Graduate students Christine Lacayo and Pamela Millan in the MSEM program have been attending the public forum events at COP21 in Paris, France since Friday, December 4th working for the Sylvia Earle Alliance with Charlotte Vick and underwater photographer and filmmaker Jon Slayer. The students have been helping raise awareness and maintain crucial conversations on the importance of our oceans through interviews, social media, and attending talks and events such as We Are the Frontline for the Coalition of Atoll Nations on Climate Change and Tara Expèditions, a 36-meter research vessel that has traveled 300,000 kilometers across the oceans dedicated to collecting data on climate change impacts on our oceans.
Despite our ocean’s crucial role in our very existence supplying the oxygen we need for every second breath we take and storing a majority of our carbon dioxide, these lungs of our planet have been somewhat absent in climate change conferences in the past. Organizations such as the Sylvia Earle Alliance, Oceans Inc., Under the Pole, Ocean & Climate, and the Surfrider Foundation are looking to change that. Check out the video they’ve been working on with Jon Slayer for Oceans Inc.!