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How Scientists Can Become Advocates · How To Protect The Ocean

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  This episode is for any of you who want to know how to become more of an advocate for
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  science, for conservation, for the ocean.
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  It doesn't matter if you're a scientist or not a scientist.
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  This episode is for you.
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  And today I'm gonna be talking about an article from Melissa Varga from
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  the Union of Concerned Scientists.
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  She wrote an article showing scientists how to become advocates.
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  You can be anybody who to do this, but especially scientists.
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  We're gonna talk about why it's difficult for scientists to transverse over into
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  advocacy and some of the hesitations that we might have, but also how a lot of us
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  become advocates and we don't even realize it, but it's usually later on in life.
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  We're gonna talk about all this on this episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  Let's start the show.
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  Hey everybody.
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  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find
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  out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean,
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  and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
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  Now this podcast is really an example of how a scientist can become an
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  advocate because as any of you who have listened to this podcast, like
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  whether it's this episode or a number of episodes or all 1800 episodes, which
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  by the way, I hope that's not the case, but if it's this, that's pretty cool.
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  It's essentially a product of me wanting to stand up and speak up for
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  the ocean for a number of different reasons through my personal life and
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  my professional life that I felt that I needed to do as part of being a scientist.
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  'Cause let's be honest, for all the scientists who are listening
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  out there, and I know there are quite a number of you, I know some
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  of you have been on this podcast.
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  Some of you have been guests, some of you have been my friends for a long time.
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  Others have just gotten to know me through this podcast.
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  We know that as scientists, we just want to do science in a lot of ways.
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  Like when I first started my career, I was like, I want to be out on the ocean.
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  I want to use cool technology.
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  I want to discover more things about the ocean.
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  I want to have an impact on the ocean.
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  At the beginning though, it wasn't necessarily about conservation.
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  It wasn't necessarily about having a legacy where I'm convincing people or
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  trying to tell people about the ocean so that they can lack for a better ocean.
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  It was more of, I just wanna discover new things about the ocean.
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  I wanna find new species.
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  I want to learn new things about sharks, marine mammals, you know,
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  penguins, all these different types of cool species that I grew up watching.
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  I want to know more about them.
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  I want to like travel the world.
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  I want to do all that kind of stuff, but I want to stick to the science.
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  It's all I wanted to do.
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  I just wanted to stick to the science.
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  No politics, no advocacy, no activism.
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  I didn't wanna be seen as one of, quote unquote those people or those
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  organizations like Greenpeace, like Sea Shepherd, like Ocean
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  Conservancy, like Oceana, a lot of different places like WWF.
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  But what I soon realized as I started to mature within my career in my field,
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  those organizations are based in science.
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  A lot of them are based in science and some of them have
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  even become more based in science.
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  Greenpeace has taken a major shift, not away from activism, but the
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  way they do activism and advocacy is more with science, you know.
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  Some can argue that Sea Shepherd have done the same thing.
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  I haven't followed them as closely as I have Greenpeace because I know
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  some people who work there, but it is a lot different now, and I find
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  it's an evolution as a scientist.
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  If you've noticed, if any of you have been to conferences or any of you have spoken
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  to people within your work space, whether it's older individuals that have been
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  working in this conservation field or in the science field for like 30 years plus,
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  20 years plus maybe even 10 years plus.
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  You see a lot more people getting tired of being rejected, getting tired of
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  putting out the science and not being listened to or putting out the science
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  and people ignoring that science and doing the opposite of what's been happening.
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  We see it in every field, especially these days.
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  The medical field.
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  But now, we've seen it happen in conservation time and time again.
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  Every once in a while we'll get a win and something has changed, be based on
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  the science and it works out and it's wonderful, but it doesn't happen as often.
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  And a lot of the times when we're younger, as we're coming through, and
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  this is not to blame anybody 'cause we've all been through it and I'll
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  talk about some of the reasons why we don't become advocates sooner.
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  We're just getting like our feet wet, so to speak within this career field.
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  We're trying to get a full-time job, get paid normally, live a proper life, but
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  we're just trying to do as much as we can within the field of marine science
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  and marine biology so that we can enjoy what we've always wanted to do.
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  Live the dream, right?
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  Now when I hear people say, Hey, ask people how you doing?
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  They're like, I'm living the dream.
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  And it's kind of sarcastic.
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  So it's not really like, oh, I'm living the dream, but I'm not really,
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  it's kind of a bit of a nightmare.
