Dr. Sylvia Earle - An Interview with the Voice of our Oceans part 1

Award winning interview with world renown oceanographer & National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Dr. Sylvia Earle in an exclusive 1:1 interview discusses #climatechange, what it was like to be one of the first in the world to experience scuba, and what is the best thing you can do to make a difference.

Transcript

Brian Barnes: This is south of Two Degrees, and I am your host Brian Barnes. It is so good to have you with us today on the only podcast. Dedicated to bringing unfiltered scientific research to the forefront of the climate conversation. Today's show is hands down, our best one maybe ever, as we have live here in studio.

The absolutely incredible Dr. Sylvia Earl. Now, I can't wait to dive into her insights and perspectives, so my friends once more into the,

Welcome back, and I want to set the stage for today's show. Today I have the honor of welcoming not only the world's top authority on our oceans, but also a living legend in the scientific realm, Dr. Sylvia Earl. Now, Dr. Earl is a marine biologist, oceanographer, engineer, explorer, author, and lecture. Who just so happens to have an incredible book that just came out in the fall of 21, which we'll get to shortly.

But she has been a National Geographic. Flo in residence for over two decades was the chief scientist of the US National Ocean and Graphic and Atmospheric Administration, and was named by Time Magazine as their very first hero of the planet back in 1990. Now for many of my younger listeners who might not remember Time Magazine back in 1998, you might know her from her 2014 documentary Mission Blue, or by her guest appearance in the 2021 Netflix documentary Seaspiracy.

But more important than all of that, All of that, at least to me, is that Dr. Earl has been a personal hero of mine since I was little, and I am honored and excited to say, Dr. Earl, welcome to the show.

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Thank you, Brian. Great to be on board.

Brian Barnes: And Dr. Earl, I know you are constantly on the road speaking about and on behalf of our ocean. But for the folks listening who may have never heard your story before, where did your journey as a scientist and as an advocate for our oceans really begin? 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: I fell in love with the ocean at an early age, and when I'm asked sometimes, How did you get to be an explorer? How did you get to be a scientist?

I say, Well, it's actually pretty easy. You start out as a little kid and you do what little kids do naturally. You ask questions, you know who, what, why, where, when, how, and. You just never stop. That's what scientists do. That's what explorers do. You just keep following your curiosity and wanting to know everything about everything.

And so here I am, still asking questions. 

Brian Barnes: I think it's incredible that you've made a career out of being curious because, speaking of which, as a regular listener of the show, you know, we dive into a lot of scientific papers here on South of Two Degrees and. It's been a while, I have to admit, but I remember reading your 1965 paper FTA of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. And while you've authored a lot more papers since, I'm curious, do you have a favorite paper that you've authored over your career? Is there one that sticks out? 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: I think it's probably the next one. I love it. 

Brian Barnes: I love that. 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: You know, the past is always prelude and it always builds from one place to another. You see so much more over time. You, you begin to see things with. Perspective, I suppose, and for me, having been around a few decades, that being a witness to the change, both good news and bad news, we've learned more than I began diving into the ocean than during all preceding history. I mean, it's a big statement, but technology has come along to the point where we can go places and do things and understand things that our predecessors simply could not.

So I've been an active participant as well as a witness to the greatest era of exploration so far. But I think it's just getting better. The more we know, the more opportunities there are, the more we know we don't know. So 

Brian Barnes: In the thread of the ever present search for answers, the idea of being an explorer is one that captivates almost any kid and a fair amount of adults if we're being honest. When do you see was the greatest age of Exploration? 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: The greatest era of exploration is, is really, I think, I think we're just, we're just on the edge of some of the biggest breakthroughs ever in terms of understanding the big questions about who are we, how do we get here, How can we maintain our place on earth that really doesn't consume the earth?

It's the biggest question that we've faced right now, because at the same time that I've been a witness to more discoveries, more learning. I've also seen more loss with our current technology and also with our current numbers. It looks as though we're extremely successful as a species because when I arrived there were only about 2 billion people.

Now they're close to 8 billion. That looks like just tremendous dramatic success in spite of wars and disease and poverty. Our species is really flourishing in terms of numbers, but. The cost of our prosperity is that we have consumed the natural world and we're still doing it. I think we're right at that point.

I tell kids, I tell myself, You're so lucky you're here in the 21st century. It's the first time we've been able to see the possibility of how do we make peace with the natural world so that we can still have a place for ourselves? Can we still have eight, maybe 10 billion people and still have a planet that works?

