Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / We've Explored Space Better Than Our Own Ocean, How Is That Possible?
Transcript
- 0:00Okay, Michelle, Andrew here.
- 0:04We're gonna be doing uh four episodes.
- 0:07I've got an interview this week with Ontario on Oceans Networks Canada, Ocean Networks Canada, and so we're gonna be talking about that.
- 0:15well on Friday, and then so these are four that will go with that.
- 0:18So I am away uh Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Monday, Tuesday.
- 0:24I'm away.
- 0:25I'm back on Tuesday night.
- 0:26Um
- 0:28The Monday episode, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do all the show notes and stuff from the transcript here.
- 0:33ah and then so I'll have it all uploaded and ready to go.
- 0:37And then all you have to do is just put I'm gonna have it and I'm actually gonna have for the first two actually, Monday and Tuesday, I'm gonna have the everything done on Libsyn.
- 0:46All you to do is just upload the um upload the the thing to the right to the right title.
- 0:54Um
- 0:55And then that'll help me because I'm up at a cottage and I don't have a lot of um access to internet and stuff like that.
- 1:02So I'm gonna have that done.
- 1:04If you can just upload it, it'll be scheduled for Monday at 3 a.m.
- 1:10my time.
- 1:11so if you can just upload it before that, that would be great.
- 1:13Let me know when it's uploaded.
- 1:14Same with the Tuesday.
- 1:15If you can get that uploaded, you can do that on Monday, your time, um, and then have it uploaded.
- 1:20The show notes will be ready for you.
- 1:22Okay, I'll do those tonight.
- 1:23Okay.
- 1:24Here we go.
- 1:25I always do last minute.
- 1:26I don't know why I always do a last minute, but always do last minute on these.
- 1:29So I almost didn't do it this week, but I wanted to get some done.
- 1:31Okay, here we go.
- 1:32Start off July hot.
- 1:37Imagine standing out on a beach and looking out at the ocean.
- 1:42Now imagine almost everything beneath the surface is still a mystery.
- 1:46In fact, we've met more of the moon and Mars than we've actually seen in detail on our very own seafloor.
- 1:53How is that possible?
- 1:57This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update.
- 2:00If you care about staying informed on the ocean every single weekday, hit that follow button right now on the podcast app that you're listening to.
- 2:07So you do not miss tomorrow's story.
- 2:10Welcome to part one of a four-part series leading up to a very special interview later on this week with scientists and educational people from the Ontario Networks Canada from
- 2:21Oceans Networks Canada.
- 2:22What are Canada's most
- 2:34I'm gonna try that one again.
- 2:35Welcome to part one of a four-part series leading up to a special interview later this week with a scientist from Department of Fisheries Notions as in Canada, as well as uh an
- 2:46educator from Oceans Network Canada.
- 2:49Uh it's it's behind it's it's it's basically about the Canada's most ambitious deep sea, not only exploration projects, but educational projects as well.
- 2:59So today we are starting with one simple question: how
- 3:04Can there's how can there still be so much of our own planet that we've never explored?
- 3:09It's a strange thing to think about.
- 3:11You know, we live in an age where satellites can show us our neighborhood from space, rovers can rovers have driven across Mars, and telescopes can detect planets orbiting
- 3:23distant stars.
- 3:24Yet the largest habitat on Earth remains unknown.
- 3:30Remains mostly unknown.
- 3:32And that's the deep ocean.
- 3:35When people hear that we've explored on when people hear that we've explored only a tiny when people hear that we've only when people hear that we've explored only a tiny fraction
- 3:44of the deep ocean, they s they often imagine scientists they often imagine scientists haven't bothered looking.
- 3:51But that's not the case.
- 3:52The challenge is that the deep sea ocean that the the challenge is that the deep sea is one of the most difficult places on earth to reach.
- 4:00Sunlight appears after about sunlight disappears after about 200 meters.
- 4:05Sunlight disappears after 200 meters.
- 4:07As you descend farther, the pressure increases dramatically.
