Mission Blue

Mission Blue revolves around Sylvia Earle and her personal experiences as well as professional. Here is a link to her national geographic page for those who are interested in some background information about Sylvia Earle. Link

Ever since Sylvia was a little girl she was obsessed with nature. She was always in the water or exploring the woods. Wanting to discover anything and everything she can. This is why she takes the impact on the ocean to heart. It kills her that no one is doing anything about our negative impact on the oceans. Shes not afraid to call people out and tell them that they're wrong. Her advancements in the scientific community lead the charge for many women scientists. There's a specific coral reef in the Caribbean that Sylvia visited in the 70's that is no longer there. It's completely gone and its due to our high population and our never ending hunger for fossil fuels. We also have nearly fished some species extinct. Fisherman are catching blue fin tuna before they're even of age to reproduce. We continue to fish them younger and younger. There remains around 5% of the blue fin population. We must slow our use of fossil fuels. We must find better alternatives to our fishing methods. The ocean is a beautiful natural system. A system that impacts our lives much more than we can even imagine.

The film doesn't really go into detail about how we can minimize our impact, but it excels at grabbing the attention of the watcher and making them realize that we are destroying the oceans. Sylvia really stresses how much they have changed just in her life time and how concerned she is for the oceans during the lifetimes of her children. It truly opened my eyes. From this class I had a little prior knowledge of our impact on the oceans, but I didn't realize it was as severe as it is. Overall the film was well made. I didn't find it dry much like other documentaries. It kept my attention and informed me on our negative impact on the oceans.