Do we have to be careful? I mean, yes, we do have to be careful about disrupting our life support system. The climate is now serious to our continued prosperity, and we are the cause of the disruption, cause and effect. We couldn't see it even 20 years ago as clearly as we see it right now. And coming back a hundred years, I don't think anybody could imagine that the power of, of one species that would be us, that, that we would have the capacity to alter the nature of nature.

Brian Barnes: Nature was infinite. 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Yeah, the ocean was too big to fail.

Brian Barnes: Sadly, that's far from true, but something that's always fascinated me, and you mentioned it just a second ago, is the evolution of technology. And you were lucky enough. I believe when you were in grad school to get a hold of one of the first self-contained underwater breathing apparatus or scuba sets ever?

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Actually, I was an undergraduate. 

Brian Barnes: Undergraduate, Okay. 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: I was taking a class at Alligator Harbor Marine Laboratory at Florida State, and actually it was a graduate course, but they let me sneak in. Eight weeks to just totally be day and night living and breathing marine science. It's one of the first classes in marine science.

It was, it's 1953 and the professor who later became my major professor for my, both my master's in PhD. He managed to get two of the first scuba tanks for the regulators, or double hose regulators, big mouthpiece, , I barely put it in my mouth. And, uh, several other kinds of diving equipment that, including a diving helmet that was supplied with error from the surface, that there are just eight students in this class and we were all encouraged to try all of these variations on the theme of breathing underwater. And our instructions were just that, you know, breathe naturally, which means don't hold your breath . Exactly. That was it. That was my scuba class.

Brian Barnes: So what was that like to experience something, not only for the first time for you, but as one of the first people in the world to do that outside of Jacque Gusto and maybe the Navy?

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Well, the Navy divers in Panama City, Florida were sort of head of the game. Okay. But for recreational divers or other, of course, Navy had great interest in, in whatever it takes to get underwater. Soon after the experience with, um, trying out scuba and then over the next decade or so, I had a chance to use scuba, but the, the instructions, you know, PADI and the other organizations that give good training, they, they came along in the sixties. But meanwhile, those of us who got hooked on the idea, um, didn't wait. We , I love it. And in the sixties it was about, I think 1965, I was able to team up with some of the Navy divers in Panama City.

They sort of took me under their flipper , and 

Brian Barnes: That's a great term. 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: It allowed me to go along with them. I watched what they did and they, they gave me some coaching, but again, it was not like a formal class in diving so, All of this was pretty exciting because you got to see things that no one had seen before and and it's still possible.

Of course, the deeper you go, the less we know. And we have new technologies now that go beyond scuba with rebreathers and of course little submarines that I have embraced with my whole heart saying you've 

Brian Barnes: embraced it might be a bit of an understatement because you've designed pieces, you've designed systems, & entire submarines, if I understand correctly. 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Well, I'm not, I'm not a certified engineer, but I work with engineers and, you know, it's a nice collaboration because if engineers are left on their own, they, they don't always know what it is that. That those who use the want or need to use the systems would find most, most helpful.

Brian Barnes: Now I'm laughing because one of my undergrads is actually in marine engineering, so, I understand that and you're not wrong. As we can get a lot more into the mindset of what can we do as opposed to what do we need to. 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Yeah, well that's, You've got that, right, Exactly. Ed Link was the designer of the Johnson Sea Link Submersibles along with John Perry, and it was just amazing.

In 1968, a little system called a Deep Diver. It was a lockout submarine that John Perry and and Ed Link worked on together, and I was given a chance as a part of the so-called Man and C project. Again, I didn't have driver certification, but. I've done a lot of diving and was invited to to be I, I guess I was the only woman in the Man in Sea Project in 1968.

The Smithsonian Institution was involved, okay? And I got to try out this lockout two compartment submarine. With a driver pilot up front, two pilots up front, and then in the, uh, compartment in the back, you could pressurize it and a trap door would open, you could actually swim out. When the pressure on the inside was the same as a pressure on the outside exactly what we did.

I was able to swim out. But here's the thing, , I was asked to, to participate in part because Ed Link said, We've got this great little submarine, it goes to a thousand. We, we wanna know how to use it. We want, you're saying it. Tell us what to do with it. Now we've got it. What do we wanna do with. So ever after.

