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Climate Action When Governments Won't Help · How To Protect The Ocean

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There is a lot going on in the world today. One, I am battling a
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cold, so I apologize for my voice. But the other thing
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is a civil war ended in
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Syria this week, which is amazing. Hopefully they get some peace. And
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apparently the next president or the incoming president of
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the United States is trying to annex Canada, which he
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can't because we're a sovereign country, wants to make
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it the 51st state. And Elon Musk is
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kind of laughing because The President Trump, the
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next President of the United States, is saying, hey, if you put in a billion dollars towards
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a project, you can bypass all the environmental rules and
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regulations and you can just start your project. So he's laughing his
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head off. Meanwhile, wild polar bears have different
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feces than captive polar bears because their food source is
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changing due to climate change from billionaires who
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are doing projects where they're getting their rules and regulations taken away because
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they can do whatever they want if you have the money. There's a lot to talk about today,
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and we're going to do that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast with
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my voice. Sorry about that. Let's start the show. Hey, everybody,
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welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I
1:14
am your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with
1:17
the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a
1:20
better ocean by taking action. And normally I have a very much
1:24
better voice, but this is the place where you can find out everything
1:28
you want about the ocean, about ocean conservation, whether it's news, how to
1:31
speak up, how to take action. All you have to do if you want more information and
1:34
you want more episodes, YouTube, Spotify, other
1:38
podcasts like Fancy Scientist, which is wildlife biology, as
1:42
well as careers. And we look at aqueducts and Beyond Jaws,
1:46
the episode I co-host with the famed Lost Shark guy, Dr.
1:50
David Ebert. You can go to speakupforblue.com to
1:53
get access to all of those for free. just go to speakupforblue.com. And
1:57
if you want that information to your inbox, because maybe you
2:00
forget to go to that website because you haven't bookmarked it yet, you can do that
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now. You can get it into your inbox by just going up and signing up
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for a newsletter by going to speakupforblue.com forward slash
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newsletter. That email comes to your inbox Monday to Friday
2:14
at 8 a.m. Easter. Let's get into the show. There's a lot. a
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lot going on and some of the stuff we're going to cover some of the stuff we're not
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obviously the war in syria the the civil war is has
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ended we're not going to cover that because that's beyond the
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scope of this show but we are going to talk about other politics
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that are going on It's really interesting with the changing of
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the administration next year in the US and probably the
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upcoming change in Canada. So North America is having a
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lot of changes. Europe is having a lot of changes in their politics. France
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government was just, I guess, dissolved and the Prime Minister was kicked out
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from a non-confidence vote. The government of Canada, probably a non-confidence vote,
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will be successful soon. The Conservatives have tried it three times.
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That means if the they vote non-confidence the we go to an
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election basically i'm not going to go into too much detail but that
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is going to change over if it does change over to the conservatives where they
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don't really have any climate action in place they're ready to cut projects
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they're ready to cut funds and they're ready to cut the carbon tax and we are
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going to find out more of what is going to happen when
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we ignore climate change like we So I want to cover a
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little bit about climate change because we also Got news today that
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President Trump put out on his on a social media platform truth
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social that he is going to Exempt
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anybody who puts a billion dollars Towards a project doesn't
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matter the project where they don't have they'll be exempt of any rules and regulations for
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environmental policies Nice must be nice to be rich and to be able
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to do whatever you want I guess when it's that big, it doesn't really matter,
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although it does because usually those projects are oil and gas projects
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like coal or something like that, some kind of fossil fuel based projects,
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which he'll probably approve as much as possible according to his campaign
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promises. So we're starting to see the consequences from an environmental perspective
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of an incoming Trump administration. We knew it was coming, and
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now we're starting to see what that looks like. And there's a lot of things that
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are going on that are consequences of climate change that
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we end up not realizing because all these policies
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are being and regulations are being kind of clawed back because of
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the incoming administration. And so we're going to see a lot of interesting things
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that on today's episode, but I want to end it. So stay tuned. I
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want to end it with five companies that are doing some
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great things for the environment and that you can support
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by buying their stuff. I think that's something that we really need
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to focus on. We're going to talk about it near the end of this episode is where do
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we go when governments aren't there to support us, when governments aren't
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there to help us make the choices that we
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need to make from a national perspective or even a provincial or state perspective,
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where do we go When we can't get the answers
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that we want or we can't get the actions that we need, we have to do
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it through our business leaders. And we're going to talk about that in a second. But while all this
