On this Reality Roundtable, marine biologist Daniel Pauly, ocean physicist Antonio Turiel, and paleobiologist Peter Ward join Nate to discuss the numerous threats to the Earth’s great oceans. From overfishing to plastic pollution and climate change to acidification, the human system is assaulting one of the most important regulators for our climate and the largest habitat for life – anywhere. What early indicators of climate impacts are these great bodies of water showing us as we hit record heat across the oceans, fish populations dwindle, and major currents slow? Why are concerns for the ocean so overlooked and what further research needs to be done? Will we learn to value these high seas for all the priceless value they give us, or will we take them for granted until it’s too late?
About Daniel Pauly:
Dr. Daniel Pauly is a Killam Professor at the University of British Columbia. In 1999, Daniel Pauly founded, and since leads, a large research project, Sea Around Us, devoted to identifying and quantifying global fisheries trends. Daniel Pauly is also co-founder of FishBase.org, the online encyclopedia of more than 30,000 fish species, and he has helped develop the widely-used Ecopath modeling software. He is the author or co-author of over 1000 scientific and other articles, books and book chapters on fish, fisheries and related topics.
About Antonio Turiel:
Antonio Turiel Martínez is a scientist and activist with a degree in Physics and Mathematics and a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the Autonomous University of Madrid. He works as a senior scientist at the Institute of Marine Sciences of the CSIC specializing in remote sensing, turbulence, sea surface salinity, water cycle, sea surface temperature, sea surface currents, and chlorophyll concentration. He has written more than 80 scientific articles, but he is better known as an online activist and editor of The Oil Crash blog, where he addresses sensitive issues about the depletion of conventional fossil fuel resources, such as the peak of oil and its possible implications on a world scale.
About Peter Ward:
Peter Ward is a Professor of Biology and Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington. He is author of over a dozen books on Earth’s natural history including On Methuselah’s Trail: Living Fossils and the Great Extinctions; Under a Green Sky; and The Medea Hypothesis, 2009, (listed by the New York Times as one of the “100 most important ideas of 2009”). Ward gave a TED talk in 2008 about mass extinctions.
For Show Notes and More visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/rr04-pauly-turiel-ward
#thegreatsimplification #natehagens #oceans #climatechange
source
A Great Scarey but very awakening Podcast Thank You dearly All!
Our NZ government have elections next month am Voting Green All the Way💪
🦀🐳🌊🌏🌞💖
The guests' comments are even more disturbing than their factual evidence suggests. We simply don't know at what point the entire ocean ecosystem will undergo a phase shift in to a significantly less habitable environment for ocean life. All we can now say is that we are stressing the ocean ecosystems, and are heading rapidly towards the trigger (tipping) point.
Thank you Nate. High calibre guests. Excellent format. So much high quality information. Thanks.
Years ago I said: do you want flies with your big muck? The oceans will only support cyanobacteria, jellyfish and proteobacteria. Archaea will rise again.
Have shared this most Important Podcast through my Facebook too 🦀🐳🌊❤️
Peter Ward! Finally someone calling out the Russians on this podcast.
Since I was a small boy, I have always loved the ocean and today I miss not living near it. What your guests said made me very sad, but I don't want to live in ignorance of the facts even when they are this brutal. Thanks for a great podcast.
Modern Governments around the world have restored wetlands……, letting in the enemy.
your love is like an ocean that always takes me home whispering wind is blowing telling me i'm not alone your love is like a river that i am floating down i've never been a swimmer but i know that i'll never drown i know that i'll never drown – i'll carry – the weight – i'll do anything for you – my bones may break – but i'll never be untrue- oh what i wouldn't do – oh – what i wouldn't do
this is true – from slightly depressing, to moderately depressing, to very depressing, I knew it was bad, but not how bad and the details. not for the faint of heart. …it is painful if you can still feel. I already don't eat fish, not sure what else to do given who i am and where i live
If you are depressed by the thought of our future extinction, think on this, after each of the previous mass extinction events, when complex life was able to bloom again, it bounced back increased in complexity, abundance, and diversity. So the next time complex life is able to thrive on the planet, it's going to be absolutely spectacular, especially without any Sapiens to contaminate the place.
"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, trillions upon trillions of greedy, ignorant, apathetic and destructive actions, compound into existential, exponential and apocalyptic reactions…Which is exactly what one would expect…Massive changes to the atmosphere, oceans and ecosystems come with massive consequences…Money is not a part of nature, no animal survives due to money..It's a made up human invention..And causes humans to systematically and thoroughly destroy the life and stable planetary systems that allow for our existence, especially at this scale, as we turn nature into money, in this deranged game of monopoly..It's what all human civilizations have done, and why they are all temporary..Our civilization is obviously the pinnacle of this cycle of civilizational collapse..As the planet couldn't possibly facilitate, accommodate or tolerate another after ours..Making all of our technology as temporary as the planets melting glaciers..It can't save us..
Another level of terrifying..😱
Thank you, Nate, this is a particular discussion that has been needed in the public forum for almost 3 decades. It wasn't until I began to understand the role the oceans play in the entire climate system that I fully realized just how much was at risk, and how vulnerable the existence of Life itself on any given planet really is, despite Life's apparent and remarkable resilience. But try to explain this to people… Try, even, to get them to listen for more than a few seconds.
It's obvious that people don't really grasp the urgency of what it is that we are facing. We need to develop better ways of describing the complex interrelationships that govern climate, in much simpler terms that someone in a high school freshman biology class can comprehend, with clearer, bare bone diagrams that people can look at and accurately intuit the pattern of interrelationships within the whole.
Yes, obviously people are being exploited by an economic system that enriches and serves only the few, but the truth is that in relation to what is happening to the biosphere, it doesn't really matter anymore in terms of the big picture at this late date. We no longer have the luxury of the time it would take to fix that as a first step.