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  And when things happen, where you see drastic reductions in funding,
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  drastic reductions in the rhetoric that comes out against marine science,
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  marine conservation, and so forth, it becomes really heavy on everybody
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  because no matter who you are, you could be scientists who do really
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  non-political, very unbiased work, which is what science is, and all
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  of a sudden that becomes biased.
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  People designate that that's a bias, that's a political leaning.
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  And if you think this way, you are, you know, leaning one way or another.
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  And because one party is in government and not the other, we're just gonna cut that
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  entirely because we don't agree with that.
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  And that, again, that's happening across all fields, especially
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  in the US happening in Canada.
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  About 15 years ago, 10, 15 years ago.
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  Not as drastic as what's happening in the US but it's happening.
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  This is not like a political thing at all.
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  This is more of how scientists need to become more advocates.
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  Now I did just read an article, really great article by Melissa Vargas.
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  I'll link to it in the show notes.
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  She works for the Union of Concerned Science.
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  She's a science network senior manager at the Union of Concerned
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  Science, a great organization.
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  She wrote an article called New to Advocacy?
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  3 Tips for Early Career Scientists, and it's called The equation.
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  The publication was September 3rd.
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  So this is for this month.
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  It's part of like an early career scientist month.
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  And it's really recognizing like there's a lot of added stressors
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  that are facing new scientists.
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  You know, we're looking at federal funding reductions in the US.
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  Immigration and visa hurdles are happening, like a lot of scientists
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  have come from outside the US, outside of Canada where I live, and have
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  really contributed an immense amount of knowledge to science in general as
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  well as marine science in this case because it's a marine science podcast.
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  But there's also a lot of problems with that because now with this rhetoric
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  going on, immigration and visa hurdles, there's threats to deportation.
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  And of course, widespread attacks on science, it forces a lot of researchers
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  to leave the US, forces teams to be broken up, forces labs to be broken
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  up and that is devastating to science.
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  That is devastating to the research that is happening within these
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  labs, within these science teams, whether it be collaborators or not.
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  A lot of times science is done based on collaboration, even though
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  there's problems within that.
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  But there's a lot of things that are really harming the work aspect
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  and the funding aspect of doing science in today's world and
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  that is a lot politically driven.
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  Again, I don't want this to be politically, but it is politically driven.
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  There's this mindset that the less science we know, the better,
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  and so we're going into a very different direction, which is stressful in a
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  lot of other ways than just, you know, having a career or becoming an advocate.
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  But what it does drive people to do, especially early career scientists,
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  is to kind of like, bring their head up from working so hard and trying
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  to just find regular paying jobs.
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  Like in marine science, so a full-time salaried type jobs, which, let's be
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  honest, there's not a lot out there.
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  And it becomes difficult.
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  They kind of bring our heads up and be like.
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  Well, hold on a second here.
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  Like, I didn't even have a chance to work for NOAA.
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  I didn't have a chance to work for the EPA, you know, all the funding's cut.
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  I was brought on.
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  I thought I was, you know, starting with these great organizations
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  that have a history of doing really great marine science and then all
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  of a sudden I get cut outta nowhere just because I was on probation.
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  And so that is really difficult.
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  And so you become a little bit more of a, we need to start
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  talking about what's going on here.
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  You become more of an advocate, not only for your own job, but also
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  for the field in which we work, in which we love growing up, seeing and
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  watching and going to school for.
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  It inspired us to go to school, spend, you know, hundreds of thousands of
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  dollars just to be able to be paid adequately or not even at all, because
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  now there's something going on and it feels like a war against science, whether
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  it's marine medical or what have you.
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  It's become a real problem.
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  It's forcing us to move in a different direction.
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  It's forcing a lot of scientists, whether we wanna become advocates or not.
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  It's forcing us into a new direction.
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  So Melissa Varga some tips, and I really think these are great tips.
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  I might have some to add on, but I wanted to go through this.
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  I want to highlight what these tips are because I think this is really important.
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  The one thing is, is you're not alone.
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  We can build a community of scientists who could become advocates, right?
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  One of Melissa's points is advocacy is a marathon.
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  It's not a sprint.
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  You have to find people who have shared values.
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  There might be some point of advocacy, which you don't agree that, you know,
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  you need to follow, and there might be other points that you could follow.
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  It's a wide field when you get into advocacy.
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  There's certain policies that you may want more than others, or you may find that you
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  can add the most quote unquote expertise or want to add the most effort on.
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  So find that community.