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is going on, while billionaires are going to be exempt of following environmental
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regulations, while we're seeing all these projects doing in these
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in these legislations being clawed back. we are seeing some major
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consequences, especially being predicted and actually being seen. So
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the first one is we're seeing issues with polar bears
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in their feces and we're seeing what scientists are
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saying. We're going to see the polar bears are going to be different. You know, the polar bears
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we know very well are going to be different in their makeup and
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what they look like and what they eat and how they act based on climate
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change and, and what's happening with climate change. Polar bears have always been
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the canary in the coal mine for climate change. With shrinking
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ice coverage, polar bears populations are being more and
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more threatened. Why do you ask? Because polar bears will feed
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using ice floats. They are a marine mammal. They are in the water
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more than 60% of the time, which is why they're considered a marine mammal,
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even though they are on land quite a bit and they look like a land animal. They have four
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legs. and they end up swimming most of the time. In
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fact, they've been clocked to swim more than 700 kilometers at
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once. But they are air-breathing animals, and
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they don't really float very well, so they need to continue to
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swim, or they need to rest on the water. Their major food source
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are seals. They're fat, they're plumpy, full of energy, and they're full
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of protein, so they have to go out and get those seals.
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Well, seals are not always gonna be on land. They swim,
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they're marine mammals as well, and they swim most of their time. So they have to go
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out at sea to get them. That could be swimming, or that could
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be on an ice float while they rest. They need ice floats.
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In fact, if you go a certain time of the year, you will see
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polar bears go in a town called Churchill in northern Canada.
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And you will see them actually wait for the ice floats to come in
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and they'll get on those. They'll swim out to those ice floats and they'll ride
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those ice floats out or they'll swim beyond them and wait for
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the ice to break up so that they can rest on the ice floats while they
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wait and feed on the seals. I told you my voice was
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really bad. I apologize for that. So there was a study that looked at
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how the animals are changing in terms of their
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protein diet, right? How are they getting their energy in
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the wild compared to those in captivity? So there
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was a research team from Dalhousie University in
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Halifax, Nova Scotia, that spent a week on the Hudson Bay
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in Churchill, Manitoba in 2018, studying the
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creatures and gathering data about their gut microbiome. So they
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collected the fecal microbiome of wild and
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captive polar bears, and compared their findings to understand how
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the changing climate affects the bears' diet and health. Yes, they
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looked at their poop. They looked at captive animals' poop, and they looked at
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wild bears' poop, and they compared the two. The interesting
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thing is captive polar bears are on a long-term, high-protein
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diet. This has exhibited a more diverse and distinct fecal
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microbiome than their wild counterparts, likely due to dietary and
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habitat shifts. That's what the Dalhousie News said, the
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press release. So wild polar bears, which usually eat high-fat
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seals, are missing out on their marine mammal-based diet because
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of the human-caused climate change and the rise in global
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temperatures, and resulting in a lack of sea ice, which forces them
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to remain on land for longer periods of time. So the study mimicked these changes
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by feeding the captive animals a diet of heavy in mackerel and
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seaweed, as polar bear populations suffering from
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decreased ice coverage and longer ice-free seasons are
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turning into low-fat, high-protein diets. So we don't know how
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this is going to affect polar bears in general. There's
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going to be a change, and that could change their composition, that could change
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how they digest food, that could change how they get their energy, and
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it could change the makeup of the coastline for these
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Arctic habitats. It's just interesting to hear news
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comparing how the diets are changing based on
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food availability due to consequences from climate change. We're not
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seeing anything better in terms of ice coverage. We're
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seeing a reduction in ice coverage as global temperatures get hotter and
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hotter and hotter. In fact, I just read a headline that in
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2024, probably gonna be the highest temperatures we've ever had. This is
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going to be interesting to look at the patterns of food
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availability for polar bears as well as other arctic animals to
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see how they're going to shift in terms of survivability. Will
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this be a sustainable diet for these polar bears? These are seven feet
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tall, they weigh a lot, they need a lot of food, and they're used
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to having seals. Now we look at other animals and other habitats
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around the world, coral reefs, which are another sort of canary in the coal
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mine for climate change. And you see that
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we're going to start to have a shift in the makeup of corals. We're
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going to see corals that do not react well to high sea surface temperatures.
