Stories Sustain Us #45 – From Scarcity to Abundance: Restore Our Oceans (Part 2)

Summary
Stories Sustain Us E45 is part 2 of a compelling conversation with Fritz Neumeyer, Co-Founder and CEO of Oceans 2050, an organization aimed at restoring ocean abundance. The discussion highlights the shift from despair about ocean conservation to a hopeful vision for the future, emphasizing the importance of storytelling and collective action in environmental advocacy. They discuss the importance of recognizing the value of abundant oceans, not just for their ecological significance but also for their economic potential. The dialogue highlights the necessity of bridging ideological divides to create a unified approach to environmental restoration and sustainability. Fritz and Steven explore the intricate relationship between technology, nature, and the economy, emphasizing the importance of valuing natural assets and the role of innovative financing in ocean restoration. They discuss the potential of AI and quantum technology to enhance our understanding of environmental complexities and the need for collaboration between private and public sectors. The conversation culminates in a vision for a sustainable future, highlighting the power of collective action and the importance of finding common ground in addressing climate change.

About the Guest
Fritz Neumeyer, Co-Founder, CEO, has been shaping Oceans 2050's organization, strategy and concepts since its inception. He is a professional architect with an avid interest in philosophy, science, and sport. Educated in the classics, with a Master’s from ETH Zurich, his role is delivering the architecture of ocean restoration. He applies his unique skillset to design the Oceans 2050 ecosystem using architectural theory, practices and systems design while creating first-of-its- kind digital tools for the ocean community.

Show Notes
Oceans 2050: https://oceans2050.com/

Takeaways
•Oceans 2050 was founded to shift the narrative from conservation to restoration.
•Restoration of ocean abundance is achievable within a human generation.
•Abundance in oceans has both ecological and economic value.
•Different ideologies can lead to common goals in conservation.
•Collaboration is essential for effective environmental restoration.
•Understanding the economic implications of healthy ecosystems is crucial.
•The shift from conservation to restoration requires new approaches.
•Engaging local communities can enhance conservation efforts.
•Data-driven decision-making empowers local management.
•Embracing change is vital for progress in environmental initiatives.
•AI and quantum technology can help manage environmental complexities.
•Valuing nature as an asset is crucial for decision-making.
•Innovative financing is essential for ocean restoration projects.
•A culture of 'and' can bridge ideological divides.
•Sustainability is a deeply human concern, not just an ideological one.
•Building together fosters community and common ground.
•The future can be abundant if we embrac

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Transcript

Steven 
What if our oceans could be more abundant tomorrow than they were yesterday? Not just preserved, but restored to life. What if science, technology, and human optimism could come together to regenerate ecosystems we once believed were lost? Hey everybody, I'm Steven Schauer. Welcome back to Stories Sustain Us, the podcast where we explore the transformative power of human stories to create a more sustainable world.

Today we're diving back into the second half of our eye-opening conversation with Fritz Neumeyer, co-founder and CEO of Oceans 2050. If you missed last week's episode, I highly recommend going back to part one, where we began unpacking the profound role personal legacy, storytelling and collective action play in shaping the future of ocean restoration. In part two, we continue that journey, picking up where we left off.

to explore how shifting from a mindset of conservation to one of restoration isn't just a lofty idea. It's a tangible data-driven and human-centered strategy. We talk about generational optimism, the real economic value of healthy ecosystems, the role of AI and quantum technologies and environmental stewardship, and how collaboration across political, ideological, and cultural divides

can unlock solutions we once thought impossible. Fritz brings a fascinating perspective to this mission. As an architect with a passion for science, sport, and philosophy, Fritz is literally building the architecture of ocean restoration, together with his wife, Alexandra Cousteau, who is the co-founder and president of Oceans 2050. With a master's from ETH Zurich and a background steeped in classical education,

He is helping to design not just tools, but entire systems that can scale marine restoration globally. The vision for Oceans 2050 is bold, inclusive, and grounded in the belief that we can restore abundance within one generation if we act together. So whether you care about the oceans, ecosystems, innovation, or simply the future of our planet, stick with us.

This is a conversation that will challenge how you think and leave you feeling hopeful for what's possible. Let's dive back into part two of our conversation with Fritz Neumeyer here on Stories Sustain Us, where we are inspiring action through the power of storytelling.

Fritz Neumeyer 
that's when we founded Oceans 2050.

And I got really involved sort of from from the early days here because of that narrative change and That's where the name comes from right like about restoring abundant oceans of one human generation one human generation 2050 that's the that's the benchmark ⁓ and the tagline

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And it's real clear in your purpose, right? Your purpose statement is return

the oceans to abundance. mean, that is a simple tagline to explain to somebody, what do you do? We're returning the oceans to abundance. Jump on board and join us, right?

Fritz Neumeyer 
And then so the,

yeah, and what really, you the other pillar to it, again, you know, is Carlos with his thinking and the science and for a long time, so that we had this.

One of the first things we always would talk about is from science to action. We're not here to, we get, yes, one of the early things we need to do now is to kind of advocate and, I don't want to say apostolicize here, but bring out this paradigm shift. That's something we actually want to introduce across the field. So we've done protection and conservation for many decades now.

Steven 
Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
It's worked in the time it was invented. And we can say all of this with utmost respect because Alexandra’s father was one of the people who co-coined that ethic. And we don't, without even, there's not even any need for negativity. We can just say, look, where we are now is that this is not a tool that will get us where we want. And I think there's this other truth that we, know, we were talking about this earlier.

Steven 
Absolutely. Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
And is this general thing we can accept that sort of the solutions of today are the problems of tomorrow and the other way around. Right. And so these mechanisms are five decades old and their time, you know, there's time for an update and that.

Steven 
Sure. Sure.

Yeah. Well, it's the natural

progression of things. mean, you know, in the 60s, 70s and 80s, we had collectively, know, conservation was the dominant thought process because we kind of metaphorically, we had to stop digging the hole. So, what was still there was the natural step at the time. And now we're at the next step of, let's rebuild and restore.

what we've lost, you know, so that's I think the natural progression of the process.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Yeah, so absolutely.

I'm so glad you said that. um, yeah, cause I mean, that's, I think that's another thing that we can say out of just pure appreciation that it's a, it's a, it's a natural instinctive reaction. So again, just take the human perspective of Alexandra's father, right? So he's the guy who's, you know, as a kid, you know, my story as an architect, here's the guy who's like, you know, his father's exploring the ocean and bringing them to the world. And so.

Steven 
Right.

Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
He's growing up with that and by osmosis he obviously ends in that business. But he sees sort of the magical moments of his childhood, right, that his father would take him to this great grandeur of exploration. 20 years later as an adult, he's like, I see the stuff dying.

Steven 
Right.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Right, that's, in a way, ⁓ maybe that's, yeah, that's another, we skipped that one, but the one thing that really hurts, I would see in Alexandra's eyes like the spark on, but I remember she came back from a trip to, I would guess it was Sipitan in Malaysia, of one of those traditionally-acclaimed, like, the paradise dive spots left in the world, and she came back and she literally, was like, I don't wanna dive anymore.

