About: Sustainability: Contest: music video competition

Focus the Nation@Willamette University Announces Oceans Rising music video contest!

Concerned about climate change? Worried about its effects upon communities and ecosystems? Have an artistic bent?

Combine your passion with your talents and develop a music video for Oceans Rising, a moving new single written and performed by True North’s Kristen Grainger and Dan Wetzel

Click here to listen or download the song.

That’s where you come in! Simply follow the contest rules listed below, and submit your entry by January 28, 2008. Winning videos will be announced January 30, as part of Willamette University’s Focus the Nation activities. Winning videos will be viewable on this site and at the national Focus the Nation web page.

Focus the Nation is a major educational initiative that is coordinating teams of faculty, students and staff at more than a thousand colleges, universities and high schools in the United States, to collaboratively engage in a nationwide, interdisciplinary discussion centered around the theme of "Global Warming Solutions for America." The project will culminate January 31, in the form of one-day, national symposia held simultaneously on campuses across the country. Willamette University will kick off its symposium on the evening of Wednesday, January 30 with a concert. The winning videos will be shown at the concert. On Thursday, January 31 Willamette will host a day-long symposium featuring lectures and expert panels addressing the solutions to global climate change from multiple perspectives. To learn more about Focus the Nation@Willamette click here or contact Professor Don Negri at dnegri@willamette.edu.

Eligibility. All human beings are eligible to enter. Students from Willamette University and other participating Focus the Nation institutions are especially encouraged to submit as many entries as they wish.
All entries must be received in CD or DVD format by 5 pm PST January 28. Mail entries to Center for Sustainable Communities:
Willamette University
900 State Street
Salem, Oregon 97301
ATTN: Video Contest
Winners will be announced January 31, as part of Willamette’s Focus the Nation activities with a first place award of $200, second place $100, and third place $50. Honorable mentions will receive gift certificates. Winners need not be present to win.
Oceans Rising is copyrighted material. Although the artists heartily endorse widespread and rampant downloading, copying and sharing of the song, for the purposes of this contest, the song may not be altered from its original form.
All submissions must be accompanied by a signed acknowledgement and permission agreement downloadable here. All submitted entries must include in their credits, “Oceans Rising by Kristen Grainger. Copyright 2007. All Rights Reserved.”

Bluesman John Lee Hooker once wrote, "Last night late, I heard Mama and Papa talking. I heard Mama tell Papa, let that boy boogie-woogie. It in him, and it got to come out."

For me, some songs are like that — they knock around and knock around inside my head, robbing me of sleep and the ability to focus on anything else until I release them. Oceans Rising was one of those, inspired by the passion of people like Karen Arabas, Joe Bowersox, E.O. Wilson, Jane Goodall and David Craig. I do not have their gifts and abilities, I cannot do what they do, but I realize there was something I could contribute and, until the realities of climate change are collectively acknowledged and addressed, we must — each of us — do whatever we can. This is my small offering.

If you like this song, please download it, listen to it, share it with others — even if you decide not to participate in the contest. The song was meant to live out among us. Thanks.

Kristen Grainger

Oceans Rising

Well they say the ocean is rising
Not too surprising
We've been warned

And you say, there's no use in even trying
Because after all, we're all dying
From the day we are born

And for every tree we plant, we cut four down
In the name of free enterprise
And we build our mcmansion in the sun
with the A.C. on, and two cars in the drive

Oh they say it is doomed beyond belief
The Great Barrier Reef is fading fast
Pretty soon, all that's left of its former glory
Is a sad, sad story and old photographs

And for every one who walks, a thousand drive
In the name of free enterprise
Because we all want our mcmansion in the sun
With the A.C. on, and two cars in the drive

Are you listening, why aren't you listening
How can you turn your eyes away from this mess we're in
It's time to question our self-deception
And turn the tide before the tide rushes in

Oh they say there is no easy answer
It's like curing cancer, so much harder than it seems
It will take all our courage, faith and time
to redefine the American Dream

And if we agree that we won't compromise
In the name of free enterprise
We won't want that mcmansion in the sun
With the A.C. on, and two cars in the drive

And they say the ocean is rising

Note: Oceans Rising will makes its debut on Grainger and Wetzel’s first acoustic rock CD, Part Circus/Part Rodeo, due to be released December 2007. More information is available on the website of True North, their indie-bluegrass band, www.truenorthbluegrass.com.

FOCUS THE NATION @ WILLAMETTE UNIVERSITY

Focus the Nation is a major educational initiative that is coordinating teams of faculty, students and staff at over a thousand colleges, universities and high schools in the United States, to collaboratively engage in a nationwide, interdisciplinary discussion centered around the theme of "Global Warming Solutions for America". The project will culminate January 31, 2008, in the form of one-day, national symposia held simultaneously on campuses across the country.

There are two motivations for this project. The first is reflected in the urgent, recent statement by Dr. James Hansen, the top US government climate scientist. Over the next decade, critical policy decisions will be made with irreversible consequences for the future. For example, Hansen and some other scientists believe that if we do not stabilize greenhouse gas emissions soon, we may set in motion a process leading to collapse of the West Antarctic and Greenland Ice sheets, events that would raise global sea levels by over 35 feet, inundating many of the world’s major cities. This of course is just one of the myriad potential consequences of human-induced warming, with regional and global impacts ranging from hurricanes of greater intensity and duration, global water shortages, altered patterns of rainfall, drought and flood, massive forest die-back, and large-scale species extinction.

Students today face many important social, economic, and security issues. Global warming however, is unique, in that if we are to reduce the risk of large-scale, irreversible, world-wide damages, then ambitious—and potentially costly—policy solutions must be undertaken within a very compressed time frame. At this time, we owe our young people a day of national, focused, non-partisan discussion of the decisions to be made in the next ten years, decisions that will profoundly affect their future, and indeed the future of all human generations to follow.

The second motivation for this project is to explore a new model of collaborative, interdisciplinary education, on a national scale. Focus the Nation will require campus-based teams of faculty and students to draw on campus expertise across the broad range of disciplines: the natural sciences, philosophy, art, economics, history, computer science, communications, government, religion, theater, literature, psychology. Each of these disciplines has already made important contributions to our understanding of human-induced climate change, and its solutions.

Willamette University Resolution on Climate Change

"Global warming poses a serious threat to people and natural systems across the planet. Public and private policy decisions about global warming this decade will have impacts lasting for generations. To focus the nation's attention on this crucial issue, Willamette University, in conjunction with colleges, universities, and high schools across the country, will organize a symposium about "Global Warming Solutions for America" on or around January 31 2008. On that day, faculty are strongly encouraged to travel with their classes to attend scheduled programs about climate change or to discuss it with their own students. The symposium program committee will work with interested faculty to develop appropriate material for their classes, and to insure that diverse disciplines are represented in symposium panels and workshops."

Formally endorsed by the College of Liberal Arts Faculty, Willamette University, Willamette University Sustainability Council and by Willamette President M. Lee Pelton

For further information see: www.focusthenation.org