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We're going to start to see a decrease in the availability or
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abundance of those corals. And we're going to start to see more corals who tend to
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be able to allow for higher temperatures or survive in
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higher temperatures. It doesn't mean that there's going to be the end of coral reefs,
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but it's going to be the end of coral reef makeup as we know it.
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It's going to be less of the stony corals that have a very narrow range
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of sea surface temperature and more of the hardier corals that can handle
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it. How is that going to change the makeup of our reefs? I'm
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not too sure. I'm not a coral reef biologist, but it's definitely going to change
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the makeup. It could change food availability for humans that
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depend on fishing and reefs for protein
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and for their diets. You just never know how it's gonna change, but things are
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changing. Now, the other thing I wanted to highlight before we go into the companies is
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that a Florida map was recently revealed that cities that
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could be underwater in 2050. I thought this
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was kind of interesting because Florida is not only
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a state where it's beautiful, very nice
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weather, you get nice coastlines, Miami's very diverse,
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it's almost like a melting pot of the Caribbean and maybe
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even South America, And it's also a home for a lot of people
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in Florida, but it's also climate central. And so there are, it is
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vulnerable to sea level rise and it's vulnerable
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to flooding due to climate change. This one, we're looking at,
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you know, what were, what's going to happen to these areas and
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what's going to happen to these cities that are going to actually be
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prone and vulnerable to flooding and sea level
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rise, or may not even be there in the next 20 years, right?
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Or the next 30 years. So in 2050, there's
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gonna be some that are gonna be like, hey, you know what? These cities, they
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were great, but they're not gonna be there anymore. Let's just talk
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about what is projected to rise. So sea level along the US coastline is
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projected to rise on average by around 10 to
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12 inches by 2050. That doesn't sound like a lot, that's actually quite
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a bit. According to the projections of NOAA, this
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increase is equivalent to the total rise observed over the century from 1920 to
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2020. So people living in low-lying coastal land like river mouths are
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already facing higher flood risk because of the 20 to 40 centimeters
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or 8 to 15 inches of sea level rise measured
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along the U.S. coastlines over the past few decades. Their communities can
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expect the worst of the impacts as water levels continue to
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climb. This is from Peter Girard, who is a spokesperson for
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the nonprofit organization Climate Central. We're seeing a
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lot of these places and if you look at most of them, obviously they're coastal
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and they're along some of the more popular areas where
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you're seeing it. So the map shows that the coastal areas in
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the south of Florida. are most at risk, particularly the state parks
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and reserves and the low-lying Florida Keys. Parts
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of Florida's southwestern coast could also be
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totally submerged, including the Everglades National Park, which
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spans over 1.5 million acres and home to hundreds
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of species of birds and mammals and reptiles. The outer coast
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areas, the coastal areas of Cape Coral, including its extensive network
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of canals, would also be vulnerable to water inundation. So
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there's a map here, and I'm gonna link to it in the show notes, because
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you can actually see where these areas, so below annual flooding level,
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these areas, I'm looking at areas that are within the western
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part of Florida. So you're looking at areas just
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east of Panama City. We're looking at anywhere just north of
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Tampa Bay in the Panhandle. We're also seeing areas like Fort Myers,
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Cape Coral, the Everglades National Park is gonna be submerged. Parts
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of like Southeast Miami along the canals
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are gonna be flooded on a regular basis. Florida's not looking too
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good in 2050. And now it doesn't help that like Bahamas will
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be a lot more submerged as well. So you have some
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state, a state like Florida, and then you have islands like the Bahamas,
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which are home to many people. You also, if you look at the map, it
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also goes into the low-lying areas of Louisiana, Texas,
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Mississippi, those areas that are also going to be flooded, and Alabama as
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well. It's not looking good. It's not looking good. Meanwhile, we have administrations,
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not only in the US, but elsewhere, that are ignoring climate
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change. But we're going to start to see problems. Now I
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did see, and this is not to pick on Donald Trump, but he's got some
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pretty good takes, pretty hot takes on climate change.
