Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / Why Ocean Solutions Fail, And How Business Can Actually Save the Ocean

Transcript

Why Ocean Solutions Fail, And How Business Can Actually Save the Ocean · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  What if the biggest barrier to saving the
• 0:02
  ocean isn't science?
• 0:04
  What if we already know how to solve many
• 0:06
  of the solutions to the ocean's biggest
• 0:08
  problems overfishing,
• 0:10
  pollution, habitat destruction?
• 0:13
  And yet those problems
• 0:14
  are still getting worse.
• 0:16
  So why? They never reach the people who
• 0:18
  need them and they never scale.
• 0:21
  This is the How to Protect the Ocean
• 0:22
  podcast, where we
• 0:23
  break down what's really
• 0:24
  happening in the ocean and why it matters
• 0:26
  to you and how you can be part of the
• 0:28
  solution. So if you're interested in this
• 0:30
  more of this type of content, hit
• 0:32
  that follow button so you
• 0:32
  don't miss tomorrow's episode.
• 0:34
  For decades, we believe that
• 0:36
  science will save the ocean.
• 0:37
  And to be honest, it allows us to view
• 0:40
  what's really happening in the ocean,
• 0:42
  identify trends, whether they're positive
• 0:43
  or whether negative.
• 0:45
  And so don't get me wrong.
• 0:46
  Science is still critical.
• 0:49
  It helps us understand ecosystems, it
• 0:50
  identifies threats, it helps us develop
• 0:53
  solutions. But here's the problem. The
• 0:55
  science doesn't scale the solutions.
• 0:58
  It doesn't drive adoption and it doesn't
• 1:00
  change behavior on its own.
• 1:03
  We've known about nutrient pollution and
• 1:05
  dead zones for over 50 years.
• 1:07
  We've understood the overfishing dynamics
• 1:08
  since the 1970s and we've been
• 1:11
  documenting coral reef decline
• 1:12
  for decades. And yet dead zones are still
• 1:15
  expanding. Fish stocks
• 1:16
  are still under pressure
• 1:18
  and coral reefs are still disappearing.
• 1:20
  We are not lacking the knowledge.
• 1:22
  We are lacking the implementation. I just
• 1:24
  went to the World Ocean
• 1:25
  Summit put on by the economist
• 1:26
  that was done a couple of weeks ago in
• 1:28
  Montreal. And it was a great
• 1:29
  conference. Don't get me wrong.
• 1:31
  Everybody there was super friendly.
• 1:32
  Everybody there wanted to
• 1:33
  meet other people. Everybody
• 1:34
  there were out there looking at solution.
• 1:37
  And we knew the solutions.
• 1:38
  The High Seas Treaty was put in.
• 1:40
  The World Trade Organization subsidy
• 1:42
  program or policy was put
• 1:43
  in. And there was a lot of talk
• 1:45
  about those. But there was, it was really
• 1:47
  just talk and about the
• 1:49
  prediction of the future and
• 1:51
  whether things will be implemented or
• 1:52
  not. And when I spoke to
• 1:53
  somebody there, then I don't want
• 1:55
  to mention their name, but they said,
• 1:56
  wouldn't it be great if we had instead of
• 1:58
  us like just a discussion
• 2:00
  conference, we had an implementation
• 2:01
  discussion conference.
• 2:03
  Speaking about how companies,
• 2:06
  organizations are implementing the
• 2:08
  solutions that will actually
• 2:10
  help protect the ocean and scale
• 2:12
  those solutions to a point where we can
• 2:14
  actually make a difference. In
• 2:16
  comes the Earth X conference.
• 2:18
  At Earth X, one idea came up again and
• 2:21
  again. Solutions only scale when they
• 2:24
  become financially viable.
• 2:26
  Because scale requires adoption and
• 2:28
  adoption requires
• 2:29
  incentives. If a solution depends on
• 2:31
  people doing the right thing, it will
• 2:33
  struggle. If a solution depends on
• 2:36
  economic incentives,
• 2:37
  it spreads fast. And that's where
• 2:40
  business comes in. Not
• 2:42
  just profit, distribution,
• 2:44
  replication, scale. Business is what
• 2:48
  turns a good idea into something that
• 2:50
  actually changes the world.
• 2:53
  Let's look at a real life example.
• 2:56
  Fertilizer runoff is one of the biggest
• 2:57
  drivers of ocean dead zones.
• 3:00
  I actually had the opportunity to do some
• 3:01
  data collection and one
• 3:02
  of my first jobs at LumCon,
• 3:04
  the Louisiana University's Marine
• 3:05
  Consortium in the Gulf of
• 3:06
  Mexico. I did my work there as a
• 3:08
  marine technician aboard the RV Pelican,
• 3:09
  which is still running today,
• 3:11
  I believe. And we had a great
• 3:12
  time. I, my first job was awesome. I was
• 3:14
  out in the Gulf of Mexico
• 3:15
  doing all this wonderful thing.
