This week, I have had the honor of spending time with Fabien Cousteau. When growing up in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, I watched Jacques Cousteau and his team of explorers and researchers from my living room. They were bringing the wonders of the ocean world to the homes of anyone who wanted to see the marvels and unraveled mysteries of the seas.
One of the crew on the Calypso, was Fabien Cousteau – grandson of Jacques Cousteau. Fabien was invited by The Foundation to be a keynote speaker at the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Summit on 4-13-12 and 4-14-12.
Of the 200 STEM scholarship recipients, 5 of us were selected on a merit basis and invited to attend a “pre event” press conference, in which we introduced ourselves, and had a chance to ask a few quick questions of Fabien. And afterwards, we, ourselves were interviewed on camera. I am honored to have been one of the five.
After the press conference, the formal events of the evening began, and the presentation / keynote speaking was given to an audience of what I would estimate to be about 200-250 people. Sponsored by The Hunt Foundation as well as by the DCCCD.
The next morning – we had an opportunity for a less formal Q&A session with Fabien. In this Q&A session, I passed along the following question that was asked of me – by an old high-school friend – John Wynn.
Both Fabien and myself I recorded the question/answer.. and here is my transcript of the posed question, and Fabien’s answer. Any grammar and spelling errors are my own. There is a spot or two, in which the recording – probably because of background noise – had an unintelligible word or two. I noted those spots.
Here you go:
F: Okay – Rex – You have a question…
R: In regards to the climate change that you just mentioned… Do you have thoughts on alignment of data from ocean scientists in regards to climate change models – such as the effect of ocean acidification increases on plankton levels, and as a correlation of that – do they translate to a rate of change in atmospheric gasses?
And as a product of that – do you feel that we are past a “point of no return” in regards to the losses of our oceanic ecosystems?
F: Good question.. ahhh… good questions! Wow – that’s a complicated one. (pause) You know… I’m not a scientist. Yes – I know a little bit about science, and a little bit about the environment and all that; and I may be more of an impresario of science more than anything else – and I work with scientists a lot – especially marine biologists.
The feeling is universal amongst the experts. The breadth of the damage of what we’re facing currently and in the future varies, because their (inaudible) they’re all “guestimates”, if you will – based on what we know, and we know very little. But what we know is already scary. And what scares or worries me the most, is that the more we know, the more we realize we *don’t know* and the worst the situation is than we previously thought.
That’s not to circumvent your question, that’s just to say that as a general rule, we really need to pay attention. Uh, Climate changes are not a debate. The only debate is in the politics and because of their “vested interest” and so on and so forth.
Anyone who has experienced it firsthand on a regular basis will understand that right away, and even if you’re in a privileged area that hasn’t been affected – all one needs to do is to take a walkabout, and it’s not very difficult to see what’s happening.
So, ocean acidification is certainly an aspect of climate change. For those of you who are not studying these effects, ocean acidification is probably one of the biggest by-product issues or biggest issues of climate change, because it has some very basic structures that are based in the ocean world. And.. let me take a step back for a second.
How many of you have studied ocean acidification or know about ocean acidification? (about 1/3 of the audience raises hands) okay – um, good. I thought I was about to bore you to tears, but basically – the very basis of ocean acidification is this: The oceans absorb more CO2 – and admittedly man-made CO2 as well than our rain forests or anything else – to the tune of almost two-thirds of man-made and natural CO2. And that may sound like a great thing. “Yeah all right – the oceans are going to save us”.. but the problem is that during that chemical reaction when it absorbs the CO2, the CO2 is converted into carbonic acid, which in turn attacks calcium carbonate structures. Calcium carbonate structures are everything from phytoplankton or zooplankton on up to coral reefs.
And the very real issue is that it… I don’t want to sound dramatic, but it melts the calcium carbonate structures, or it breaks them down. So when you have animals that build shells, or skeletons for that matter – but mainly shells, such as bivalves, such as lobster – things we love to eat, and all those things that are the basis for life in the oceans – it’s a big problem. They uh, you know if phytoplankton cannot build their shells while it’s macant, and all those species that are a part of plankton and cytoplankton, they have a much harder time surviving down the road.