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  Find the people who want to know more about a specific policy that you want to
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  advocate for, or like, if it's something in general, find that community of
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  like-minded individuals of shared values.
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  And work with them to make some changes, right?
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  There's a lot of just ocean centered groups, as she suggests.
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  There's marine conservation organizations, like local chapters or global groups
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  like Surf Rider Foundation and Oceana.
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  There's also Ocean Conservancy.
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  There's WWF, there's Union for Concerned Scientists.
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  There's a network such as the 500 Women Scientists focusing on marine policy.
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  That would be a great one if you're a woman or you are an ally to
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  women rights and women in science.
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  University and local campus environmental clubs, those are really great because
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  a lot of times people in academia or university students tend to have a lot
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  of passion when it comes to this 'cause they will be advocating for their own
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  marine fields and their own marine jobs.
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  And eventually, like, you know, that's what's really gonna happen.
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  But emphasize like how communities offer the emotional support that you need, the
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  training, the shared resources and the accountability, especially when you're
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  looking at funding cuts and uncertainty.
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  So there are organizations out there, whether they're societies
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  or whatnot, they offer training on how to become an advocate.
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  They may offer training on something completely different that might offer
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  you more of a job when you get outta university, or if you just got outta
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  university, it might be a more impactful.
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  Like conservation marketing.
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  Behavior change and how to get people more into conservation.
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  There might be like an MBA program that you can go into or go back
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  into grad school and there might be training on something specific that
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  has maybe a little bit more resiliency in times that we're facing right now.
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  So look at those groups, look at those aspects.
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  And there are people out there, there are organizations out there, there
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  are funding and helping people out.
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  Balean, which is a friend of the podcast, Bart Oor and Saunders Brienen.
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  They were just on the podcast.
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  They are creating an organization, a foundation that is there to support
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  individuals and individual projects who may not get the same equal attention
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  from funding groups or may not qualify from those funding groups, or there's
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  just not enough funding around.
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  They're bringing funders and those projects together because they think
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  these projects are important and they want funders to be able to also
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  see that these are important to help fund these types of projects.
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  So that's an important aspect, looking out for these different groups.
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  Now, when you're networking, when you're looking for these
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  groups, go on Facebook groups.
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  Be careful of the types of Facebook groups.
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  You can get some bad players in some.
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  There's LinkedIn groups that are really great or just even on LinkedIn and just
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  be able to put that option out there.
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  Be like, Hey, I'm looking for a group that is interested in sea turtle
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  protection policy, or I'm looking for a group that wants to get the manatees
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  back on the Endangered Species Act.
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  You know, I'm looking for that.
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  Or water quality in Florida or something like that.
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  There are a lot of different groups out there that could help
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  and you can find them online.
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  There's some Reddit groups that are always great.
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  I'm not familiar with Reddit, but I heard that they offer some really great things.
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  There's also a lot of people writing about this type of stuff and where
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  you can meet or where you can aggregate online as a community.
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  So those are always great as well.
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  So that's something that's important.
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  So look out for those types of groups.
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  Those are something that you're gonna want to do.
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  Know that you're more than just a scientist.
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  You're also a constituent.
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  Melissa really puts that home on this article and I think it's really important.
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  One of the things that you do is you have this expertise.
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  I've been guesting on other podcasts like they're environmentally focused
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  or just like world changing focused, where they're looking at people
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  who are trying to change the world.
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  And I've been trying to spread the word, not only my podcast, but
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  also others, and types of stuff that's going on in the ocean.
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  It's really interesting how when I speak to somebody that is not familiar with
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  Ocean, they will come tell me and they'll be like, I didn't know any of this,
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  and I feel like it's a simple thing.
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  You know, I was just on a podcast the other day.
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  Even before we got on the podcast, I was just talking about the Shark
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  Meat episode I did earlier this week.
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  We talked about how people are eating shark meat.
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  They don't even know it.
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  Not just in Brazil with kids or people in prisons or at elderly care
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  facilities, but also, you know, people who are buying fish that don't even
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  realize that those fish are fraudulent.
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  It's actually shark meat that's carcinogenic or has arsenic
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  or mercury levels and then just don't even realize it.
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  And the host was like, her mind was blown that they didn't know this kind of stuff.
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  Sometimes explaining the stuff that's going on in a way where you're like,
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  yeah, research showed this and I can give you the articles if you really want.
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  They don't really want to see the articles.
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  They want to hear the stories, they want to hear what's going on.
