This should be mandatory viewing: four new multimedia films from Northwest artists Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele. Oyster Farmers, Coastal Tribes, Potato Farmers, and Plateau Tribes all explore global climate change through people who live and work in the Pacific Northwest.

Matt Blaine and Gavin Maxwell from the story "Oyster Farmers"

Matt Blaine and Gavin Maxwell from the story “Oyster Farmers”

The stories are part of a documentary project that makes for an arresting look at the way that climate change and carbon emissions are already transforming the Northwest. Oyster farmers on Washington’s coast are moving their operations out of state as local shellfish beds succumb to increasingly acidic waters. Idaho potato farmers are giving up water rights on once productive land. And tribes from the highlands of northeast Oregon to the shores of Puget Sound see their homes and ancient traditions coming under threat of a newly unfriendly climate.

Find the other two videos—Potato Farmers and Plateau Tribes—at Facing Climate Change.

Sightline is a proud partner of the Facing Climate Change project, and we love the way that Drummond and Steele are marrying substance with storytelling. Each story is less than five minutes long. Watch them now and read the backstory on their blog.