- 4:10At a depth of a thousand meters, the pressure is roughly one hundred times greater than what we experience at sea level.
- 4:17Go even deeper than that and the pressure begins to and the and the go even deeper than that and the pressure becomes crushing.
- 4:25Most submarines can't survive it.
- 4:27We've even saw a submarine implode because it wasn't built properly.
- 4:31Humans can't as humans
- 4:34And humans certainly can't survive that on their own.
- 4:37Even sending cameras thousands of meters below the sea the surface requires incredibly specialized equipment.
- 4:43The ocean only covers the ocean also covers more than 70% of our planet.
- 4:48That means scientists aren't exploring a single cave or canyon.
- 4:53They're trying to that they're trying to understand.
- 4:56That means scientists aren't exploring a single cave or canyon.
- 4:59They're trying to understand an enormous three-dimensional world that stretches across millions of square kilometers.
- 5:06It's easy to forget the ocean isn't just wide.
- 5:08It's deep.
- 5:10Really deep.
- 5:11And if you stacked Mount Everest inside the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean, its summit wouldn't its summit would still be underwater.
- 5:18That's the scale that we're talking about here.
- 5:21Scientists estimate
- 5:22Scientists estimate that we've visually explored only a tiny percentage of the deep sea floor.
- 5:28Of the deep sea floor, of the ocean seafloor.
- 5:31That means that there are mountains we've never seen, canyons we've never mapped, species we haven't even discovered yet.
- 5:38Entire ecosystems remain hidden beneath the waves.
- 5:42And that should make one of and that should make every one of us curious.
- 5:47It's time to put our science hat on, folks.
- 5:49Because if we don't know what's there,
- 5:51How do we know what we're protecting or not protecting in in certain cases?
- 5:57Now you're probably wondering, like who cares?
- 5:58So what?
- 5:59If everybody lives, if nobody lives down there, why does it matter?
- 6:02And that's a fair question, to be honest.
- 6:04The answer is that the deep ocean isn't separate from our lives.
- 6:08It's connected in almost everything.
- 6:11It's connected to almost everything.
- 6:13The deep ocean stores enormous amounts of carbon, helping regulate Earth's climate.
- 6:18It plays a major role in nutrient cycling.
- 6:21That supports life throughout the ocean.
- 6:23Many commercial import many commercially important fish spend most many commercially important fish spend part of their time many commercially open sorry, Michelle.
- 6:34Many commercially open fish, many commercially open fish spend part of their lives connected to deep habitats, to deep sea habitats.
- 6:43Scientists continue discovering organisms that produce scientists continue.
- 6:48man, I'm having trouble here.
- 6:49Scientists continue.
- 6:51Scientists continue discovering organisms.
- 6:53Science scientists continue to discover species that produce compounds with potential medical applications.
- 6:59And the deep sea helps support the ocean systems that produce much of the ocean we breathe.
- 7:04In other words, if you're not in other words, if you'll in other words, if you ah in other words, even if you're in other words, even if you'll never visit the deep sea, you benefit
- 7:17from it every single day.
- 7:20There's another reason why this matters.
- 7:22Human activity is expanding farther offshore.
- 7:24Deep sea fishing, underwater cables, potential seabed mining, energy development, climate change, all these activities can affect places we barely studied.
- 7:34Imagine someone proposing to log a forest before everyone.
- 7:38Imagine imagine someone proposing to log a forest before anyone had even identified trees or counted the wildlife that living there.
- 7:47I'm going to do that one again.
- 7:49Imagine someone proposing to log a forest before anyone had even identified the trees or counted the wildlife living there.
- 7:57It would seem backwards.
- 7:59And that's exact yet that's exactly the situation scientists are trying to avoid in parts of the deep sea.
- 8:05Before we make decisions, we need knowledge.
- 8:08And knowledge begins with exploration.
- 8:10If you're getting value from this quick ocean update, follow this show so you never miss another episode.
- 8:18The good news is that we're entering an exciting period for ocean exploration.