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  And maybe some of it is doom and gloom, but sometimes like I did not know that.
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  How can I help?
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  And then you can just do it on an individual basis.
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  So talking to not only policy makers government agencies, and your government
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  representatives, but also talking to just people in your community.
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  One person I really respect and admire, Dr. Andrew Thaler, who's been
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  on the podcast a number of times.
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  He was talking about being the chair and joining the sort of a climate commission
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  for his town and he put in a tide gauge.
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  We did that episode where he put it into tide gauge just to
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  kind of measure the tides in St.
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  Michaels in Maryland and that's like an important thing.
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  It's a small local scale, but there's an education part of it for the town
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  and for the kids that are in that town.
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  But also there's a application to it to find out like what's gonna get flooded
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  when things flood and how often is it gonna get flooded, let's get the data
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  behind it because they don't have it.
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  And I thought that's really interesting to just take part in your community and
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  be able to engage with those communities.
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  And also, you know, start a podcast, start a social media channel, and be able to
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  talk about the things that you know about.
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  Not necessarily in a scientific way, but also in a way where people can understand.
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  It really helps everybody out.
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  Recognize and also resist the overwhelm.
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  There is a lot of disinformation and information overload
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  that can cause fatigue.
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  I do a lot of work in terms of putting stuff out, like consuming
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  information and it's a lot and I have to take breaks sometimes.
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  Sometimes my voice needs to take breaks.
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  This summer, I had a lot of problems with my voice.
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  But there are times where you need to just kind of sit back and digest some
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  things and just relax and just understand that there are bad actors out there and
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  they have strategies that are really, really great all the way from the
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  fossil fuel industry and providing huge misinformation campaigns to the point
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  where it's like people just don't wanna listen or they have their own facts and
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  their own sources and stuff like that.
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  and that could be really bad.
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  So limit your exposure to some of those parties.
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  You're probably not gonna convince them of anything that you want to
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  convince them of or provide facts for.
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  Recognize that there are emotional tactics that people try to do.
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  There are times when I post about climate change and immediately I will get somebody
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  in being like, climate change's not real.
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  This is all just a hoax.
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  Look at this YouTube video, blah, blah, blah.
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  And you know it's, all bias so don't fall for those things.
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  And sometimes I do, I have to admit, sometimes I do.
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  But try and get out of that kind of way of doing things like that.
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  But also don't make it stop you from posting.
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  The way I look at things I post for people who want to know more about the ocean.
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  These are people who are looking for information.
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  That is my audience.
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  I'm not posting for people who are hell bent against me getting
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  this information out and trying to tear me down at any point in time.
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  That is not what I'm about.
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  That is not what I'm doing.
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  Also, the small steps matter.
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  You know, so start now.
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  Doing local things, talking to your local city council, talking to local business
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  people, just having those conversations.
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  That's really good.
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  Small actions today matter, even if it's just with a friend.
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  Providing that information is so good for a scientist to do.
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  'cause people actually care about what you do.
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  They are genuinely curious.
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  And if you try and stay away from some of those topics that are triggering
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  politically, you can get away with a lot and say a lot of great things,
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  factual things that people will be like, it doesn't matter which way they lean.
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  People are like, oh, I didn't know that.
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  Oh, that's kind of cool.
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  Like, your job is so cool.
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  That's really nice.
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  And even if it's not part of your job, you can talk about the ocean
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  the way you know it, and I think that's really important to do.
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  So share science not only locally and with friends and family, but also
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  through social media that really helps.
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  Volunteer with beach cleanups or community workshop.
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  If there's a committee or there's a meeting or something, you can always
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  volunteer, say with that government agency and say, Hey, you know what?
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  I'm a local scientist here and I know a lot about this type of subject.
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  I'd be happy to answer any kind of questions people might have or help
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  out in any kind of way that might help.
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  You know, But reinforce the idea that every ocean advocate
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  started with a single step.
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  And that is like small things.
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  You gotta start small.
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  Before I started this podcast, I was having like so many conversations.
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  I was gonna say hundreds and thousands.
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  I don't know if it's a hundreds and thousands, but I was having a
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  lot of conversations about what's going on in the ocean and I was
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  surprised that people didn't know.
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  So I scaled it up and I went to a podcast and now I am where I am.
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  And so now I'm talking to thousands of people every episode,
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  and that's important to me.
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  That's nice to know that people are listening and people want to know more and
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  more about what's happening in the ocean.
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  So this is something that we need to do as scientists all the time.