Steven 
Yeah, diving. Yeah.

⁓ wow.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Like

if this is the best it gets, right? It's like, I'm going to these places and she's like, and all I see is the ghosts of my friends of the past. And I was like, ⁓ that hurts. Right? And so that's, if you take her father's perspective, that you're like, hey, we need to conserve and protect this stuff here. Right? That's the first instinct. And at the same time, if there's still enough riches there, you know, that's viable.

Steven 
Yeah, had gotten so...

⁓ that's painful. Yeah, that hurts deep. Yeah. Yeah.

Right, right, absolutely.

Fritz Neumeyer 
So we're just now at the next stage. There's interesting each night, you know, like we can get to something really fascinating for me at the moment, which is we can maybe even like take two steps at this moment, right? So for us, like we say, restore, rebuild abundance. The interesting thing is it's still a re, right? It's sort of an interesting, that too is.

Steven 
Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer
understandable and instinctive where you can say, okay, we've lost a lot. Let's rebuild what we had. It might be, you know, we're looking at this a lot. It might be more interesting to just focus on a future.

Right? Because you could make this case that it's kind of hard to move ahead fast if you're looking backwards. And maybe it's much better to just focus on what are visions on the futures that work for both sides, right? ⁓ Because it's interesting to see that when you're looking at what we're seeing now, this time of whoops, where...

Steven 
Go back? Sure.

Yeah, yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
We're just seeing a lot of polarity. know, like people are on both camps and there's a lot of sort of finger pointing antagonizing a lot of sort of retreating in different ideology and lot of fighting over which one is right and which one is wrong.

Steven 
Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
And it's interesting to see that we both on both sides, we have our different ways of doing our reason, our nostalgia, right? the environmental side, we're talking about rebuilding and there's this great time of, know, and on others sort of, let's say, more conservative. you know, that's how what we when we say, we say conservation and we're conservatives, but we mean this in a natural way. And then that fraction is kind of angry at the people who are talking about being conservative and wanting to rebuild.

Steven 
Different way. Yeah, yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
things like from a moral perspective. And it's interesting how we do the same thing, but we then point the finger at the other side for doing that thing and wanting to go back to a world that's past. So maybe when we talk about we're building abundant oceans, luckily abundant oceans is neutral enough, right? That's an idea. it's actually an

Steven 
Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's fascinating. That's a great point.

Yeah, everybody should be able to get

behind that.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Yeah,

so, but I think what we really want to focus on where we are now in the organization is like, how do we build a vision of a future here that works for both sides equally? ⁓ So we're skipping a lot of steps here, but we can fill out, we are more, because this is one of my favorite things that we're working on. Because this, yeah, you know, lot, it's even, it's, a lot of it is actually even in the terminology, right? We just, conservation,

Steven 
Right, right.

I appreciate you getting there. What? Tell me more about that.

Fritz Neumeyer 
means a very different thing to an environmentalist than it does to someone who's interested in moral history or value models or whatever it is, but it's the same word we use. Yeah, and so that's the great news about abundant oceans. Abundance is as much an economic term as it is a romantic one. ⁓ And so we literally, if you want to make it into really simple language, when we have rich oceans, we have rich culture and rich economies. And we can look at those two things.

Steven 
Yeah, economics are different thing,

All right.

Right.

Yeah, perfect.

Fritz Neumeyer 
an equal value and we

kind of want to, right? One of the big things we want to achieve here now is to make sure that we kind of help both sides find ground on what we agree on, sort of common ground. And you know, what it means from our side of the camp, outside, mean, the environmental, NGO, institutional, whatever you want to call it.

Steven 
people.

Fritz Neumeyer 
⁓ is, ⁓ embracing this really important truth that like the word abundance can mean something very different to an economist. We'll look at the ocean more as a resource than to someone who maybe comes from an ocean history legacy where it's really just about the magic and the life, right? But those both ways of looking at it are actually, you know, they're equally justified and relevant. ⁓ and they're just.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Or the sustenance

fisherman in a village that needs, you know, that's where they get their livelihood and their food from.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Or on a larger scale, the $14 billion recreational fishing industry of Florida. ⁓ It's very important and relevant economic reality that we want to be working with.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah, yeah

Absolutely, absolutely.

Fritz Neumeyer 
I'll make this really simple. What we really want for these next steps is to stop fighting over whether our ideology is right or not and thinking that you have to see if you have to care about the ocean because of the magic, you know, not the resource. Like that's a really big, a really big jump for everyone, for everyone to make. Okay, now we just, really, we broke our, our, our storyline here a little bit. ⁓

Steven 
Right.

Yeah. Well.

No, and I'm kind of keeping

tabs of the time as well. So I think your jump to that is a good timing as well. how does this, and what I hear you describing is, in sustainability talk is kind of that triple bottom line, the people, planet, profit. You're trying to find that sweet spot that the people that care about a resource for its economic value or what they can.

obtained from that resource is their voice matters. know, the planet matters, the environment matters. It doesn't necessarily have a voice. We need to have a voice for it. And then the quality of life for people and whether it's the romantic enjoyment of the ocean or the recreational ⁓ use of it, that sweet spot of bringing people together, not necessarily, you know, getting people out of their trenches.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Yeah.

Steven 
out of their, you know, I got to fight and defend my perspective and finding a place where we can all stand together because we're all kind of trying to get to the same spot. We might be thinking about it differently, but we're all trying to get to that same spot of abundance, you know, and it's available to us if we work together as opposed to fighting each other over who's got the right reason to do it. Like, no, we all, we all have our reasons to do it, but let's work together to get there. You might, did I, did I say all that correctly?

Fritz Neumeyer
thank you. Great.

that's great. can, yeah, hold my beer. I'm just gonna get myself a little bit more water here into my glass and then we can go into that chapter.

Steven 
Sure. Sure, sure, sure.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Yeah, so that's topic where we can tie a lot, tie and untie a lot of knots, but ⁓ the way you set it up is, think, is sort of the core ⁓ of the matter. this is, it's for romantics of it, it's for us who just want to get stuff done. It's the same for ⁓ economists, it's financial theory.

whatever angle you want to take you get to the same spot, right? And so Let's just stay with those words for a second like, you know abundance means it's rich right? So that's the non-fancy term is rich of stuff. So Let's take a coral reef, right? So, you know for those who haven't been those are like You know imagine the the rainforests with all their riches and all the crazy life going on

beautiful stuff, right? That's what a coral reef is under the water, right? It's sort of the crown jewel of ocean ecosystems. It's home to most of the life. You can call it biodiversity or you can call it lots of beautiful fishy things. nature builds these things over millions of years. They grow up on calcium and they have these beautiful blossoms on top. ⁓ So that place is this magical thing full of lights and colors and life. if you...

like scuba diving, right? That's what you care about. It's a magical, magical experience. But that seems sort of, let's take that human experience ⁓ has magical value, right? But it also has real economic value. Because when you talk about recreational fishing or diving, it's just one of my number, know, the one number that I can never forget is like 14 billion in Florida is recreational fisheries, right? That's not people out that go out to

Steven 
Absolutely. Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
because they have to catch dinner. That's people that go out because they want to be there. And then the diving industry in Mexico, there's, I think, I don't have the exact numbers anymore, but it was, you the difference between Mexico's annual revenue from diving tourism and its entire revenue from fisheries, which is getting fish out of the water to kill them and sell them, is like 5%.

