(gentle music) (birds chirping) - [Charles] There's something about the movement of water that draws us.

Its path is a circle, nourishing life as it turns.

We search the vast cosmos for water, and yet the cosmos brought much of it to us.

The same water that allowed for life to begin billions of years ago, the same water we carry within us today.

Civilization depends upon the capture of water's flow.

But what if we disrupt its flow too much?

What if the circle breaks?

My name's Charles Loi.

I'm a filmmaker who began to see that the California we grew up in is disappearing.

Climate change demands new solutions and new stories.

My friends and I set out to find those narratives, starting in our own backyard.

(water flowing) - [Announcer] "Climate California" is brought to you in part by Crankstart, a San Francisco-based family foundation that works with others on critical issues concerning economic mobility, education, democracy, housing security, the environment, and medical science and innovation.

And by the Community Foundation of Sonoma County.

Additional support provided by donors to the Center for Environmental Reporting at NorCal Public Media.

A complete list is available.

And by the following.

(upbeat music) "Climate California" is made possible by contributions to your public television station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - This is 25 meters, so I can work from the zero, and you can work from the 25.

I have the data sheet, so you might just have to shout.

Can I pass somebody this core and then reel the transect tape in?

- [Charles] Meet Melissa Ward, marine scientist, professor at San Diego State, and founder of Windward Sciences.

She and her friend Connor, an oceanographer, own a boat here in San Diego.

It makes the science a little easier.

- To be a good scientist, especially an environmental scientist, you have to really pay attention to the world around you.

If you tug on A, it will affect B, C, and D down the line.

If you want to, we can give you a job.

- You can give me a job.

- Okay.

Amazing.

You want to pull the main sail up?

- Sure.

- Okay.

This is the main halyard.

If you pull that up, that sail will go right up.

- [Charles] Today's mission, go look for some seagrass.

- So I think it's like where those masts are sticking up.

- Okay, but what is seagrass?

Well, plants got their start in the water.

Half a billion years ago, plants left the water and landed on land.

Seagrass did an evolutionary U-turn and went back into the water.

Seagrass is not actually grass.

It's more closely related to lilies and ginger.

It can clone itself from its roots, and one meadow can be a single seagrass.

Seagrass provides habitats, filters water, prevents erosion, slows down rivers, mitigates ocean acidification, and importantly for climate change, sequesters carbon extremely efficiently.

You might never notice seagrass, but once you do, it begins to tell you things.

Seagrass can be hard to spot.

Lucky for us, we were with experts.

(upbeat music) - San Diego's trying to evaluate the climate mitigation potential of its seagrass meadows.

And so in order to do that, they have to go out and collect enough samples to ascertain how much carbon is being sequestered, but also the variation in that carbon sequestration.

We need all of the data that these sediment cores are providing.

And now we sail.

(upbeat music) All right, shall we do jib?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

The state is building targets now for what we think we should protect.

And that's a funny one for seagrass meadows because we don't actually know how much seagrass we have.

- Why are our maps of seagrass so bad?

- Yeah, good question.

- There's an ephemeral nature to the visible part of seagrass and it can be seasonal.

And so if you're not there at the right time, you might miss something.

It's not so simple as just going out once.

- [Melissa] It would be like trying to map a forest that was over there one year and then it disappeared, but popped over there the next year.

- [Charles] If I'm an audience member watching this, what is something that they can do to help?

- I work with an NGO called Project Seagrass.

They have an app called Seagrass Spotter.

I will take a photo of the grass when I see it and log my observations and that all goes onto a map, and that information does actually get used.

We also use community science approaches to restore seagrass.

Nature-based solutions like restoring marshes and seagrasses are really great because they get you those climate benefits, but they also support fisheries and communities that rely on those fisheries.

It's like underwater gardening.

- I was a sailor before I was a scientist.

And I think as you learn to sail, you learn to see the world around you a little bit differently.

So instead of just seeing the windy bay, you see the lulls and the gusts, and you see the currents and the tides.