As far as coral reefs, as I mentioned last night for those of you who were there, coral reefs are the rain-forests of the sea. And about 75%-78% of the ocean species depend on the coral reefs at some point in their lives for shelter, for food, as nurseries, and so on and so forth. And if the coral reef systems break down, then there’s basically no life in the oceans. Or at least – certainly not enough to sustain human beings – or anything else.
So it’s a very real problem, and since the 1950’s I think, I think that’s when they started monitoring the PH levels – we’ve gotten 25% more acidic in the oceans, and the rate is accelerating. (Note from Rex – at last glance of data – it is now reported as a 30% increase) because of the increased CO2 in our atmosphere.
So that’s the very basic underlying undercurrent of what’s going on in the oceans… Now what was the question again? hahaha
R: That pretty much answers the first part.. and “are we past the “point of no return” on the loss of those ecosystems?
F: Ah yes! Okay.. So uh. And this actually lies in the realm of why I’m here. Uh, If I were a pessimist, I wouldn’t be here. I would be on some tropical island sipping on a pina-colada, and waiting ‘til everything goes to pot. But I think it’s not too late. Of course, you know – it’s a matter of diminishing returns. The longer we wait – the less positive impact we can have -and the further down the downward slope we get – and the fewer critters we can save, and so on… and the more trouble we are going to get into.
Is it too late? No. It’s never too late to do as much as you can. Are we past the eleventh hour or the twelfth hour? I’d say yeah – we hit the snooze button one too many times. You know – of you look at my grandfather’s deposition in the 1970’s about changing climate, he was saying maybe 50 maybe 60 years before it’s a downward slope.. Uh – we have about 10 years. If you look at statements from Sylvia Earle, my father, and others that study the oceans on a regular basis, they’ll concur that we’ve got about 10 years, if not less.. before we’ve gotten to a critical point to where we’re going to have mass extinctions.
If you read books like the 6th Extinction, as depressing as they may be, it does have some rays of hope at the end, saying that if we continue on this – what I see as starting to be a positive trend with human beings and changing their bad habits, and ramp that up ten-fold, a hundred-fold, whatever… on a global level.. then yeah – we certainly have a chance at it. I’ve seen human beings- we’ve both seen human beings create miracles in the last minute – when pushed to it. but, how much more do we need to push, to show people that – “hey – it’s not tomorrow.. there IS no such thing as tomorrow. It’s today that we have to do things”.
And it sounds overwhelming. Granted sometimes when I see the reports – it can be overwhelming, but the very basis of what I call the “silver bullet” – because everyone wants to know “What’s the silver bullet that is the solution?” Uh – it’s very simple. As individuals – whether it be decision makers at work, whether we be students, whether we be heads of households, or what have you… WE are the ultimate decision makers as consumers, and it’s about curtailing or changing our everyday bad habits. That doesn’t mean that it’s going to cost money. It does mean that we need to make conscious decisions; we have to pay attention to what we do in our everyday lives, and every little bit counts.
Because all these problems that we are facing.. climate change or pollution, overuse of natural resources. Those are basically the three horsemen… It’s all due to our everyday bad habits. That’s all that it is, at the end of the day. And the more of these everyday bad habits that we change to good habits, the more that we can change this planet. Not only on an individual level, but a cumulative level.
I have an example. It was at a university in Florida, I can’t remember the name of the campus, but they all came in, listening to my talk, and I’d say that about 30% of them had plastic bottles. You know – single-use containers. As individuals in the United States, we use 8 single-use plastic containers per day, on an average basis. Imagine how much that is at 380 to 400 million people in this country. Just in this country! Now if each one of us, just in this room, were to eliminate just one single-use container, that would be that much less in the oceans.. there are about 40 or so people here.. that would be 40 single-use containers out of circulation, per day, now let’s make that cumulative per year, and so on. That makes a big impact – just in this small room. now, if you can encourage your families, your communities and so forth to do the same, it’s got a real synergy going here. we’ve got a real impact here. And that’s just one example.
R: Thank you.