Steven 
Right. Right. Right.

Fritz Neumeyer (13:25)
I say things like 970 million for fisheries and whatever, 910 for recreational diving. You're like, okay, wait, you know, this resource when it's alive is probably more value to you than when you kill it just because of the experience. The experience is really interesting. But so that back to that coral reef, like that same coral reef is also responsible for producing most of the life in the ocean around you. Right? So if you like to fish or have people going out to fish, like that reef is what

Steven 
when you drain it.

Fritz Neumeyer 
makes those fish be in the ocean, lots of them. So it's responsible for lots of your fishery value. So that same reef, that same reef is also, especially if it's like coupled with things like sea grasses and mangroves, is also responsible for protecting your coasts from 95 % of the wave energy, which means massive, massive, massive economic implications for storms and floods.

Steven 
Yeah, from

coastal cities,

Fritz Neumeyer 
Yeah,

we're like, you know, let's stay in Florida where you've got places with the highest density of real estate value in the world, right? That's a really important thing.

Steven 
Yeah, they're already seeing flooding and

sunny day flooding, they call it in Fort Lauderdale because the high tides are already flooding neighborhoods without rain, right?

Fritz Neumeyer 
Great, so

that's a real, right, so what the fires, the fires of California are the floods of Florida, right? That's a real economic thing here. So long story short, ⁓ whichever way you want to look at it, right, like a flourishing reef and an ecosystem that delivers all of that, gives all of us what we want. Whether we want it for an experience and the ideology and because we think life is sacred and should be there and humans shouldn't kill it, because you know,

Steven 
Yep, absolutely.

Fritz Neumeyer 
from a scriptures perspective or from like the most liberal and progressive whatever perspective. It's the same thing. Or for the guy who calculates your insurance premiums, right? It's the same resource. if like that's the great news. If we can leave ideology aside and stop fighting over that you should be wanting that there because of what I think is the reason it should be there. And let's be honest here, the people who...

Steven 
Yeah, or just a hard economic dollar perspective,

Right. Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Fritz Neumeyer 
So it's our camp who puts the ideological pressure cramps on, right? It's like, we're the ones who come in and sort of come in doctrine, be like, you need to, you know, the fish is sacred because it's beautiful and you know, the birds can't, and then it's the economists who are kind of like purpooing those idealists over in the corner, right? And so the real power is, hey, that reef delivers what you want, what I want, what they want, what the fishery, what the tax office wants, what the fishing license salaries, right?

Steven 
Oftentimes, yeah.

Right.

Fritz Neumeyer 
If we can get everyone together to connect these value streams, and if we can work with you over there on the insurance perspective to figure out how to finance this, and if these really smart economists over here can help us to better account for and sort of value this coral reef as an asset, we'll treat it differently. We'll have smarter numbers about what economic impacts are because, ⁓ ecological impacts are, because we'll be able to trade, you know, translate ecological impacts into

into economy and all of a sudden we have this representation of what we call mother nature in both accounting books, of our hearts in our dollar sheets. Yeah, and that's where it needs to be, right? And we talked in earlier conversations about your prior work and ⁓ sort of these, how you can create successes by combining these different approaches because the one other thing ⁓

Steven 
Right.

and our spreadsheets. yeah. Right, right.

sharing all these different narratives.

Fritz Neumeyer 
that in this admittedly very tumultuous period of change.

Like any other period of change, when things are broken up, that's both a challenge and a massive opportunity to reconfigure stuff and...

you know, without wanting to sound too preachy here, but I think it's a general human theme that when those moments come, the more you're ready to question yourself and let go of stuff that maybe was in the way, the faster you usually tend to get ahead into the next phase of maturity or development. And that's the opportunity now, really for our sake. We talked about this as well, think, well, there'll be one other thing, and I'm gonna be little careful about this one, but the...

Steven 
There's a big opportunity here. Yep.

Fritz Neumeyer 
This one percent for the planet thing is something I love to talk about. You know, one percent for the planet for those who aren't familiar is this badge ⁓ that companies take. So to say that they're dedicating whatever one percent of their profits or the revenues to good causes. And while obviously that's, you know, it's a nice thing, the mindset for me is just sort of it's a statement of one of our big issues, right? So...

architecture, economy, physics, mathematics, whatever it is, like it's a disaster if you want to, you know, do something and you use 1 % of your energy to try to build something up that you're probably ripping down with the other 99, you're going nowhere. Right. And so our simple truth is that that's something that we've struggled with for a while. And I think the other admission that we want to do here is that, um, you know, coming, coming off of what we talked about earlier, these ideas of conservation and protection,

Steven 
Right, right.

Fritz Neumeyer 
were translated into institutions, right? And those institutions were meant to slow things down, right? That was our idea. And you could say, okay, like they did slow a lot of the burning down and we did have a lot of really, really important sort of environmental structuring, legal acts, institutions that were born out of sort of, Reagan was kind of the guy who built a lot of these, right?

Steven 
Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
What we want to look at now is that think the first simple reality is that institutions are never effective at creating outcomes. know, they're those, especially not when they're meant to slow things down. And now that we're coming off of this period and saying, hey, you know, we need to rebuild abundance, it's literally in the words, right? These institutions that were meant to protect and conserve and slow down are now getting in the way of building stuff back. And that's the...

Steven 
Right.

Right.

Right, absolutely.

Fritz Neumeyer 
And not only getting in the way, I think we're asking the wrong people to do it, right? This is really important from my perspective. I've had this marvellously blessed position, right? I've got Carlos and I've got Alexandra who have these big ocean names. And so nobody ever cares about who I am. So I get to sit in the back seat, but I'm around all these wonderful, beautiful people. And the one great benefit when you move from the...

private sector, like, you know, as an architect into this world, is that you just get, be surrounded by all these beautiful people. And at the same time, if you're used to the way things get done in sort of the professional world, it's amazingly frustrating to watch how philanthropy works, institution works, like, these processes are so inefficient. So much of their energy is spent in

Steven 
You

Fritz Neumeyer 
self-governments, administration, funding, rules, report writing, grant. it's sort of, I literally have never, we've never applied for a grant if I had to write, I couldn't, right? This is not. So that's that 1 % problem, right? But to go into the 99 and get that energy, right? We need to operate more in that mechanism, which is accountability, know, return on investment.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Client service propositions, know, self assessment, what works, what doesn't clarity, like these are efficiency. These are very different, ⁓ very different operating principles than in science. You know, one of the things, for example, is in science, you can't make mistakes, right? Like if you make cardinal mistakes, your reputations, we all know that, you in business, you have to be able to do stuff and be ready for it to maybe not work.

and then stand up and say, okay, it didn't, but now we're smarter. So we've been asking the, if we're really switching from conservation to protection and we want to rebuild stuff, Carlos is open about this. not getting on his seat. He's always said like from a scientist, we kind of know what to do. Now we need people who can actually build. We need engineers and like all these hybrid people. And I think that's saying one of the good news for the...

for the next chapter that these paradigm shifts that with our new administration in the US are just sort of getting ⁓ speed tracked at a breathtaking pace. They are going to open up avenues to very different thinking and ⁓ energy mechanisms. we talked about like you've had this public private partnerships, like how do we get the best of both worlds to work together? ⁓

Steven 
Yeah. How do we streamline regulation so you can actually build something and

not get stuck and never actually getting from an idea to an on the ground thing because you're regulated or lawsuit into regulations.

