.1 in Ottawa. Podcasts on iTunes and earthgauge.ca. Stream live on www.ckcufm.com. Check us out on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/EarthgaugeRadio.
Tomorrow on Earthgauge Radio: the Doha Climate Summit special!
Tomorrow on Earthgauge Radio on CKCU 93.1 FM, it’s our United Nations Doha Climate Summit special broadcast. We’ll hear audio from our correspondents on the ground in Qatar and a feature interview with the director of the remarkable new documentary film ‘Chasing Ice‘, which chronicles the astonishing changes currently taking place in the Arctic as a result of human-caused climate change.
We cover a lot of climate change stories on Earthgauge and that’s because, as you well know by now, it is really that important. Climate change is not just an environmental issue, of course, in fact it’s unfortunate that it continues to be framed in that way by the mainstream media. This may well be the most important economic, technological and social justice challenge of our time. Sine qua non.
So as another huge climate summit is now underway in Doha, Qatar, we’ll put our low expectations aside for the time being and try to get to the bottom of what is going on half a world away. Past U.N. climate change summits have achieved very little. Will Doha be any different? We’ll hear from correspondents on the ground at the summit including an interview with Beatrice Yeung, a young activist who is leading a group called the Students on Ice Alumni Delegation. She has seen for herself some of the dramatic changes happening in the polar regions so we’ll get her view of the proceedings as a youth observer and participant.
Also on the program, we’ll hear Doha progress reports from our friends at Deutsche Welle Living Planet and we have an interview tomorrow with the director of the remarkable new film ‘Chasing Ice’, which is running at the Bytowne Theatre in Ottawa from Dec. 7-11. With all this talk about climate change and what the international community should be doing about it, sometimes it’s good to get a reality check from those out in the field. With stunning cinematography and access to never before seen areas of the Arctic, Chasing Ice documents an incredible journey to provide incontrovertible proof that our planet is in crisis and what we do to it matters.
Tune in every Thursday morning at 7:00 AM to Ottawa’s only radio program dedicated exclusively to environmental news and commentary from here in Ottawa and around the world. Earthgauge Radio on CKCU 93.1 in Ottawa and online at www.ckcufm.com. Podcasts on iTunes and http://earthgauge.ca.