• 3:17
  I got to work with one of the scientists
• 3:18
  that came on board, which was
• 3:20
  at the time was was a resident
• 3:22
  scientist at LumCon at the Institute. And
• 3:24
  she studied the dead zone, the the Gulf
• 3:28
  of Mexico dead zone,
• 3:29
  which is essentially nutrient runoff
• 3:30
  comes off of the Mississippi
• 3:31
  River, which runs all the way up
• 3:33
  the Midwest of the U.S., comes down,
• 3:35
  collects all these fertilizers, nitrates,
• 3:37
  nitrogen, ammonia, all these
• 3:39
  nutrients and phosphates that come down
• 3:41
  in the Mississippi. They
• 3:42
  empty into the Gulf of Mexico. And
• 3:43
  when they empty into the Gulf of Mexico
• 3:45
  in the spring, there's this
• 3:47
  spring bloom of phytoplankton,
• 3:48
  because once you get the great weather,
• 3:50
  once you get the right amount of
• 3:52
  currents, and once you get
• 3:53
  the right heat and nutrients, you get
• 3:56
  this bloom of phytoplankton in the
• 3:58
  spring. And that phytoplankton
• 3:59
  mixes in the water column as the wind
• 4:00
  kind of comes in and it mixes
• 4:02
  and mixes. And then eventually
• 4:03
  it'll hit summer and the wind will die
• 4:05
  down, the layers will stratify and the
• 4:08
  phytoplankton will die and move to the
• 4:10
  bottom of the ocean.
• 4:11
  At the bottom of the ocean, that's where
• 4:12
  the microbes just kind of break them down
• 4:15
  and they eat them up and they use oxygen
• 4:18
  when they eat them up.
• 4:19
  And so when that oxygen is taken out of
• 4:21
  the bottom of the ocean, that one and a
• 4:23
  half meter layer is
• 4:25
  devoid of oxygen in some cases.
• 4:27
  And that hypoxic zone is what we call the
• 4:29
  hypoxic zone. That hypoxic zone is
• 4:32
  extending year after year after year.
• 4:34
  And it's measured every year. And I was
• 4:35
  part of that program to help measure
• 4:37
  that. And it was unreal how
• 4:39
  different it was every year.
• 4:41
  And the fertilizers that would be
• 4:44
  regulated the next year were based on the
• 4:45
  results from the previous year.
• 4:47
  And it was kind of it went all the way up
• 4:48
  to Congress. And it was quite the program
• 4:51
  and something that, you know, people had
• 4:52
  to look out for in the future.
• 4:54
  And I'm sure Nancy Rabelle, Dr. Nancy
• 4:56
  Rabelle wasn't really a lot of didn't
• 4:59
  make a lot of friends in the agriculture
• 5:00
  company, the agricultural industry,
• 5:02
  because, you know, she was basically
• 5:04
  based on the results.
• 5:05
  She was having a say in the regulation of
• 5:07
  how much fertilizer can be used. Right.
• 5:09
  So when you get excess nitrogen
• 5:10
  phosphorus washing up in agricultural
• 5:13
  fields flows through
• 5:15
  rivers and up in the ocean.
• 5:16
  Once there, you get that fuel, the algal
• 5:18
  bloom, it comes down, it all dies down.
• 5:21
  Now, here's the shift.
• 5:22
  So instead of trying to convince farmers
• 5:25
  to simply use less fertilizers, some
• 5:28
  innovators built systems that capture
• 5:31
  excess nutrients
• 5:32
  before they leave the field.
• 5:34
  And then they do something even smarter.
• 5:36
  They return that captured waste back into
• 5:39
  fertilizer, a product,
• 5:41
  something that can be sold.
• 5:42
  And now reducing pollution isn't a
• 5:45
  burden. It's a business opportunity.
• 5:47
  And farmers don't need to care about the
• 5:50
  ocean conservation to adopt it. It just
• 5:52
  makes economic sense.
• 5:55
  Now, compare that to a typical
• 5:56
  conservation project, grant funded short
• 5:58
  term, limited by specific place. It
• 6:01
  works, but it doesn't spread.
• 6:04
  Now, compare that to a business model. It
• 6:05
  generates revenue, it attracts
• 6:07
  investment, and it's replicated across
• 6:09
  regions and industries.
• 6:11
  That's the difference between impact and
• 6:12
  global impact. We don't just need
• 6:14
  solutions that work. We
• 6:16
  need solutions that scale.