Fritz Neumeyer 
And so,

I mean, just one specific thing here, right? So we're involved in a lot of really interesting things in Florida, right? Where many of the people in charge are doing like this. It's been such an interesting human experience. And I can honestly say this, after years sort of in the...

the Western liberal ideological world, it's so refreshing. Like I've got these people over, like I've got quotes that are taking me sort of into the future that are, you know, this is sort of the very, very different to the other side of the personal spectrum from down to, you know, I went to Jesuit school, right, like, you know, I'm happy with sort of religious.

roots, right? It's not my own upbringing, but I deeply appreciate it. So over there is like, you know, Christian, Republican value systems, but man, right, there's so much clarity in some of those principles of how things need to work, right? And even specifically, like from coming from Europe, Florida is like the, a real, counter example and culturally fiscally. Yeah. Right. But

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
That work over the last couple of months has been so illustrative about, oh, wow, like we get the best of both worlds. We're to have amazing products, right? Because this slowness institutional thing is like, it gets in the way of so many different, into so many different aspects and really like the simplest of clarity is like, you know, in order to get stuff moving, you need to focus on outcomes and, and selling propositions and how to get the best of both worlds and get stuff done.

Right.

Steven 
I think it's that changing process, the institutions that

the EPA was created under Nixon in the early 70s, in this time of the conservation ethic that we were talking about earlier, that made sense at the time. have to stop the damage. There's acid rain. We can't breathe the air. We can't drink the water. The Cuyahoga River caught on fire.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Yeah.

Rivers are burning.

Steven 
It made sense at the time that we have to slow things down. We have to stop this from happening. ⁓ Therefore, the regulations come in and the industry, the agencies that implement these regulations were created. But yeah, everything you're saying is resonating deeply with me about if we're going to rebuild, if we're going to restore, if we're going to constructive action, creative action.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Okay.

Steven 
we need to loosen up. We need to be able to move faster. And it's a changing time. And it is a fascinating and an interesting

Fritz Neumeyer 
⁓

Steven 
time. It's a scary time and it's an exciting time. mean, it's all happening right now. And I'm glad you're at the forefront of it and seeing the opportunities that are happening, that are opening up because of the changing times that we're in.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Yeah, let me to give you some concrete examples building on on things you specifically just said. So one of the really remarkable.

Steven 
Yeah, please.

Fritz Neumeyer 
moments of like these or Florida involvements was ⁓ you know down there in the sanctuary there was a a meeting in which one of the sort of the local stakeholders was addressing the issues they were having with ⁓ Let's say the sort of this institutional blockage idea, right and is highly respectful

and in great dialogue, but there were a couple of moments of this honest clarity that were just really great. And one of the sentences that really struck me is sort of in a public address. ⁓ He says, you look, we've been watching you manage yourself to less losses for 34 years. Right. And that is such a damning statement. Right. We've been watching you manage yourself to less losses.

And basically, so going to paraphrase here now, it's just not good enough, right? Because this is an interesting thing parallel to what you just said in terms of when the EPA came in, like those Nixon and Reagan. What we want to understand is that environmental appreciation, right? The way we've used the terms is they've gone all the way to the left, right? But we want to understand that sort of appreciation of nature is not a lefty Democrat thing, right? It's like...

recreational fishery or these guys down there like Floridians, they're used to fishing and hunting, right? But when you hear them talking about nature, there's often a more pure and authentic connection than the academic advocates, right? Like,

Steven 
Yeah, farmers

and ranchers I worked with in South Texas were some of the best conservationists and environmentalists. They wouldn't have called themselves that, but that's, yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Exactly. it. they

like their source of connection to nature is as much connected to the magic as it is sort of from from from from a Romantics perspective and you know similarly to like okay We got to do something here because our great country's burning right and you know America was beautiful like ⁓ the other day I was in the abundance book like one of those chapters is about those those moments it was like

Steven 
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Fritz Neumeyer 
this country's beautiful, Americans deserve to have clean air and enjoy it, right? This is sort of one of the beautiful spots in the world and it's a creation that we should cherish as such, right? And so that sentiment is very much alive and similar to that moment, what you're seeing now is like they know now down there, right? The other thing that, like what are we gonna do here if the fish are gone?

Steven 
Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Right? Like, and there was this other one, it's amazing. like, what are they going to people, what are people going to come to the Keys for? To get drunk and tattooed? No, it's like, if we don't have our ocean, and the other day, he, you know, that was sort of a public thing, but in a personal moment, he tells me like, listen, like, that's what our economy is built on, but also our culture, right? So if our fish are gone, everything's gone here. So, and these are like, you know,

Steven 
Right, right.

Yeah, yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
This is, these are the, what we know, what we're still looking at, the Los Catanmina side is like, it's so right. You we think, you can't, that's an energy we just want to embrace and be like, wow, how do we, how do we work together? Because man, do we agree, right? I might come at it from a different angle than you, but I cannot tell you how, like, how much, you know, how much, couldn't be more aligned with like how we are and how you feel about this kind of stuff.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, we're gonna tap into that, right?

Mm-hmm.

Right, right.

Fritz Neumeyer 
And,

you know, it is interesting, like, you know, sort of when we talk about, we're going to monitor our stuff, like we can't use the word monitoring, right? Because to that people, some people, means that if someone's going to come in and, you know, exactly force you to do things. So those are like really important, interesting sensitivities to hone. But the core energy is what you want to be working with. Like, and that's the thing. mean, know, institutions now to slow everything down, we got it.

Steven 
Yeah, government big brother, right?

Fritz Neumeyer 
That's not what we want to do anymore. We need to build a future that serves both and that we can align on and that we can combine forces on. And we have got to this trust that people understand, right? If we give them good data, right? Fishery management, the communities are going to manage really well, better than any sort federal department up in DC. If they have good data and modeling, we're like, yeah, if you can increase the quota on your snapper, but that means probably next year you're not, they'll make the right decision.

Steven 
Right. Right.

Fritz Neumeyer 
So if they have have their power in their hands, and that gives us to one, like one thing, I mentioned financial theory, the one thing that I'm really, really excited about ⁓ on sort of systemic bridge building is, we've made this cardinal financial mistake, right? And that's sort of that our principal asset nature is not in the accounting system properly, right? It's just not there. you know, I have this.

