In addition to the demand for short news caused by the digital age, in generalthe public has an “insatiable hunger for complex information, scientific perspectives and in-depth reporting”. This was the opinion shared by the Secretary of the Interior of the United States, Kenneth Salazar, during the last conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists in Miami. “This was amply demonstrated during the spill of theDeepwater Horizonin the Gulf of Mexico, when complicated geological and oil terms became part of the everyday language of families at dinner time, “added Salazar.
The conference, which has been held for the 21-year life of the Society of Environmental Journalists (with about 1,500 members today), broke its own attendance record, with more than 900 participants from 40 North American states and 22 countries. , including Spain, with representatives from EFE Verde and El Mundo. It was the largest international participation in this meeting so far.
Theacuanauta Sylvia Earle, the first woman to explore the true bed of the sea and nicknamed “her majesty of the deep,” made a guest appearance as a resident explorer ofNational Geographicto draw attention to the abyssal and little-studied regions. “There is a crack in our knowledge of the sea. And we cannot take care of something we do not know: that is the great mystery and at the same time the great tragedy of the sea, “reflected Earle.
For its part,the Cousteau family, including Jean-Michel, his two children Céline and Fabien, and his two nephews, Alexandra and Philippe, meeting for the first time in public, offered the world premiere of themovie My Father the Captain. The anticipated documentary and accompanying book will be released on the Spanish market in the future. Cousteausenior He took the opportunity to pass the torch, literally, to each of his heirs and to his different environmental organizations, in a nice gesture with a piece of wood.
Topics on the agenda included issues rarely covered in the world press, such as theocean acidification, theillegal wildlife trafficking, mining in Latin America, and the amazing Everglades system in Florida, a unique ecosystem. NASA demonstrated the use of satellites to create maps of the earth’s and oceanic environmental conditions, revealing images of the ozone layer and rainforest biomass. Finally, a live connection with the Palmer research station on the Antarctic Peninsula brought together the common ground ofthe consequences of climate change at the poles and the tropics. “Climate change is real. I see and feel it here every day, “said Dr. Kim Bernard, who conducts zooplankton studies at Palmer.
Angela Posada-Swafford
