Dispatch 22: Broader Impacts     Print

Luc Rainville

August 21, 2007

	The ABC media crew: Toshi Nagashima, Masakazu Nagata ("Captain Mac"), and Yoko Mukahira.
	Toshi and Yuko recording our daily science meeting - it's a little intimidating at first, but we rapidly got used to it. Linda White, Émilie Didierjean, and Céline Guéguen are sitting at the table.
	Yoko and Toshi asking Captain Klebert some questions on the bridge.
	Toshi getting some good footage of the Louis from the zodiac.
	Photos by Luc Rainville.

As scientists, we have little training in communicating our results to the general public. Efforts like these dispatches is a great way to tell our families, friends, colleagues, and whoever stumbles upon the site about what we do and why we do it, but I can say from experience that it's not a natural thing to do. Especially in the context of global climate changes and the growing awareness of the impact of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses on our world, it is important to communicate the importance of carrying the kind of measurements we take here and share some of our results.

There is a media crew from Japan on board the Louis S. St-Laurent this year. Yuko Mukahira is the director of a documentary on the Arctic environment and our ways to study it. She works with Masakazu Nagata ("Mac"), a marine journalist and the reporter of the project, and Toshio Nagashima, the cameraman. They are collecting footage of the work we do and conducting interviews with the scientists. Their aim is to talk about the changes that are observed in the Arctic - the ice, the water properties, the fauna, the people. Toshi has beautiful footage of the ice and the ship from the helicopter and the zodiac. It will be a very interesting documentary for sure, but sadly only in japanese.

Their program is produced by the Documentary Workshop Inc., and will most likely be broadcast across Japan on November 23rd 2007 by the Asahi Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).