Eventually it's just part of your observation.

And there's a big wide, beautiful world, and it's full of fascinating patterns and organisms, and becoming a scientist is just one way to become a steward.

And there's a lot of different ways that you can be a steward of the world around you.

The first is just to be paying attention.

- This shoot, it has seeds.

See how it's like yellower than the other shoots you ran between when we returned.

- I saw one.

There's one here.

- [Melissa] I think that natural history education should be standard in every education curriculum, and it is not.

The minute nobody knows what the world around them is supposed to look like or who all the plants and animals are is the minute we forget to protect it.

If you don't know your neighbor, then you don't care so much.

All of these things and each individual community member, plant or animal, has a story.

And if we learn those stories, then societally, we would be in a better position to protect them.

- So do you feel that seagrass is your neighbor?

- I do feel like seagrass is my neighbor.

- That's funny.

- [Melissa] When you know your neighbors, you start to care.

- So what happens when your neighbor gets sick?

(dramatic music) That's when you call the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito.

Today, that neighbor is Racket, a sea lion who was found shaking on a beach.

The center's doctors and volunteers are trying to figure out what's wrong with him.

On the case is Cara Field, the Marine Mammal Center's Medical Director.

- Just slow and steady towards the back.

He's not small.

Dan, you going to get one?

Okay.

Can I borrow your stethoscope?

Let me try the other side.

He's a little bit hard to hear.

How's his color?

Okay.

He is also in very good body condition.

- [Charles] Cara suspects Racket could have domoic acid poisoning, or toxoplasmosis, but she needs to run some tests, - [Cara] Sticking.

Needle's out.

We are hoping to bring him for an MRI.

We just keep a close eye on him until he's up and moving.

We want him to stay nice and calm.

- Would you say that Racket is typical of a lot of the kinds of problems that you guys are seeing today in sea lions?

- Racket does present as an example of a number of the problems that we see very commonly over and over and over in our patients in care.

Unfortunately, every year since 1998, we've documented domoic acid toxicosis and it's produced by harmful algal blooms and it gets into the food chain.

But really that's the real story that we're trying to understand more about.

It's not just about the individual animal, it's about what's happening in the environment to cause so many of these animals to wash ashore.

- Algal blooms are mostly caused by excess nitrogen or phosphorus from fertilizer.

So we went to a farm and talked to a hydrologist monitoring just that.

(upbeat music) Helen Dahlke is a professor at UC Davis who studies groundwater.

- This one is always a bit tricky, but we want to make sure it's nicely clamped.

All right, so this was number seven, eight, 20 centimeter sample.

Wind is not making it necessarily easier.

(group chattering) - [Charles] Helen and her team are flooding dairy fields to try and figure out how can we collect and use that underground water safely?

It's pretty groundbreaking.

- Now we're applying vacuum again.

Best way of getting it out.

As a scientist, I feel like I have the responsibility to work on problems that help others.

Groundwater is our largest freshwater store we have on land besides ice and glaciers, but all the irrigation that has happened over the last 100 years since we've started irrigation agriculture and fertilizer applications definitely have leached quite a bit of nitrate into the groundwater.

So we need to either reduce that fertilizer input or find ways of introducing more clean water.

Recharge could be one way of how we can introduce some clean water to nearby communities.

Yes, there will be transport of nitrate, but we hopefully can also introduce clean water that can then mix with that higher concentrated water and overall hopefully decrease the nitrate pollution in the groundwater.

Now we're taking the 60 centimeter sample.

You can see the water coming through the line again.

- So I'm just curious, what have you learned from your grad students like Kira?

- It's been a fun group to work with.

It's a partnership, everyone has a unique research interest, and that challenges me too.

They're really hanging their soul into this, and that is, I think what in the end creates really excellent research.

The problems are not necessarily getting smaller or less complex.

We need problem solvers.

- And there are plenty of problems you can pick from.

The question is, what's your problem?

(record scratches) That came out wrong.

Anyway, Mel has some thoughts about this.