Easy, you know, simple story. always say like, if you went to your wealth management guy and he said, yeah, you know, give me your million bucks. And then I'm not that I have a million bucks laying around, but if you give me a million bucks and I'll give you whatever 10 % on it every year, but after 10, after 10 years, I'm your million bucks are going to be burned off. You're like, no, go home. But that's unfortunately how we're looking at nature, right? We're, looking at the return. We're not, and not fully appreciating how we're burning the underlying asset and how much value that loses. Right. And so.

Steven 
Absolutely.

Right.

Fritz Neumeyer
⁓ but back to the coral reef, like we're in a time, you know, one of the reasons we can't do that and we haven't done it well is because it requires a lot of complexity. Right? So back to the coral reef example, you have to be tracking fish. Another thing about coral reefs for, know, to, to, to illustrate the complexity thing is, you know, we've, we've, we've had this carbon market thing that's sort of worked well for us for 20 years. We'll see where it goes now.

Steven 
Yep. Yep.

Fritz Neumeyer 
⁓ But the carbon value of a coral reef is zero, right? Because what you would need to be tracking in order to exert is like millions of fish where the carbon is in live fish form where you kind of want it, right? And that's difficult to do. And so at the same time you have to figure out how is the energy attenuated, how does it protect the coast, what's the difference with the insurance guys. there's a lot of things that need to be...

Steven 
Right.

Fritz Neumeyer 
accounted for, they're difficult to track and whales are moving all over the globe, so following them is difficult. But we've got so much technology that is going to exponentially change our ability to handle complexity. AI and quantum just is two key words. That human ability for us to not shy away from complex solutions is going to get better.

Steven 
help change that for us. Yep.

Yep.

Yep, that's wonderful.

Fritz Neumeyer
And as soon as we get better at pricing the underlying

asset and like the value of the services of nature and how these things are, the easier it is to be going to be to have consensus on these decisions and just make them better.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, that is the golden key. think that hopeful AI can help us get to is that value of nature as an asset. Because I couldn't agree more with you that once that is a giant missing piece of the puzzle that we need to be able to talk and tell that story to the economist and to the person that wants to see the resources, what can they extract from it?

the romantic that loves it for it just being already sees its value and they probably don't necessarily need the spreadsheet asset value told to them what it is because they're probably going to say, that's still not enough. to get to a language where we can start to manage these resources as we would other assets that are less complex to quantify. ⁓

that's going to be a game changer once we can do that better and then continue to improve how we do that into the future. So that's fantastic. I appreciate you bringing that up.

Fritz Neumeyer 
And there's tons

of reasons to be optimistic about that, right? Because we're seeing these things across all other boards, right? We're just, in all sorts of aspects of life, we're just getting better at tracking what you would kind of call soft values and translating them into hard accounting that we use to do, you know.

Steven 
Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
qualify and value most other things for our decisions. And this sort of, it's from health things to what does it mean to be happy? You how does happiness translate into healthcare costs? How does water quality transfer into healthcare costs? And so those mechanisms, we're getting better and better at understanding these kinds of things, or the simple thing, like, you what is a lot of our digital financial models are built on attention.

That's as soft as it gets and man, it's the core of value, And that's something that tech's ⁓ delivering on across all sorts of sectors. naturally, it's making its way into the environmental piece. And very simply, if we can get better at modeling what the difference between a coastline is that is protected by a reef and other ecosystems and one that isn't,

Steven
Yeah, yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
That's something you can translate really quickly into insurance premiums, costs, and all that kind of other stuff. So fisheries.

Steven 
Yep. Yep. What do you have to invest in infrastructure

to build your flood wall and your coastal wall to protect your city versus allowing nature to do it because you have the reef and the mangrove forests and everything in place.

Fritz Neumeyer 
So

let's make that one quick to finish it off, I think this is not theoretical thinking, right? It's like we're working on modeling. Different people are working on these kind of modelations. The work with insurance people is being done. And it's the same for fisheries and tourism and all these other kind of numbers where we are working on them. And back to the thread from earlier, what comes with that is

So in order to deliver on those kinds of things, right, if you want to reverse engineer that to finance the building of a reef, right, you have to do that with a different mindset where it's not just, we're not going to get grants, scientists, money, like, and just build it and then say, Hey, we did it. We're going to be wanting to be really accountable about putting cameras in the water, tracking things so that we can show what the actual return on investment is, right? While we push to decrease costs and do all these other things that you would do in a regular kind of business with all those pressures, right? Where.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
I think one of the principle rules of doing business is that you have to make hard decisions. You can't relax on purity. You can't always just do everything the way it should be done best. You have to deal with, need to sell this stuff, it needs to work, it needs to be financeable, it needs to create returns. More of that kind of thinking is gonna help a lot in unlocking resources we have so far just not tapped into at all.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
And if we really take the 1 % to the 99 seriously, this shift we're seeing now might really unlock energy that is ⁓ exponentially faster and stronger than so far. Yeah, and maybe to finish this off here on a personal part of it. ⁓

Steven 
Yeah, gonna get us to that one generation change that we talked about earlier. Absolutely.

Yeah, please.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Because what I like the other part of where we currently are and why it's so much fun to me is that I get to deal with a lot of people who have a similar personal story like mine, right? So people who come from the private sector ended up doing something because they care about the oceans for whatever reason. For me, it's because I married him to his partner is because he invented this great thing. And the third one is because he probably did enough to kind of choose what he could do afterwards. But you know, we're

Like we're in this ocean sphere, but we come from other backgrounds, right? We're all really excited about going back into the kind of mechanisms and bringing those two worlds together and running things on that. Because the other simple thing is, ⁓ like if you can do things in a way that they're self-sustaining and profitable, you can hire great people to do great work.

Steven
to do more, right?

Fritz Neumeyer 
Right?

so, and where they don't have to justify themselves within the grant program or, you know, that all that other slowness or, you know, write an impact report so some philanthropic donors is happy, but you you just prove your, deliver your value every day. And so this is this one, like this is a really interesting announcement of what could be coming. And we talked about that when we spoke earlier, like,

Steven 
Right. ⁓

Fritz Neumeyer 
One of our early taglines was this, what we want is this culture of and, right? Like, why can't I do something that feels good and, you know, rocks the way that my usual work does and actually gets to be paid well because I produce value? Like, why do I have to make this choice between environmental work and ass-kicking stuff? Sorry to use that language here. And that's really sort of, that shift is gonna open those avenues much more.

Steven 
Right.

No, it's okay.

Absolutely.

Fritz Neumeyer 
more

than before, they make like really great products.

Steven 
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Fritz, I want to be respectful of your, I keep talking about this all day because it's absolutely got me fired up and excited about ⁓ what you're doing and the future of what can be done. But I do want to be honored, honor your time. It's getting later in the evening for you. And is there anything else about Oceans 2050 that...

Fritz Neumeyer 
Okay.

Steven 
before we kind of transition into the call to action and talking about hope, is there something else that you really want to make sure you get

out ⁓ today while we're talking about this?