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And he said, hey, you know what? Yeah, if sea level rises, we have more oceanfront.
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So oceanfront is good. Everybody wants oceanfront. But it doesn't talk about the
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people who are going to lose their land. people
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who can't afford to just get up and leave. for
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them but for people who can't afford one home or
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have one home and they can't afford to lose that home because they
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can't sell it because nobody's going to buy it because it's going to get flooded what are they supposed
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to do they're going to be what's called climate refugees in their own country
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and it's going to be it's not going to be good it's not going to be it's not going to look pretty
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and everybody tends to just be like hey you know climate change is not that big of
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a deal it's a hoax by the left and all this should not be
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political It should be more about people
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surviving and people coming together and people saying, hey, we need
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to do something. It's not just left or right. It's about how
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we survive going into the future and how we can help adapt
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as well as change, but also buffer the change in
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climate for a while and try to get back to normal at some
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point. What I want to do is and I don't want this episode to be
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about doom and gloom because I know climate change can be really depressing we
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get a lot of people get climate anxiety due to that but
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there should be a time where we start to feel hope
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and it's really difficult when administrations get taken over national administrations
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get taken over by climate deniers or
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people who want to ignore climate or not include climate into
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their policies, or even remove old climate, like
16:11
the carbon tax, and move old climate policies to stop things from
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working, or stop things from changing, we need to depend on
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something. If we can't depend on governments during these administrations, then
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we're gonna have to depend on not only ourselves, but on business leaders.
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And there are businesses and entrepreneurs out there who are trying to
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change, who are trying to help you make better decisions in
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what you purchase, but also, help you like just
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in terms of everyday purchases doesn't have to be like electricity and
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things like that that are highly regulated but it could be other things just
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your groceries or your beer or where you
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get your clothes or anything like that there's a lot of things that you could do to
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help and finding those businesses and and helping
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those businesses survive helping them thrive is a good way of
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doing it and in capitalist societies that's probably the best way
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to do it Now, there is a company, I guess it's a company, it's
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a certification called B Corps. And these B Corps
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are certified companies that are about more than just the profit. They're
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forces for social and environmental change, aka a triple bottom
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line. So they go for profit, they go for social and environmental profit. That's
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what they go for. Now, what I mean by social environmental profits, it's change. They
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have an impact on the environment and on social change. So
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being a B Corps certified essentially means balancing purpose and
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profit. So I want to talk about, there's an article here and I'll
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put this link into the show notes, all the stuff I talk about put in the show notes. So
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there's gonna be lots of links this time, but there's five B Corps that inspire the
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team at this place called Alveoli, I think it's called. They're
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inspired by these companies and some of them are companies that
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are anywhere in the world like Canada or they're international, but
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they all have some sort of impact some
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sort of purpose on their life. So here is Bose all-natural brewing
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company. So like I said, it's not just boring companies or fun exciting
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companies. So this is a first B Corp brewery in
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Canada. So Bose brews its organic beer using renewable
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electricity. which lowers the company's carbon footprint by 110 tons
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every year. It treats its wastewater on site and sends used
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yeast and other brewing byproducts to a biodigester, which
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turns them into energy to help power a local farm. So on the
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employee side, some of their initiatives include
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paid days for volunteering and a ride to work program. Awesome
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stuff. I'm going to go through these a little quickly, but you can check these out a
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little bit more later on. Four Oceans, which we had one
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of the co-founders for Four Oceans on the episode, Alex
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Schultz. This is a Florida-based company that pulls one pound of trash
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from the oceans, bays, and seas, and rivers for every artisanal upcycled
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bracelet, iPhone case, or cleanup kit sold with
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the goal of ending single-use plastic. So this is a huge, huge
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company that's worldwide. Not only does it empower local
19:00
artisans, but it also hires from the local area.
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So if it works in Bali, it hires people that live in Bali.