Yeah. Working with engineers, the collaboration, Here's what we wanna do. Can you make it work? Can you position it so that when you're looking out, that you can actually see, See how? See the. And then came the idea of little submarines that a, a scientist could drive so simple that even a scientist could operate it

And that's what the deep rover and the deep worker submersibles that we used during the five year National Geographic Sustainable Seas expeditions for five years. We, we actually got scientists to be the pilots. Oh, wonderful. And I love that. So that you can , it's like a diving suit.

Brian Barnes: Well, I would imagine it's so much easier because you know the research that you're trying to do. You know what you're looking for and you don't have to explain it to someone else who's going to go down and just fingers crossed, hope they get what you need.

Dr. Sylvia Earle: …Or sitting next to them. Sometimes I've done that and it's going to the pilot. He has the controls and I point out that little purple sponge over there that, that little sprigg of algae that can you, and he can't see exactly what I see.More often than not, he runs over what it is that I'm trying. 

Brian Barnes: Did you ever just take the controls and go “Here let me”

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Oh. But you see, by having submarines that are so simple to drive, that you can trust a scientist at the controls. And actually that's what the little, the venture that I started back in 1992, that my daughter and son-in-law have taken over own and operate deep ocean exploration and research.

Their submarine design is for three people, a trained pilot, and two people who may have never been in the submarine before, but they can be the passengers and once the launch is taken place, that's kind of the tricky part, getting off the boat and getting on location, whether it's midwater or on the bottom.

Either passenger can take the control. And drive the submarine. Oh, that's so cool. Operate the camera, operate the lights, operate the manipulators, do whatever the, the technology has advanced so that, again, so simple as scientists can do it, . Yeah. 

Brian Barnes: You know, that phrase just makes me think of a friend of mine, uh, brilliant scientist, Dr. Miner over at NASA, and as we've looked through presentations together, she'll say, “We're scientists. Not artists”. And you know, even further, when you talk about the incredible intellect that goes into making these complicated submersible systems approachable, I just keep envisioning Dr. McCoy yelling, “Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a submarine captain” from the back of the sub. 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: I mean, it's a wonderful collaboration. I mean, no one can do everything, but everyone can do something and everyone can do something pretty good. You know, everybody's good at whatever it is that, particularly what they love. Some lucky people are endowment with many talents and then it's confusing and what am I gonna do? Because I can do anything. But, But literally there's something that makes almost everybody, they like music. They, they're good at art, they have a way with animals or they. Have a way with words. Yep. Whatever it is, it's, it's, it's what makes your heartbeat fast. 

Brian Barnes: You know, I couldn't agree more. It just hearkens back to that old adage of, do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.

Which, which actually brings me to a good point because while I love science and I love communicating it in an approachable, The main reason I founded South of Two Degrees was because, broadly speaking here, scientists aren't known as the best communicators yet. Their work is so critically important, and I believe that one of the reasons we have that gap is because many scientists don't get formal training and communication, and yet you are a rare exception that's been able to bridge that gap between doing the direct scientific.

In communicating it in an inspiring way, so in an odd effort, I guess, to make what I do no longer necessary. What do we need to see change, whether in the educational system or in the scientific profession to help empower other scientists become better communicators like you have.

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Well, here's the thing.

Not only have scientists generally not been given communications training, we've been trained not to communicate. That's the culture that I grew up in as a scientist, and in fact, as a scientist, participated in the opportunity to spend two weeks. Living underwater. 1970. This was when astronauts, 

Brian Barnes: Was that Tektite?

That was Tektite. Yeah. It's the first footprints were being put on the moon. I got a crash course in having to face up to communicating. We were, The culture in science was, and still to a large extent is that if you cross the line and communicate with the general. You become a popularizer and you cannot thereafter be taken seriously.

Carl Sagan was not admitted to the Academy of Science. Why? Because he dared get involved with a Cosmos series television series. He became a, you know, popular science communicator, A pop icon. Yes. Bob Ballard similarly got really scathingly, uh, treated by his peers because, you know, he, he went out there and did films and, and books and things.

For the public and after the Titanic was a real, that was in the 1980s for heaven's sake. So it, it's still there. That to be a true blue ivory teller scientist, that's the epitome. You don't speak to the press, you don't talk in schools, you don't use simple words. You, you know, . Do you see 

Brian Barnes: Do you see that as a problem as we move forward?

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Well, it’s tragic because it's part of what has kept scientists away from what public generally doesn't trust scientist because they need themselves to be basically a con class. They're just, you know, they're out there somewhere and, and when I ask my, one of my nephews once upon a time, So what does a scientist look like?