• 6:18
  And if you ever talk to a scientist who's
• 6:21
  doing one of these pilot studies, a lot
• 6:23
  of the times they're just
• 6:24
  wanting to protect the ocean.
• 6:25
  The incentive to do something more,
• 6:29
  although some scientists are doing it, is
• 6:30
  not really in their purview.
• 6:32
  They just want to get everything started
• 6:33
  and let somebody else, an innovator, take
• 6:35
  over or at least be part of that process.
• 6:38
  But a lot of the times the business
• 6:39
  people that solve the problems and
• 6:42
  provide the solutions and are willing to
• 6:44
  invest money to put it together.
• 6:45
  When I met the World Ocean Summit, one of
• 6:47
  the biggest things that people are
• 6:48
  looking for is funding, is
• 6:50
  seed funding, is pilot funding.
• 6:52
  There was no mechanism to generate
• 6:54
  revenue just yet to get that off the
• 6:56
  ground. Once they get off the ground,
• 6:57
  they have that revenue.
• 6:58
  And the ones that are going to be
• 6:59
  successful are ones that drive revenue
• 7:02
  quickly and are able to bring it to a
• 7:05
  market and able to scale that.
• 7:08
  So if you're a scientist or a
• 7:10
  conservationist or a student listening to
• 7:12
  this, you need to
• 7:13
  start thinking differently.
• 7:15
  Not just about does this solution work,
• 7:18
  but can the solution scale? Can it
• 7:21
  sustain itself? And can it
• 7:22
  spread without constant funding?
• 7:25
  Because solving the problem is step one.
• 7:28
  But scaling the solution is
• 7:29
  what actually protects the ocean.
• 7:32
  One last thing about the World Ocean
• 7:33
  Summit that you'll probably get at the
• 7:35
  Earth X Summit is you'll get people that
• 7:38
  like I saw at the World Ocean Summit,
• 7:39
  there was a couple of people that I met
• 7:40
  that were scientists and it were
• 7:42
  frustrated with the academic process
• 7:44
  because they found something within their
• 7:46
  graduate studies that said, hey, this is
• 7:48
  a big thing that we need to do.
• 7:49
  And we can use it as a tool for industry
• 7:52
  to use to clean up or to identify risks
• 7:54
  in what they do that
• 7:55
  could protect the environment.
• 7:57
  But when they realized that tool wasn't
• 7:59
  really going to be used, it was just more
• 8:00
  of an exercise, maybe more of someone's
• 8:03
  master's degree, they got extremely
• 8:05
  frustrated and they ended up starting a
• 8:07
  business that will actually help the
• 8:09
  solution better and it'll
• 8:10
  scale the solution better.
• 8:12
  And this is a different solution, but
• 8:13
  they know that they can actually have a
• 8:15
  bigger impact on the world because they
• 8:17
  control where the solution goes and they
• 8:20
  can bring in money on their own and
• 8:22
  generate revenue to
• 8:23
  continue to solve that problem.
• 8:25
  So that's what we're going to be talking
• 8:26
  about this week. We're going to talk
• 8:26
  about businesses. We're going to be
• 8:28
  talking about how they're affecting how
• 8:30
  they are finding solutions
• 8:31
  and scaling those solutions.
• 8:33
  And then at the end on Friday, I have a
• 8:35
  great interview with Peter Semek, who is
• 8:37
  the CEO of Earth X talking about the
• 8:40
  Earth X conference is coming up at the
• 8:42
  end of April, April 20th to 22nd.
• 8:45
  You're going to love the interview. I
• 8:46
  highly recommend that you listen to it
• 8:47
  because you're going to find out it's
• 8:48
  actually not just one
• 8:49
  conference, 20 conferences in one.
• 8:51
  So if you it doesn't matter if you're
• 8:52
  listening to this and you're an engineer,
• 8:54
  you're a business person, you're a
• 8:55
  scientist, you're a conservationist, it
• 8:57
  doesn't matter what you are, you will
• 8:58
  find something that you love there.
• 9:00
  So stay tuned if you want to learn more
• 9:02
  about how businesses can help and how
• 9:04
  businesses are helping
• 9:05
  finding solutions to the ocean.
• 9:09
  You know, hit that follow button. Don't
• 9:10
  miss tomorrow's episode.
• 9:12
  And of course, stay in all week because
• 9:13
  that's we're going to
• 9:14
  be covering all week.
• 9:15
  And you get the interview from Peter
• 9:16
  Semek from the CEO of Earth X on Friday.
• 9:19
  So stay tuned, hit that follow button so
• 9:21
  you don't miss any episodes.
• 9:22
  I want to thank you so much for joining
• 9:23
  me on today's episode of the How to
• 9:25
  Protect the Ocean podcast.
• 9:26
  Have a great day. We'll talk to you next
• 9:27
  time and happy conservation.