Saving Silence Uncovers the Invisible Threat of Microplastics

Growing up in Minnesota, Emily Tidwell—skier, action photographer, and POW’s Creative Alliance Captain—found solace in nature. Now, alongside her childhood best friend and co-creator Beau Larson, she channels that deep connection into Saving Silence. This debut film uncovers the alarming spread of microplastics in the Boundary Waters and Lake Tahoe—two places she calls home—and urges action against this invisible threat.

We caught up with Emily to learn more about her climate journey and the inspiration behind Saving Silence:

POW: To start, can you give a brief introduction of yourself and how you got involved with POW?

Emily: Absolutely! My name is Emily Tidwell, I’m an action photographer and filmmaker; I grew up in Minnesota but now call Reno, Nevada, home. I first got involved with Protect Our Winters in 2021 as a member of the Creative Alliance. Prior to being on POW, I felt really unsure of how I belonged in climate advocacy. As a skier and a desperate science nerd since I was a kid, I was very aware of the changes I was seeing in the places I loved but I didn’t feel like I had a right to care if I wasn’t doing everything to be perfect. Protect Our Winters really taught me the importance of imperfect advocacy and the power it has to steer serious change. Now, I’m actively involved in this work to better our planet and get to lead our team of creatives at POW as their Creative Captain. Saving Silence is the first film I worked on with Protect Our Winters.

POW: How did the outdoors shape who you are as a person and a climate advocate?

Emily: Without the outdoors, I wouldn’t be who I am today. As a kid, I struggled with a lot of things. My family was working through a journey to sobriety and I dealt with severe bullying from an early age. I often felt confused and unsafe and nature became my refuge. Even as a little girl, I knew how it felt to be enveloped with love from my landscapes. That love carried through to everything I did. From skiing, to photography, to my career as an action photographer; the passion that drove me to these things came from my love for the outdoors. The outdoors has always been my friend. 

POW: You just released your first film Saving Silence. What was your inspiration for creating this film?

Emily: This path all started with wanting to tell stories from where I’m from. I take pride in what little Minnesotan accent I have left and how beautiful the places I grew up are. But I often feel like the Midwest is left out of the conversation. Yet, we have so much to offer. So, when I started my production company with my co-founder and best friend from middle school, we knew the first story we told was going to be about where we grew up.

This partnered with a casual chat with my friend and climatologist, Andrew Schwartz. I visited the University of Berkley Snow Lab on Donner Summit as a field trip presented by Protect Our Winters. There, Andrew mentioned that one of the several projects ongoing at the lab was studying plastic particulates in our lakes, streams, rivers, and snowpack. Curious, I asked why that was a study…like I had never even heard about plastics in our snow, was it because of our skis?

Turns out, there’s way more to that story. And that’s what we cover in the film.  

POW: What was it like for you to go back home to Minnesota and make this film?

Emily: I think the hardest part was coming home with the intention of capturing the majority of this film during the Winter, only to arrive in February to…nearly no winter at all. I never thought that I would come home and not find snow. It was really tough shooting conditions. While we were on the ground Minnesota announced that only 2% of their annual ice coverage was on the lakes, we experienced temperatures in the high 60s and watched as the Nordic World Cup nearly became canceled due to the lack of and inability to make snow because of weather. It was something we didn’t even plan to expect. 

Aside from the struggles of that, getting to share my love for where I’m from was incredibly rewarding. And the outpour of positivity we’ve received warms my heart. It only proves my point that we do have something special here. And we deserve to show it to the world.   

POW: What changes have you witnessed in the Boundary Waters due to climate-related impacts?

Emily: We’ve seen the BWCA and Northern Minnesota under attack from all fronts for decades from the effects of a warming climate. From devastating beetle kills leading to vast straight-line wind blowdowns and dry tinder that cause raging wildfires that sweep through swaths of the BWCA, Superior National Forest, and Canada to the effects of warmer weather on tick populations that retroactively cause an upset in our moose and wolf populations. These events are all a part of how healthy our boundary waters are and the communities that surround and depend on this wild and scenic space. It’s nothing that I wanted to be so aware of as a high school student 15 years ago, but now, seeing the continued degradation and the intensity of these events in my 30s, it’s hard not to let it affect you. 