- Years ago, I remember struggling with wanting to work in climate science and thinking, gosh, if I really want to make a big difference, maybe I should be a lawyer, but I did not want to be a lawyer.

It doesn't sound fun to me.

There's a Venn diagram I think between what is fun and what you're really good at and what can make a big difference.

And if you can find that middle of that Venn diagram, you can make a huge impact.

Because if you love what you do, like I do it to the fullest extent possible at all times because I love it.

So if you can find that, you can be very impactful.

I think when I started my PhD, I thought, oh gosh, all those PhDs, they get some degree in some obscure ice pod or something, but there's not actually that many people in the world who know that much about one thing.

And to be the person that knows that much, you have a responsibility now in a way that's beautiful because you can speak for that in a way that nobody else can.

And it takes a long time, there's so many things I still don't know about seagrass, right?

I could study my whole life.

But I do know an above average amount about seagrass.

- Yeah, it's a bit obsessive.

- Yeah.

(laughs) We got to have someone niche for all the things so that we can understand the voice of each one of those.

- [Charles] Meanwhile, Cara has diagnosed Racket with toxoplasmosis, a disease caused by a parasite that can thrive in warmer waters.

- Climate change can affect how pathogens enter and interact in the environment.

But these parasites have existed for a long time.

So it's hard to know if climate change is actually impacting how prevalent they are.

- [Charles] It's not just parasites.

Racket also has to deal with the impacts of ocean acidification.

The oceans absorb about 30% of the carbon dioxide in the air, but now, we humans are releasing too much, wreaking havoc on ocean ecosystems, from coral reefs to the deep sea.

On the California coast, sea lions like Racket are having trouble finding a decent meal.

So while they're here, the center makes sure their patients have plenty to eat.

- We're going to go through the, we'll go back through the rear.

(upbeat music) - [Charles] But we have to make sure they didn't get too used to humans.

- We'll enter through this side.

I'll have the team enter through this side.

- Thanks for letting me barge in.

- Of course.

(sea lions barking) - [Giancarlo] If I could have you snag the gate.

(upbeat music continues) (light upbeat music) (sea lion barking) - [Charles] It was easy to see why Cara loves her job so much.

- What's happening underneath the surface is just incredible.

For a lot of people, the ocean or large bodies of water in general are kind of scary because it represents something that's so unknown and sort of that base fear that we humans have.

But it's a fascinating world.

(dramatic music) I remember being very young and exploring these tide pools that were amazing.

(dramatic music continues) I remember seeing a very skinny sea lion on a beach at one point and really wanting to help it, but as a kid not knowing what I could or couldn't do.

We've had such a massive impact on this planet.

And the animals have no say in this.

They're scratching out a living, and we forget that every day for them is a struggle to survive.

They have to find food, they have to find shelter, they have to avoid predators.

We just see a small window into their lives.

Humans are very, very focused on our lives and our situation without realizing just how important we are linked to everything on this planet.

- So can we work together to share our water?

Well, we've done it before.

One good example of this is the California Coastal Act, which protected our coastline from overdevelopment.

We spent a day at the beach with one of the people who drafted the legislation, a conservative lawyer named Lew Reid.

My neighbor John happens to be his son.

(upbeat music) And then pull to the left, if you think it's going to hit the ground you pull on the right and it turns back the other way.

It was fun, until it wasn't.

(person laughing) Got it on camera.

(laughs) We asked Lew about the ballot initiative that led to the Coastal Act.

What would you say are some of the key elements of the success of the initiative?

- A fabulous woman named Janet Adams, a genius political organizer and a personal fireball, created an organization called the California Coastal Alliance.

But what it really was was an umbrella to save the coastline so that it wasn't completely gentrified and filled up with houses and parking lots and malls.

I was recruited to put together the bill that we would have in 1972.

We had told the legislators that if they didn't pass a bill this time, we were going to put it on the initiative ballot.

I don't think they ever took that very seriously.

Now you may think I'm never getting around to your question, but I am getting around to your question.

It succeeded because it had massive public support.

The organization that Janet put together got hundreds of organizations, many of whom were not environmental organizations, but they were filled with people who enjoyed the beach and were concerned about the coastline.

I don't know if you remember.

- What I remember is a political campaign is a lot of fun for a kid.

Unlike the work that you'd regularly do going to the office and you had no idea what you were doing.

Careful.

(producer yelling indistinctly) - You guys catch that?

- Jeremy might have.

- [Charles] Sharing anything requires coordination.

That's where the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act comes in.

SGMA helps communities create and implement water management plans, but climate change is making that harder.

- Climate change is making our water supply less secure.

We had three major droughts in the last 10, 12 years, so people turn to groundwater in those years.

But the overdraft rates that we have seen during these drought years are extremely high.

- It's almost like a bank account, you know?

Withdrawing too much too fast.

- Yeah, and unfortunately, we don't have a good understanding of that bank account.

Our snowpack on average stores about 15 million acre-feet of water.

That is a really big reservoir.

And so as we increase global air temperatures, that precipitation will not fall as snow, it will become runoff immediately, which now needs to be stored in reservoirs that have a limited capacity.

The reservoirs have to make releases.

They can't hold onto the water.

And then it goes, it goes downstream to the delta and out to the ocean, and we would like to capture some of that water and put it away for longer term storage.

- That's cool.

I think we're good.

Yeah, anything else, yeah?

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate it.

- Yay!

I am so cold.

- I'm so cold too.

Managing aquifers is good for humans and our neighbors downstream, neighbors like Racket, who's now healthy enough to go back home.

One, two, three.

Down.

(bright music) - Nice job, gang.

(group cheering) - [Crew Member] Can't wait to see it.

- I'll be honest.

Lately this series has been hard to make.

There's so much to cover, and there's a lot going on in the world.

What do you focus on?

How do you get back into the flow?

We found our attention fragmented.

And then I remembered something Mel had said.

You talked about connection and the importance of people's connection to their environment and to nature -Yeah.

as it relates to climate change.

-Yeah.

But it also feels a little bit like you're talking about being connected to yourself.

- Yeah, I do think that's the case.

I think like just because I'm evaluating the ecosystem, I'm also evaluating constantly my own role.

What role I play in degrading it or preserving it, and how I can feel like a naturalized citizen of California.

Like this is the place that I belong, and I don't think I can move now.

It's a language.

Knowing the plants, knowing the animals, knowing how they interact.

It would be just like moving to a country that spoke a different language.

I'd have to start over.

And surely you could do that, but you feel attached like you do to a culture.

Not in that I own it, but it owns me.

- [Charles] There are so many ways to connect to our local ecosystems, and you don't have to be an expert.

There's citizen science, volunteering, farming, or just spending a day by the water.

So many ways to restore ourselves, recapture some of that flow, and help our neighbors while we're at it.

We can solve our problems if we take them drop by drop.

Take a sip.

That water, it's been around, traversed by kings of forgotten kingdoms, cradle of wacky new ways of being, bled out and fought over by the ancestors of our ancestors.

And now, it's yours, for a moment.

(gentle music) Because each of us sits on the bank of a river called Time.

All we can do is steward our little piece of the bank.

Between the echoes upriver and our ripples downriver is this tiny segment of life we are responsible for.

Our playground, our piece of earth, our burden, and our treasure.

It's all we have, all we can shape, and we have to hope it will be enough to restore the flow.

(gentle upbeat music) - [Announcer] You can visit our website for more information, related educational materials, and additional resources.

It's all at climatecalifornia.org.

"Climate California" is brought to you in part by Crankstart, a San Francisco-based family foundation that works with others on critical issues concerning economic mobility, education, democracy, housing security, the environment, and medical science and innovation.

And by the Community Foundation of Sonoma County.

Additional support provided by donors to the Center for Environmental Reporting at NorCal Public Media.

A complete list is available.

And by the following.

(upbeat music) "Climate California" is made possible by contributions to your public television station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(gentle music)