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  I'm not saying you have to go out and protest each and every day,
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  but there's advocacy to be had.
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  There's information to be shared, and it's up to us.
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  It's the responsibility of the scientists to share that information.
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  Now, you also have to be careful how you share the information,
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  who you share it with.
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  Like I said, you don't want to be going to people where it's just triggering
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  for them and they're not gonna listen and they don't want to know.
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  That's fine.
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  You know who those people are, you don't have to engage with them if you
• 17:56
  don't want because that's emotionally draining sometimes, and it can be
• 17:59
  dangerous in certain situations.
• 18:00
  So what I would suggest is you put out information where you know the person
• 18:04
  is going to take it, and is looking forward to knowing more about it and wants
• 18:08
  to do something better for the ocean.
• 18:10
  And so if you can speak to the people that are doing that, which I believe
• 18:13
  are most of the people in and around the world and in around your community,
• 18:17
  then I think that's a great thing.
• 18:18
  It doesn't matter, like try and stay away from saying politics.
• 18:22
  You can criticize a government, whether it's a democratic government or Republican
• 18:25
  government, or leaning like liberal leaning or left or right leaning.
• 18:29
  You can criticize a government.
• 18:30
  That's fair to do, but criticize it without emotions.
• 18:33
  Don't just say, this person's a douche and I don't like this person,
• 18:36
  so I'm gonna criticize this stuff.
• 18:37
  You can say that, Hey, by taking away this regulation, it puts this animal at
• 18:42
  risk, or it puts this coastline at risk or it puts water quality at risk, or
• 18:46
  just conservation in general at risk.
• 18:47
  You can say that.
• 18:48
  Because you're a scientist and you say it based on like, this is what
• 18:51
  the science is saying and this government is going against that.
• 18:54
  There's nothing wrong with criticizing a policy.
• 18:57
  There's governments that I voted for where I still criticize their policies
• 19:01
  'cause I don't agree with everything.
• 19:02
  We're not supposed to agree with everything that they do.
• 19:04
  And sometimes, and a lot of times governments mess up.
• 19:07
  You know, whether it's individuals of that government and in power or on
• 19:10
  the opposition or whatever, people mess up, politicians mess up all the time.
• 19:14
  That's what makes politics so difficult.
• 19:15
  But you could vote for something and still criticize their policies if
• 19:19
  you don't like what they're doing, if the environment is important to you.
• 19:22
  All governments are bad for the environment in one way or another.
• 19:25
  You just have to look at which one's the least harmful to the environment.
• 19:29
  But this is what I wanted to cover today because I feel like a lot of
• 19:32
  scientists, we try and stay outta that.
• 19:34
  Like, I'm not an advocate, I'm not an activist.
• 19:35
  I'm not gonna stay outta that.
• 19:36
  I just want do the science.
• 19:38
  Oftentimes we have to not only advocate for ourselves, but we have
• 19:41
  to advocate for the environment.
• 19:43
  We are in the environment all the time.
• 19:44
  We see the degradation that's happening.
• 19:46
  Some scientists, and maybe that's why the scientists who have been in the
• 19:49
  field for 10, 20, 30 years will see a big problem and then start to say,
• 19:53
  Hey, this is really degraded over my lifetime and I don't want to see that,
• 19:57
  so I'm gonna start talking about it.
• 19:59
  But if we do that throughout our, like when we see the small things happen
• 20:02
  before it gets too big and too negative, maybe we can have a difference when we
• 20:06
  advocate as we go through our career.
• 20:08
  It's important that scientists speak out.
• 20:10
  It's important that scientists speak up, whether it's through a
• 20:12
  podcast, TikTok, Instagram, Discord,
• 20:15
  Reddit, whatever it is, even just locally, it's important that we speak
• 20:18
  up, speak out, and protect the ocean.
• 20:21
  I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode.
• 20:23
  If you have any questions or comments, please let me know.
• 20:25
  Leave in the comments below, if you're watching this on YouTube, or
• 20:28
  you can contact me in a couple of different ways through Instagram at
• 20:31
  how to Protect the Ocean, just DM me.
• 20:32
  at Speak Up for Blue on TikTok, and of course you can go to the website,
• 20:35
  speakupforblue.com/contact and you can just leave me a message there.
• 20:39
  It goes right to my email.
• 20:40
  I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
• 20:43
  How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 20:45
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True nor Strong and free.
• 20:47
  Have a great day.
• 20:48
  We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.