- 8:22Technology has improved dramatically over the last decade.
- 8:26Scientists can now create incredibly detailed maps of the seafloor using multi-beam sonar.
- 8:31Remotely operated vehicles or ROVs can dive thousands of meters while sending live video back to researchers on the ships above.
- 8:39High-definition cameras reveal animals that no human has ever seen alive.
- 8:44And environmental DNA, and also known as e-DNA, allows scientists to detect species simply by analyzing seawater.
- 8:52Artificial intelligence is helping researchers pr artificial intelligence is also helping researchers pro process enormous amounts of video and imagery much faster than ever
- 9:02before.
- 9:03In many ways, we're experiencing a modern age of discovery.
- 9:06And Canada has an important poll.
- 9:09And Canada has an important role to play.
- 9:11Our Pacific Coast is home of submarine canyons.
- 9:14Underwater mountains, underwater mountains called seamounts, deep coral gardens, sponge reefs, and habitats that scientists are only beginning to understand.
- 9:23Every expedition has the seafloor to discover something new.
- 9:27Sometimes it's a species, sometimes it's a habitat.
- 9:30And sometimes it eats and sometimes it's better understanding of how our planet works.
- 9:36That's why exploration isn't about
- 9:39That's why exploration isn't about satisfying curiosity alone.
- 9:42It's about making smarter decisions, better fisheries management, better marine protected areas, better conservation, better climate science.
- 9:50You can't protect what you don't understand.
- 9:53And that's exactly why scientists continue exploring places that most of us will never see with our own eyes.
- 10:00Later this week, you're going to hear from people leading one of Canada's deep ocean exploration efforts and educational efforts.
- 10:07But before we get there, there's another question that we need to answer.
- 10:11If the deep ocean is so dark, so cold, and under so much pressure, how can anything possibly live there?
- 10:18The answer is far more incredible than people imagine, and we're going to explore that tomorrow.
- 10:24The deep sea may be out of sight, but it should never be out of mind.
- 10:28Understanding what's beneath the surface is the st is the first step toward protecting one of the Earth's most important ecosystems.
- 10:37I want to thank you so much for joining us on today's episode.
- 10:39This is just a these are just quick hit episodes where we talk about what we're going to be talking about, where we talk about some of the topics that we talk about in Friday's
- 10:47episode when we're going to be interviewing some people from Department of Fisheries and Oceans, a person from Department of Fisheries Oceans in Canada, and we're also going to be
- 10:55talking to an educator from Ocean Networks Canada.
- 10:58You're going to want to stay tuned to that.
- 10:59So follow this episode right now so that you do not miss out on Friday's episode and of course tomorrow's episode.
- 11:06we're going to be discovering why it's so important that of the deep sea why the deep sea is so important.
- 11:11Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
- 11:14I'm your host Andrew Lewin.
- 11:15If you want to no sorry before we do that if you want to support this podcast and support all the effort that I do I'm a basically a one person show.
- 11:23I have a team member who helps me edit that I pay to edit and she does an amazing job.
- 11:28Her and her husband do amazing jobs in editing all of my my clips, my podcasts, my YouTube videos.
- 11:34And soon more clips that we're going to be doing or more short form videos that we're going to be doing for Instagram and uh and TikTok.
- 11:42I just want if you want to so if you want to support all that effort that we do, you can go to speakupforblue.com forward slash Patreon.
- 11:49That's speakeupforblue.com forward spot forward slash Patreon.
- 11:54The link is in the show notes as well as how to get a hold of me on Instagram or on TikTok.
- 11:58Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
- 12:02Have a great day.
- 12:03We'll talk to you next time.
- 12:04and happy conservation.
- 12:05I'm gonna do that one more time.
- 12:07Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
- 12:10I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
- 12:11Have a great day.
- 12:12We'll talk to you next time in happy conservation.
- 12:15All right, Michelle, that was a little dirty, but hopefully we can clean that up.
- 12:18Sorry about that.