POW: In the film you look at how microplastics have impacted both the Boundary Waters and Lake Tahoe. Were any of the findings surprising?

Emily: We did! We saw numbers for microplastics in the BWCA that were on par with what we can find locally in the Truckee River. This sparked a lot of curiosity with the team at Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada. We would love to gather additional samples from deeper into the Boundary Waters to see if we find similar numbers.

What shocked me about this was the mass juxtaposition of people using the area every year. Where Tahoe sees about 15 million visitors annually the BWCA sees 250,000, just a mere fraction of the same population. That really opened my eyes. 

POW: How do microplastics impact the health of not just our environment but also humans?

Emily: That’s the most concerning thing, we don’t exactly know what the overall effects are to both our land and us as human beings but we imagine there must be consequences. There are scientists out there actively trying to calculate that but have yet to be successful. Why? Because they’ve yet to find a person on this planet that does not have microplastics in their blood.

Here’s a crazy note about that. The microplastics we studied in the film are so tiny they are invisible to the naked eye. We are talking about the size of a blood cell. Now, we are finding particles they are referring to as “nanoplastics” that are so small they are comparable to the size of a virus. These are in our blood, in our air, and in our water. It will be interesting to see what we continue to find out and how this ultimately affects our planet.

POW: What can we do to help eliminate or minimize microplastics?

Emily: I mean first and foremost it’s, to what Monica said in the film, “to stop the tap” of plastics being made. There’s a lot of uncertainty on what we can do with what microplastics we have on our planet right now but we can deter the problem further by stopping production. And a simple thing as an individual that you can do to prevent the furthering of production is to use your voice and vote. We need to see changes on a larger scale, items that will only be effectively executed if we find our government and our brands seeking new solutions. 

POW: You talk about your struggle with anxiety in the film. How have the outdoors helped you manage that anxiety? 

Emily: The outdoors has always given me a place to process what has happened in my life that causes my anxiety. I have struggled with anxiety and depression since I was very young and used so many elements of support to work through the root cause. From therapy to medication, physical exercise, and meditation. But time spent outside has always been my number one source of support and release. The outdoors allows me to grieve in my own time, work through problems, and feel connected.

POW: Did making this film help relieve any of that anxiety?

Emily: It did. I think sharing a story about a place that I love so deeply and knowing that by doing so many effects its outcome for the better was really healing. We found a lot of things that could be disheartening but we always anticipated that outcome. Just because the answer may not be what I want it to be has never stopped me from asking the question. Yes, we found microplastics. Yes, we know that losing these spaces not only impacts our planet but also the spaces we go to connect and recover. But facing those realities head-on was also empowering. I’d rather know than not. Because maybe now I can formulate a plan to help. What lies in the shadows is far scarier than what we see in the light. 

POW: What was your biggest learning from making this film?

Emily: How hard it is to make a film? Haha. Throughout this whole process, from initial funding to production schedules, huge life changes, and somehow completing the film…it always, always felt like there was far too much ahead to tackle and a piece of me woke up every morning saying “It’s just too much, I should just give up and watch it burn”. Making a film is terrifying. And I think an older version of me may have just done what I dreamt and given up. But so much of what I have learned over the past decade is how wonderful things can be on the other side of fear and doubt. And so, one day at a time, we trudged forward. And one day…we were at the end. And I’m still wondering how we got here.

I learned I’m even braver than I thought I could be. And strong. And capable. And I can do anything I set my mind to.

So, here I am, ready for the next project. The next pain cave. And I can’t wait. 

POW: What do you hope people take away from watching this film?

Emily: I hope they understand that they are not alone in their fears and their anxieties. That there can be collective change in the mere power of your voice and that sharing stories about the places you love ensures that others will care for these spaces as well and they are important to fight for.

Know that this is not on your shoulders alone. Know that collectively, we can make change. 

Watch Saving Silence now!

A special shout out to Beau Larson, the Desert Research Institute team, the Shirley and Larson families, and Spencer Duclos for being a part of the making of this film!

Thanks to the film sponsors for making this project possible: