Podcast | The making of ‘The Rising’: Capturing a climate crisis on Washington’s coast
How Crosscut's journalists told the story of two villages under threat from an advancing ocean.
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Crosscut managing editor Mark Baumgarten listens as science and environment editor Ted Alvarez and producer Sarah Hoffman talk about their documentary. (James Pitts for Crosscut)
As the impacts of climate change become more apparent, communities along the coast are facing difficult decisions. Two of those communities, the coastal villages of Queets and Taholah, are developing plans to relocate. These are ancestral homes to the Quinault tribe, but they've become unsustainable because of rising sea levels.
Crosscut video producer Sarah Hoffman and science and environment editor Ted Alvarez have spent more than a year in the presence of the tribal members contemplating the move. The resulting documentary, The Rising, premieres this weekend on KCTS 9. The aim of the film is to present this story from the perspective of the people living it. The key, say the journalists, is to show up, get out of the way and listen.
For this bonus episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast, we invited Hoffman and Alvarez to talk about how they went about doing that. This conversation was recorded at the KCTS 9 studios in Seattle on Oct. 24 as part of the Crosscut Talks Live series.