I mean, cuz I am one. And he, he didn't quite think of me as a scientist. I think he said. And he roughed up his hair and he, you know, he looked like he was trying to look like Einstein . I love it. Crazy guy. You know, Little wacky. And in his view then, not that Einstein should ever, ever be regarded as wacky.

What was his perception? You know, the mad scientists? Mm-hmm. test tubes, fuming, and, you know, numbers. That nobody could understand.

Brian Barnes: So what can we do either as an individual or as society to help bridge that gap for them? 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Just get over it. Just get over it. I mean, yeah, I think that, okay. In both directions and to realize that, what do scientists do? They observe carefully and they report honestly what they see. Anybody can do this. Everyone should do this. 

Brian Barnes: I wish everyone would follow your lead, honestly, because if we did this, we'd definitely be in a different spot. That's for sure. But as we think about observing what's around us, I always found it interesting that we seem to look to the sky and often neglect what's right under our feet. And what made me think about this is as I read through your new book called Ocean, a Global Odyssey, which I promise we'll get to, I was struck by how much we don't know about our own oceans. And while don't get me wrong, I, along with almost every other kid on the planet, is fascinated by. I've gotta ask, does it frustrate you - Knowing that we've spent so much money and time and energy into aviation and space exploration, when we have this incredible thing figuratively right off our doorstep that we still know so little about?

Dr. Sylvia Earle: This is a part of the universe too, you know? It's part of the solar system and it's right under our feet, , or you can dive into it or walk around in it, or fly in it, and we, yes, I mean it, it is perplexing for sure that we have really given our heart to the skies above and we have been neglecting the ocean.

You know, it has paid off handsomely to be investing in access to the skies above, but really it's costing us dear. Not to understand this part of the planet, whether it's the earth part or the, the diversity of life that we've, we don't even know how many species. Oh yeah. Share earth within an order of magnitude.

We don't really know. I mean, when you start looking at the microbes and how diverse and abundant they are, but also how they have this wonderful capacity to change rather quickly. , I mean, some of them are very durable and have been around perhaps for hundreds of millions of years, relatively unchanged, but some of their relatives turn on a dime and their whole genetic makeup can shift.

In a way, not the whole makeup, but parts of it to adapt to the circumstances that they change with the circumstances. So understanding the magnitude of what we don't know, I think is one of the most exciting things right now, and should be the cause for celebration and excitement. And I don't begrudge a penny that's that we put into space exploration.

I just wish that we had an equal number of pennies, Nichols, steins, whatever it is right now to address the urgent need to understand the ocean, not to exploit it. Yeah. We've done too much of that. We've done so much that it's put us at risk in terms of climate. I mean, it's a living planet, not just rocks and water.

It's not just the atmosphere and water. It's a living, It's a living chemistry. Yeah. It's another source of frustration that we are treating climate as if it's just the physical phenomenon, not really taking seriously the living element that shapes the water. The water cycle, the oxygen cycle. The carbon cycle.

When you know, I. We fond of pointing out that economists have a habit of following the money. Climate scientists should get into the habit of just following the carbon. Oh, that's great. That'll take them right to the trees, take them right to the phyto plankton in the ocean. The biggest forests on the plankton are very small.

Very small in individual size, but very big in terms of cover the biomass. And where does the carbon go? It goes into the zolan that goes into the little fish and the little squid. And into the big fish and the big squid and into the whales. The International Monetary Fund did a calculation on the carbon value related to climate whales, and they, they made a kind of a big deal about this in Davos in 2020.

It was just before the heavy part of the Covid 19 struck. I was in January of 2020. Anyway, they calculated at the, The number of whales in the ocean today for carbon alone are worth at least a trillion dollars for carbon value. Dead whales, if you grind them up and turn them into dog food and fish food or fertilizer or whatever, maybe a few million dollars, but not even close to a trillion.

Brian Barnes: It's so sad, and I remember reading and being blown away by that report. One of the things I think so many of us struggle with is there are so many different issues, be it whales or deforestation, or climate change, or honestly just trying to live, you know, we can get lost as to where to put our efforts. I mean, like I feel like I'm doing my best to help the planet, but even I can feel exasperated almost like I'm staring down the barrel of a gun as we're facing a lot right now.