Fritz Neumeyer 
No, we've covered a lot of ground here. it's been interwoven, you know, maybe just going back to the sort of development story that we were doing in chronological order. What we're seeing now is sort of out of many years of running in an organization under this. You know, we have a foundation, right? That's what our work is built on. It's sort of, it's built on a nucleus of

Steven 
Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
of a sort of common good nonprofit ⁓ mindset, right? And so that's what it always was about, was restoring abundant oceans. ⁓ And what's happening now is that we're, you know, that's obviously something to keep going with, but we're literally like in the process of founding businesses that are going to be rebuilding abundant oceans, sort of under a building perspective. ⁓

Steven 
Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
And those two are, fortunately, they're very, very complimentary. ⁓ And you want to be doing both, right? You wouldn't have a of a parallel governance between ⁓ efficiency and great products and making sure you can balance to go in the right direction. ⁓ Where you get sort of this common ground that combines the values for everybody to agree on.

So I think that's sort of just for the next chapter of what's coming. And that was kicked off by this period of the last couple of months. We were tinkering with these things, what it would look like, and now it's just getting on. This is going on on the speed track because of these transitions that are happening. So that's why, like with...

Steven 
The changes that are happening, yeah, nice.

Fritz Neumeyer 
You know, it felt a little strange, a little scary in the first couple of weeks. But now, you know, we're really at this point where like, wow, this is just one of those periods in history where a lot of change is happening. And that is as much opportunity as it is sort of a personal journey.

Steven 
Yeah, don't miss the opportunity. Yeah, yeah, wonderful.

Well, what, after everybody's heard this, I'll make sure to put the website up on our show notes so folks can go dive a little bit deeper into your organization and learn more about some of the things that maybe we didn't get a chance to touch on. But what's your call to action for us? What do want people to do after getting to this point in the conversation and hopefully they're as fired up as I am about

action and they want to go do something, what do want them to do? How can they support your organization or what do want them to do in general to make the world a better place?

Fritz Neumeyer 
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's always a, you know, it's some of those mainstay questions and it's kind of difficult to answer.

But I'll stick to where we are in the moment, right? And then sort of like, and I'm gonna do something I usually don't, which is I'm gonna sort of start with what not to do, right? And I think what not to do is to kind of lean into the polarization here, where you like stick on your news and like, look what all these guys are doing, wah, you know, and just sort of get stuck in this outrage loop. ⁓ Because I think like the,

Steven 
Okay.

Fritz Neumeyer 
You know, specific, look, this is not America specific, right? We're seeing sort of this reverberate throughout the world, but there's sort of in this strange moment, there's just an amazing opportunity to find together on like stuff that we very simply like, what does the future look like that we want to build? Right? And if we remove the ideology, the outrage, this kind of thing, which is, you I know it's difficult, right? Because in social media algorithms, like we know that that's the stuff that

that tends to get fed. And yeah, and unfortunately, you know, the one thing that's clear about this political time is that sort of these mechanisms, when they kick into place, they tend to push polarization even more, right? And so I think that's sort of the one thing is like, get out of that. I'm gonna say this as somebody who's familiar with both worlds, like the...

Steven 
It's amplified, right?

Absolutely.

Fritz Neumeyer 
the non-profit, the for-profit, idealist, the pragmatist, sort of the world saviors and private sector business people, right? There's this great opportunity to get the best of both sides. This time needs a paradigm shift. It wants one. The old sort of the solutions of yesterday are the problems of today. We need all these updates. There's massive change coming with quantum and AI, like the way the world works and things are going to be organized.

Really really important to embrace the opportunity side of this because we're going to be suffering through all this stuff anyway, right? There's gonna also disrupt she's like embrace the opportunity because that's where optimism is that's where hope is and This like the really exciting aspect of it for everyone is that this culture of and thing is opening up, right? You're gonna be able to do work that feels good and rocks if you go look for it, right this

Steven 
Right.

Fritz Neumeyer 
It's so cool when you start working with people that sort of on a first sense look like they're on the opposite side. And it's just awesome. Right? Learn more from those people in a couple of interactions that like, wow, you know, but also like, Whoa, they're so right. Right? And all of a sudden you get kind of pulled out of your own muck. You get, you know, liberated from stuff you otherwise wouldn't have questioned.

Steven 
Yeah, let's find that common ground.

Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
And

in certain ways, you're off to the races into the future. And that's kind of where we want to keep our eyes. Like, what's the future? Not the ideology, not the past. Let's not fight about the why we want something thing, but there's so much to agree on. You're back to the abundance narrative in that book as well. What's the world look like that we want to build for ourselves and specifically for our future? you know, it's easier to explain this when you're

parent, but what I often find, whether it's like on the German ground, like one great way, the word sustainability has become a fighting word, right? And it's understandable because it means everything and nothing now. It's so co-opted, it's basically a marketing term, but the underlying idea behind it when you remove ideology is super simple, right? It's like, if you've got kids, you know that you spend half of your life energy building their future.

Raising them, educating them, where do you live? What do they eat? Where's schools? It makes no sense to spend one half of your life's energy to build a good future for your kids and then go to your work and do something else and spend the other half of your life undermining the same thing you're building. That makes no sense. the simple thing, or this other thing, like here, I'm not gonna name names, but one of the projects we're looking at with one of those guys that I appreciate so much. So we started talking big picture things there and sort of...

Steven 
other half destroy it. That's a great story. Yep. Love that.

Fritz Neumeyer 
county programs, because we get along so well, all of a sudden he's telling us about Houston's island that has family history and it's got damaged by a storm and can we look at this as well? How do we rebuild this thing? And the way he talks about it is like, while we're talking, while we're talking, he's like, you know, he shows us we're on Google Earth, the cool tech you have today and this is small island with a big K that goes out onto the ocean water. And so he's like, yeah, a family used to go there.

A month every summer. This is a very important family down there in the Keys. And we would get down to the K, and we would get to the island, and when he was a kid, his parents told him that he would take off his shoes, would take off his shirt, and then for a month they couldn't get him off the K. And then he's talking about this, and as he's talking about it, he's looking at pictures, and then a little bit later he says, while we're talking, I sent this to my mom, and she sent me back this photo where I am as a little kid with my father on the K.

Steven 
Yeah. Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Right, one of those great things about, like when you talk about sustainability, it's not an ideological thing, it's one of those really deep human things, right? It's like very simple, like those places, we all have them, oceans, waters, outsides, like nature is one of those great galvanizers to make magical moments happen that build generational chains, right? We have these places that our parents took us to, like I told you earlier in Florence, like,

Steven 
Absolutely.

Fritz Neumeyer 
I'm here with my kids and all of a sudden this disk of my dad goes into my head and I'm like, wow, have, you know, and I've got it. It's like a film running in my head and I can actually talk about it. This is so fascinating, right? Sustainability, you know, in its simplest, most positive way means like that magic that bound you to your parent, that place, that magic, you want to give that to your kids in the same richness that it meant to you. That's the simplest of these things, right?

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

Love that.