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So this is not just Florida-based team that goes all around the world and
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does its work. It's a Florida-based company, but has its
19:14
work in all these other places, including Haiti, including Bali, and
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a number of other places. So check that out. There'll be a link in the show notes. Patagonia,
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we all know Patagonia. This is probably one of the pillars of
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a B Corp or of just a company that serves not only profit
19:28
but purpose. Perfect example of business practicing of what it preaches. In
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2017, the California-based clothing company Gear Company joined a
19:36
group of organizations suing the Trump government over cuts to the national
19:39
monuments that include the ancestral homes of Native American tribes.
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The court cases are ongoing but there's hope. Biden's new government is currently
19:47
reviewing the cuts. Pedigree became a B Corp back in
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2011 and has been racking up accolades ever since, including four nominations in
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2019 as a top-performing B company by B Lab. host
20:06
the B-Corp certification. It's also upped its B-Corp
20:10
score steadily with the recertification, with initiatives including donating
20:14
all its 2016 Black Friday profits, about $10 million, to environmental
20:17
organizations, creating an environmental internship program that
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lets employees spend two months volunteering for environmental organizations with
20:24
full pay, and funding environmental awareness campaigns. That's what it's doing. Hotmo,
20:28
which is a B-Labs best of the world list for
20:31
socially and environmentally minded promotional products. It's a Montreal based
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and a Canadian based women owned company. Partners corporations design
20:38
unique locally made items for media swag
20:42
bags and employees gifts. So that's a cool kind of
20:45
thing. I really like that. Nada, Nada is a Vancouver-based company. So
20:48
these are all, a lot of these are Canadian companies. Package-free grocery store goes
20:52
way beyond eco-friendly groceries. In non-COVID times, customers
20:56
bring their own containers to this Vancouver-based package-free grocery
21:00
store. to fill up on everything from locally made soaps to bulk chickpeas
21:03
to homemade double chocolate marshmallow cookies. Yummy, yummy. As for the
21:07
suppliers, Fornada favors local and sustainable products from
21:10
other B Corps, as well as carbon neutral, socially conscious, alternative
21:14
business model and minority and indigenous run operations. That's
21:17
pretty cool. I wanted to highlight this article and
21:21
a number of others because although we are in a place where
21:25
climate change is rearing its ugly head, we're seeing inaction from
21:29
certain governments and the change of certain governments. even
21:32
the governments who are trying to do stuff about climate change are said not
21:35
not be doing enough or fast enough but we have other tools in
21:39
our conservation tool belt to help reduce climate change and
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that falls a little bit on us right but also it
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falls on us not just to act responsibly when
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it comes to using sustainable things
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for like products and services for reducing climate
21:57
change. But it also goes to show that we can help support
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companies who are out there not only to make a profit as other
22:04
companies are, but also to have an impact on the world. And
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if we can use our dollars to support those
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companies instead of companies who are degrading
22:16
or buying into a system that's degrading the planet by
22:19
putting out a lot of greenhouse gases, using a lot of fossil fuels,
22:23
and not trying the other way. The other companies that are trying to be sustainable may
22:27
not be perfect, but they're trying to be. They're trying to be the best that they
22:30
can, and they deserve our support if we can support
22:33
them. Some of these companies, yes, they can be a little bit more expensive than the
22:37
other companies, but I think we have to look at what we can do, and
22:40
we have to look at changing the way we live, in some areas drastically,
22:44
in other areas maybe not so drastically, but change the way we
22:48
do things and the way we use energy, the way we use
22:51
products, and start moving and focusing on
22:55
companies who are doing really good and having an impact on our planet instead
22:58
of having a negative impact. on our planet so i want to bring that
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to you today that's the episode i'd love to hear what you think hit me up on instagram
23:05
at how to protect the ocean i'd love to hear from you just dm me
23:08
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And there's some changes coming to this podcast and to this
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company that you're going to really like in the new year. I'll have an
23:32
announcement for that in the new year. And I'm really excited about this.
23:36
This is a project that I've been working on for a little bit, and it's
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not just me. and we're gonna see some really cool changes in
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interaction coming up soon. So stay tuned, subscribe, follow,
23:47
and I can't wait to talk to you on the next episode of the How to Protect the
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Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Loon. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time,