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Of course, there are all these other problems that humans face, wars, poverty, disease, and of course 2020 was a big wake up call about humankind is vulnerable across the board, but you know, We, we sometimes look at how much benefit that we have gained from consuming nature without really calculating the cost, looking at the negative side of the ledger and how much imbalance there currently is.

But I think the positive thing, the thing that just really excites me is now we. That knowledge is there and doing exactly what you're doing, trying to communicate, draw the connection, getting people to sea for themselves to remember that those great populations of songbirds did exactly what the great populations of fish and whales and things do in the ocean.

They circulate the nutrients and when we extract the birds or destroy their habitats or kill them, we used to kill wild birds for food the way we now kill wild fish for food and we think it's okay. We think that there are plenty, looks like a lot like the birds are darkening the sky. You think, well, we'll never run out and nothing we can do to cause them to disappear.

But look, hasn't taken very long for us to take hundreds of millions of years. Billions of years, I say four and a half billion years, to make a planet that works in our favor in about four and a half decades to really unravel it. That we are the agents of extraordinary change, but we're also, we also have the capacity to shift.

I dunno whether Darwin actually said this, and I don't have the quote right, words to the effect that successful species is not one that is stronger or the fittest, but it's the most adaptable, the one that can adapt to change. Those are the ones that are still with us after these crazy ups and downs.

When you think how many ways of extinction there have been in the past, but there's some survivors like horseshoe crabs. Horseshoe crabs, like we had like, like bacteria , like microbe. Look at those durable species that somehow have weathered the things that wiped out dinosaurs and persisted through time.

Jellyfish, huh? Jellyfish around half a billion years ago, and they're lots of jellyfish today. They managed to get through these very strange times that eliminated much of life on earth. And here we are. This is some called this, The Six Extinction. And we are with agents of change. Not a comment, not a, you know, multiple volcanoes going off, sent things off in a different direction.

But anyway, here we are. Look in the mirror. We are the Pogo said, “We found the enemy, and he is us”. 

Brian Barnes: That's the hard bit, right? To look in the mirror and realize that we are to blame and yet not move immediately to course. correct You know, as we dive into climate change here, I've been wondering for some time, so I'm truly excited to be able to pose the question to you. If we look at the fact that we haven't truly addressed climate change with determined and focus action, Do you think it's going to take an occurrence on land, much like seeing the stark and sudden die off of the world's coral reef to really get us moving?

Dr. Sylvia Earle: We already are seeing it. Think about the increased number of storms and the intensity drought. The fires in Australia and Brazil, California, where I say, Oh yeah, you know, across Europe in Russia. These are a. It's , it's a crisis. Yes. And it is evident, more evident to more people on the land than it is in the ocean. Yes, Coral reefs are suffering, but it's not just climate, it's also because we are a destructive force in terms of, of what we take.

Out of the ocean and away from coral reefs. Some justify the value of coral reefs because their source of fish and lobsters that people eat, but in the process, they're really destroying the nature of the reefs themselves. And not just the coral reefs, but let's say the turtles that, that some of them actually munch on the sponges that live in coral reefs.

Brian Barnes: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Hawksbill are famous for that. But green turtles graze on the seagrass meadows that are totally linked to coral reef prosperity. What we've done to manatees and turtles over the ages, we've, they have a, a direct feedback, correlation with the turtle grass because like whales, when they consume zoo plankton and little fish, they create a lot of nutrients.

Whales, poop, manatees, poop, The. Turtles do they put nutrients back right where the sea grasses need those nutrients. We've taken so many of the turtles and the manatees away that it just, it alters the nature of the system. 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Yeah. 

Brian Barnes: We've always, or should I say at least for a long time, we've looked at things linearly instead of as an entire system.

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Correct. And it's not just coral. New York is not just buildings. Yeah. And New York wouldn't last very long without the garbage collectors, Without the doctors. Without the taxi drivers. It’s about the whole, the nutrient cycle. 

Brian Barnes: Wasn't it right around the turn of the century that New York was worried that there weren't enough people to clean up after all the horses and it was projected that New York would be full of horse manure if the system wasn't addressed 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: We've dismembered coral reefs. We've taken the lobsters, need the sea grass meadows as habitat or the little guys to grow up. It takes about five years for a lobster to get from an egg to a planktonic stage that goes through an huge number of phases before it even looks like a lobster, whether we're talking the spiny lobsters in tropical areas and there variations on the theme around the world.