Fritz Neumeyer 
That project,

you know, that story I'm from, I'm like, my God, right? This is it. Because that's what, no matter where you are in a political camp or an ideology, that's the stuff we all feel. Like he wants to rebuild that island because he's got that magic there in his like, you know, generational roots with his father and grandfather. And now, right now he can't give it to his kids in the same splendor because the place is messed up, right? And so.

Steven 
Yeah. Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
This is not like an ideological concept. It's a deeply meaningful thing. And in that kind of stuff, we can all just come together because man, do we all understand, right? Like all of a sudden sort of, that's where restoration, know, we're looking back is actually interesting because you can use the looking back as a vision marker for a future you wanna build.

Steven 
That's perfect.

Perfect. I love that story. For a call to action to include that story, starting out with the, essentially don't be closed minded. Be open to what others have to say, even if you think they're coming from a different ideological perspective. Still be willing to listen and learn. Share your perspective obviously as well, but be open to the others.

perspective and find that common ground on because we all have it. We all have that, as you described, that innate human desire and connection to the earth, nature, to each other. And if we can all find our place and our way together around that as opposed to our ideological differences, ⁓ Man, the Future does have a bright burning to it.

so let's talk about the future. talk about your hopes for the future. ⁓ as we're kind of winding down the show here. ⁓ so I talk about hope and every episode. And I don't talk about it from a, like a pink cloud kind of emotional. I talk about it more from a state of mind. It's, it's, it's, you have a vision for a better future. You have some, ⁓ plan of action, some steps you can take. You may not know all of the action or all the steps, but you, you, know, a direction to walk in anyway.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven 
And you have a sense of agency that you can do something about it to help build that vision for the future. So that's hope. If you have those three aspects in your mind, you have a sense of hope. So Fritz, I'm going ask you three questions about hope. I'm going ask you not to think too long about it. Just kind of give your first gut reaction. So the first question for you, Fritz, is what's your

Fritz Neumeyer 
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, of course. ⁓

Steven 
vision for a better future?

And it can be for you personally or professionally or for the world. Just what's your vision for a better future?

Fritz Neumeyer 
Well, the vision here is that this is a period of change that's going to, you know, unlock some very, very interesting opportunities. And I'll be honest, like right now I'm more optimistic about having sort of an abundant ocean future back, like where, cause I value nature deeply, right? This like, I always have, we didn't talk about this, but sort of, you know,

Like many of these kids, in Greece, I grew up in the ocean. I value that deeply. I think the chances right now to get there are better than ever. We wouldn't have thought the things that we're thinking now if this crazy period of change hadn't happened in this abruptness and this severity. I think things are going to come together that we didn't think would come together in certain ways.

There's going to be also mean there's all sorts of uncertainties and on the way here with AI and all these like speedy things that's but that's the nature of humans. Right. It's sort of it's been the same thing. Same way forever. And I think it's actually a time for there's a qualifier that I love for hope. was a book a while ago called active hope. Right. And so there's an article that I that really shaped me for a while. Like the difference between optimism and And it's the

the right now, like there's just so much stuff to do that's coming, like to get up and bring expertise is in this move from 1 % to 99 is massive, right? It's so much opportunity to apply skills that we have, right? So I mentioned this earlier, architect builders, tech guys, coming in and doing their stuff in totally unexpected contexts. And like,

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, tap into all that energy.

Fritz Neumeyer 
just get to build great shit. There's a real liberation in some of these chains that are breaking right now. And there's a lot of hope to be had in that. It takes a, and I know this is hard, I've always loved it. In retrospect, when we talk about human stories, it's often the things that feel like absolute crises that when you look back, simple thing, before I met my wife,

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Fritz Neumeyer 
my girlfriend of nine years left me, right? So the first time anything ever went wrong. Today I'm like, man, that was the most important period of my life, right? It's like, whew, right? So, and I think it's gonna be one of those periods where we look back and say, wow, that felt weird, but man, did a lot of important things happen. And that's what's gonna happen.

Steven 
Absolutely, yeah, yeah. mean, I can relate to, yeah, on that personal level.

Yeah. So.

So with this vision then for taking, for looking for the opportunities and taking advantage of the opportunities and building this better future that might be a little fuzzy right now, might be a little uncomfortable right now and scary right now for many folks. Why is that your vision? Why, I know it's kind of been the whole time we've talked about it, this whole episode, but yeah, but why is that important to you?

Fritz Neumeyer 
Thank you. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a perfect setup, right? Let's go, you know, just sort of summarize a lot of the things we're talking about. I think the simple reality is this, right? Oh, I'll get geeky for a minute, right? Ecology, where does the word come from? You know, I told you I went to Jesuit school, so I English, Latin was my first, English was the second, ancient Greek was the third. So it comes from house management, right? It's literally a management word. it's sort of a...

Steven 
Yeah, got that Latin background.

Fritz Neumeyer 
And the simple truth is like in a rich world, we're all better. Right? And this is natural world. Like that's most of what's going on in this planet. um, we're understanding, we're understanding this now much better. We're getting smarter about it. It doesn't seem like it yet, but we're like, I, know, the stuff on my table is like this stuff's coming. be, will we become much smarter about this?

So like, you what you just said is the most important tool is like, what is that vision, right, that we can go to another beautiful line from these guys I think they call elementalists, without a vision for the future, you end up reacting your way into it. Right. So when we talk about restoring abundance, this benchmark of, we can have abundant oceans in one generation. That's something to, you know, align people on. Right. And so

Steven 
Absolutely. Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
This vision of where we have an abundant planet back that is sort of the base of life quality, right, for most of us, I think, sort of clean air, beautiful skies, somewhere to go, places to share with your kids. That's just a great, that's a great place to start and all this thing, stuff that feels so messy, right? And it's also one of the great antidotes to these screens that suck up so much of our...

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yep. True. All right.

Fritz Neumeyer 
you know, life and happiness and give us so much back and neck pain because we're staring at the wall. No, so

that's the, we're summarizing here. Like that's why this is so much fun as an architect as well. building reefs, like, wow, how funky is that? Man, right? And, at the same time, we know that when we get to build reefs,

You know, in the real estate developments of the product of developments in the coast in the future, the houses are going to be, you're to be planning these things from that, from the balcony that people look all the way into the oceans. That's cool. So there's, there's all this, like, when you think that vision down where, Hey, you know, we're going to, we're going to make a massive step. made a huge wisdom error in not appreciating this beautiful underlying asset of, of, of human life properly. We're going to get better at it.

And that means we're going to be much, you know, able to make much wiser decisions.

Steven 
Perfect. So last question. Imagine now that future you just described, this ⁓ abundant future that we're aiming for. Imagine that is happening right now, that we made it, we're in it, we're in that abundant future. How does that make you feel?

Fritz Neumeyer 
Yeah. ⁓

That's fun. Imagine the easiness of things.

Imagine, look, let's flip this, right? This is a worry humans have never had to have before. For a while when we, I think it was in 2003, there was a study that came out that was heartbreaking. It was about how 20 to 26 year olds see the world. We talked about growing up in Berlin earlier, and I literally cried after I read it.

Right. Because of, I remember what it was like when I was 20, we did not have a worry in the world. was like Monday to Friday, get your schoolwork done. Sports, you know, go to practice and then party hard and girls and whatever it is, right. No worries back, back rinse and repeat on Monday. Right. But no future worry whatsoever. And we've also had 70, 80 years of peace, right? Like we had this, you know, in the West we've had this great blessing.

Steven 
Yep.

Fritz Neumeyer 
of, you know, like not having to have foundational future worries. Right. And now here's this generation that has climate anxiety and like, also really want to ask ourselves is the way we're selling climate change, like, is that a good thing? The way we did this doom and threat scenario for everyone? I'm not sure that's a good. Yeah. So now imagine like,

Steven 
Yeah, we didn't sell a better future. We just sold a future where we're gone. We're done. Yeah.

Fritz Neumeyer 
That pressure off our chests, like our 20 to 26 year olds being like, oh, hey, you know, this is gonna, we got to shape our lives. And it's this like maker's attitude and not this anxiety burden. That's gonna be great.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate the work that you are doing and that ⁓ Alexandra is doing and Carlos is doing and all the other great collaborators that you're working with and partnerships that you're building around the world. So ⁓ thank you very much, Fritz, for your time and sharing this abundant future that we're working towards. I love it. So I will...

Fritz Neumeyer 
It's always a pleasure.

Steven 
leave you with the last word because again I keep talking to you all day this is such a great conversation I really appreciate your time but I'll leave you with the last word.

Fritz Neumeyer 
⁓ that's a big burden. Yeah, let's let's let's take the last thing. Don't don't let it get you right. Don't don't don't let the don't let the the new cycles get you get like try to step out of the ideology. See like how much let's cosmic for a little bit right. What we see as the other side, most part is just our counterpart.

Steven 
Hahaha

Fritz Neumeyer 
Right? Like, so there's so much to learn from that. And as always, sort of, we can get yin and yang here, whatever else we want. The moment, the moment you can let go of this idea that one side needs to win, right? You know that when you meet in the middle, things flourish, right? And that's what we want to be looking for right now. Where's that cool stuff that we got to learn that to go get rid of, focus on? Wow, how much does that, there's one more thing. Let's start with this one.

Steven
Yeah. Yeah.

Yang Yangy, I was just thinking the same thing.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Fritz Neumeyer 
The cool, there's one great thing to be optimistic about, last word, vision, all of this. The great thing that I think always happens is that when we get off the ideology, right, and we tend to, it's so easy to fall into demonizing the other person when you don't see them. When you actually get together every day to build stuff, what happens when humans build stuff together is always the same. When you're with somebody, you work on something together, instead of seeing the things that drive you apart,

you start seeing again, ⁓ look at all the stuff we have in common. And then all of a sudden like this, I think it's the same in marriages, That's when people do stuff together, when they build something together. you Americans have this beautiful thing of a barn raising. There's amazing communion in that. And when we commune, we get to rediscover that we actually have more in common than what drives us apart.

Steven 
we can do together,

Absolutely.

Fritz Neumeyer 
And that we

all thrive when we can meet and act in the middle. ⁓

Steven 
Perfect. Well, Fritz, thank you so much. The messy middle is where I try to find myself every day and I couldn't agree more with your last word there. So thank you very much for your time. I wish you all the best and I look forward to staying in contact as the years go by. So, all right. Take care.

Fritz Neumeyer 
Thank you, Steven. Always a pleasure. Same. Absolutely. See you next time.

too. Bye bye.

Steven 
What an inspiring conversation with Fritz Neumeyer. In today's episode, the second half of my discussion with Fritz, we explored how personal experience shapes our understanding of environmental legacy and how the Cousteau family's influence continues through Oceans 2050. We discussed the shift from a narrative of conservation to one of restoration and how optimism, when coupled with science, storytelling and community collaboration,

can help us restore ocean abundance within one generation, I hope within my lifetime. We also touched on the economic value of healthy ecosystems, the role of emerging technologies like AI and quantum computing, and the importance of bridging ideological divides to build a truly inclusive movement. Fritz's message that we can and must move beyond a mindset of scarcity to embrace one of abundance

Well, that really resonates with me. It's not either or, it's yes and. Yes, we must conserve what remains untouched and we must proactively restore what's been damaged. This dual commitment is essential if we hope to leave behind a better world for future generations. It's also not either or when faced with restoring the environment or growing the economy. We are often given this false dichotomy forcing us to choose between either the environment

or the economy. It's just not the case. Fritz and I talked about Florida as an example. Restoring the coastal fisheries and coral reefs off the coast of Florida is good for the ocean and it's good for Florida's economy. And I deeply appreciate Fritz's inclusive approach to building common ground. His belief that different political ideologies can unite around a shared vision of ocean restoration is not just hopeful, it's strategic.

I've seen this abundant inclusive approach work firsthand in my career, especially during my time working on the San Antonio River Improvements Project. We were able to garner broad bipartisan support by communicating the project's diverse benefits, flood safety and economic revitalization for those on the right, environmental restoration and public access to nature for those on the left. That kind of messaging brought people together and helped us achieve

one of the largest urban ecosystem restoration projects in the nation, which garnered global recognition for its innovative and successful approach to multi-benefit watershed management. Now is the time to move beyond scarcity and embrace abundance. Now is also the time to walk away from political divisiveness and embrace political inclusivity. reminds us that collaboration isn't just a compromise, it's a catalyst.

And with technologies like AI and quantum computing now entering the space, we have new tools to accelerate progress. That gives me real hope for the future of our oceans and our planet. So I want to thank Fritz for his vision, his leadership at Oceans 2050, and his passion for a world where restoration isn't a dream, it's a blueprint. And to Alexandra Cousteau as well. I thank both Fritz and Alexandra for their tireless work.

in helping make this world a better, more abundant place. To my audience, please let this conversation be your call to action. You can support ocean restoration by learning more at oceans2050.com, sharing stories like this one, and advocating for local marine or watershed restoration projects in your own community. Get involved with coastal cleanups, support sustainable fisheries.

or even just start a conversation with your neighbors about how environmental restoration benefits everyone, ecologically, economically, and socially. If stories sustain this move, you please help me continue sharing these powerful stories. You can support me by subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show, sharing it with family, friends, and colleagues, and following the show on social media. I really appreciate all your support. And be sure to join me for the next episode coming June 10th.

when I'll sit down with a water policy and project specialist from New Mexico to discuss the challenges and opportunities of protecting freshwater in one of the driest states in the nation. It's a vital conversation about riverine, wetland, and watershed preservation in a place where every drop counts. Catch the next episode of Stories Sustain Us on June 10th at StoriesSustainUs.com, wherever you listen to podcasts, and on YouTube.

Thank you so much for being here with me today. Keep believing in the power of storytelling, keep showing up and keep making the world a better place. Until next time, I'm Steven Schauer. Please take care of yourself and each other. Take care.