The ones with big claws, the so-called New England Lobster, and the both cases, and also with crabs, they have a lal stage that is miraculous. I mean, yes, a mama lobster. A mama crab has lots of little guys that are released into the water, but. Very few make it through the gauntlet of mouths that are there.

Again, it's a carbon cycle. I keep wanting to say, and I don't, I have to hold myself back's a carbon cycle. Stupid , but, But it's also all those other things. Yeah, no, it is that, go along with the, the food chains. It's the sulfur, the C phosphorus. It's certainly the nitrates and all. That makes up a, a living lobster or fish or whatever it is, and it just gets cycled around this living miracle we call our earth, but we break those links.

We take the, the grownups, we take the moms and dads, and so there aren't as many little ones out there to feed the hoards of creatures that are part of the, so part of the chemistry, the living, you wanna call it the biochemistry of the planet. It, it birds. We, we don't even get it on the land. We, we, we don't remember.

Because mostly it, it is a, a memory. Very few now do remember the mighty flock of ducks and geese and songbird. They, they're still a pale shadow of what existed when my parents were, were children. But I, even when I was a child, I remember sometimes I never saw, I never got to meet a passenger pigeon. It never got to see a Carolina per.

But I do remember when the songbirds would migrate in New Jersey in the 1940s when I was just a child, and even then it was those rivers in the sky. Literally dark in the sky. Yeah. But I, I, I haven't seen anything like that as a, even as a teenager.

Brian Barnes: Yeah. One of the reason I asked that is I lived in California for a few years, Berkeley, actually, up until just a few months ago.

And while I saw the fires in the devastation, you'd also see the regrowth to a degree. Yet, when it comes to the coral, when I lived in Australia for a few years before California, . I had probably the most emotional moment of my life when I took my kids out to see the Great Barrier Reef, and most of the longtime listeners have heard me mention this story, but I had this vision in my mind from pictures.

I had seen my whole life of this underwater rainbow, and this was going to be the pinnacle moment where I got to experience it. And when I got in the water, I was in tears. It was just such an affront to see that level of devastation. And while we've seen fires, I just don't know that many people have had that, that punch in the gut that you get from seeing a dead coral reef.

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Right. 

Brian Barnes: It broke my heart. 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Yeah. I, I, I know what you're talking about. And seeing and seeing big fish. Right When I first began using scuba and, and even before just snorkeling around in Florida, big fish were just everywhere. Grouper, they're so curious. They don't get out of the way. They, they, you think you're down to look at the fish. They're looking at you, and when you see these spear fishermen come back, Whoa, look what I call, It's like, it's like spearing a couch, . It just sits there like that. Again, I just, I don't see the joy in killing anyway. You felt it. You've experienced that sense of loss.

Brian Barnes: But what blew me away and honestly made the whole experience worse was my daughter, who was maybe six, I think at the time, was when we got back on the boat to head back in, she said, Dada, Why did you want to go out there? It didn't look anything like what you said is gonna look 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: God. 

Brian Barnes: So yeah, we got into the conversation about climate change, which is now a regular topic of conversation in my house, as you can imagine. And after she looked at me dead in the eye and said, If you did this, shouldn't you fix it? I think we should try right? Let me just say I wish everyone had the same thought process as my six year old did. 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: Well, when people ask me sometimes what, what should I do to make a difference? One of my responses is, Well, if you have a child, take them to some wild place, whether just the beach or a forest, or a desert, and look at the future through their eyes.

And if you don't have a child of your own, borrow one look. At them looking at their future. Put yourself in their place. Look at what you knew as a child. Look at the life you are living and don't you want your children, your friends, the next generation to have a world that is at least. At least as prosperous is full of life and opportunity is what you have experienced.

Brian Barnes: You know, that may just be the best answer I've ever heard to that question. It brings it home, it humanizes it, and it, it makes us truly appreciate the beauty of this world and why we should do everything we can to. Now I wanna dive into your book and we're going to keep talking here, but as for my listeners, well, they're gonna have to wait until next week to hear the second half of our conversation, but I'm gonna have you wrap it up and I think you know how.

But for now, that wraps up another episode of South of Two Degrees. I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Dr. Sylvia Earl as much as I have, and make sure to join us next week to hear all about her book, Why she wrote. And what we need to change and advocate for is well as where to find hope in such a crazy world.

And aside from checking out all the latest information on the website, blog Met LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, do this for me. Tell one other person about this show in the next week, have at least one conversation about climate change with someone else, 

Dr. Sylvia Earle: and above all, keep itself south of two degrees.