I keep thinking we need something on the level of a worldwide general strike, something that brings business as usual to a halt. We need some way to lever global leaders into finally addressing the situation honestly, openly and realistically. But I lay no claim to knowing what will work in the small amount of time we have left.
Does anyone have any workable, practical ideas for getting the majority of us moving in a realistic direction? If so, that's what I'd like to hear about.
It seems that a critical part of what is holding us back right now is the actual complexity of the problem itself. Too many holes that need plugging right away — too many problems to pursue, not to mention wrong-headed cultural dictums. We need some way to bind ourselves together as one species. Certainly together we have the ability to pursue all the many needed directions at once, but as a species we currently have no heart — nothing that is immediately apparent to everyone that ties us together with one greater vision and purpose.
If we don't find a way to pull together on this, I see only chaos ahead. Unlike some of the comments made here, however, I consider attitudes that smack of death wish as taking the easy way out, rather than indicative of anything remotely intelligent or "clever." Thinking like that puts a larger burden on the rest of us. I think we can do better than that.
Anyone got any ideas at all on how to get a whole species to make an about face? I've been stumped and searching on this for a long while now.
This means it's a 100 year deep state project plan. Meaning humans today have to volunteer as deep state systems of projecting outcomes to 25% over the 100 year mark to be considered: stable … ok, and in spite of the present day, projected cut off dates? … and its not actually possible to deep state it without the right virtue qualities? It sux we aren't already there.
So you need an ocean floor recycling lab that's powered by human computated energy signatures … I always thought housing blocks looked like a large container for sourcing free energy.
Now how to project it forward so the memory is restored for todays ocean life? 🤔 Is this when esoteric, science and wisdom pedagogy make a giant logos leap into an advance global engineering project for this new century?
Let me make a prediction. We will keep going as we are until something bad happens (massive famine, etc.). Governments will make some token gesture and say "it's too late, our predecessors didn't do the right thing", and then proceed with some ridiculous geo-engineering project. Some governments/individuals will be ferociously against it, and secretly fund extremist organisations to sabotage the geo-engineering. That will make the situation worse than either doing it as planned, or not doing it at all. Leaders will lament the short-sightedness of their opponents and predecessors. Things will start to get scarce, and populist leaders will appear in various militarily powerful countries. Lies will be told about some other country stealing resources, and wars will start, with popular support. There will be mass migrations and rampant nationalism. Migrants will be kept at the border, and left to starve.
And all because we are simply too dumb and lazy to vote for politicians that want the best for us and not themselves. It's not someone else's fault, it's ours!
whales and dolphins aren't people! what a dumb comment LOL!
Thanks Nate and team. Not only are you improving our knowledge of the predicament, we are also increasingly aware of all the work it takes to do a high quality dialog, then produce your show notes, and eventually a transcript. Wow! Recorded Jul 31, released in Sep. We are very grateful!
As an spaniard I love that Antonio is now being heard all over the world. He is a true national treasure here.
I didn't know Daniel or Peter but they are now on my list of people that I have to follow.
Any action the investors, those who control the flow of money with investments, might imagine to mitigate the damages, will have to provide a return on investment. They can't do anything themselves personally all they know is money beget money. So. Nothing positive will occur because there is no return on investments when this agricultural supporting money system collapses from overuse and/or abrupt climate change. Studying and reporting the issues won't change their minds methinks and its collapse or worse. But ok, I listened and am thinking about what I heard, an episode of tuning in an out as my thoughts are not disciplined to take it all in at once. I did hear dolphins with ribs exposed from the lack of food because the oceans are transforming from complex to more simple life forms. More motivation to live simply now realizing it might not work out anyway.
Amazing job. Thanks. It would also be great a podcast around all the new technologies being put on the stage every week in order to understand wich have actual potential. Although we know that technology alone will not be the answer, we also know that will be part of the responses. And honestly, its quite complicated to distinguish what's real, what's greenwashing, what's maybe promising but not in the short term or what's is just not faisable without massive energy inputs or too much extractivism
Well done, fabulous episode.
If an interruption of the AMOC does create a colder & drier Europe, would there be some regional benefits, like slowing or halting of the permafrost melting around the European Arctic region coastlines ?
I’ve listened to many of your podcasts, Nate, and they do get “dark“, but this one went above and beyond. I know polar bears have become a cliché, but the image of dolphins with their ribs showing, of the fish being asphyxiated because there is not enough oxygen in the water, this made me weep. My first instinct was to text three people close to me, “I love you.“ My second instinct is to find a local extinction rebellion group to hang out with.
Thanks for talking and sharing #saveouroceans
This is the problem with the entire 1° or 1.5° global average temperature message.
Layman cannot perceive the threat of this:
– that it is not just the air but all the water on the planet increasing by 1°. And the absolutely spectacular amount of energy it takes to make that happen to the water.
– that the danger is not actually temperature, but the amount of energy the temperature represents. How it changes jet streams and ocean currents to have that much more energy.
– That the air and ocean currents changing means regional weather changing. Where it used to be hot it is now cool, where it used to be cool it becomes hot. One part of the world is in a panic to buy air conditioners while the other part of the world is in a panic to buy insulation and central heating. More important whatever crops your region has grown through the history of humanity, will no longer grow, and ag will need to swap crops around the world. This will not happen easily.
– that we were already near a recent natural cycle thermal maximum and had barely started to cool, then reversed up unnaturally. And the graph looks to aim way above any temperature seen in a million years. Before humans were on this planet. Starting near the warmest ever, then shooting up warmer than that is scary. We have never seen it, and it is not the temperatures all the species of the world have evolved to cope with.
– That it is not direct harm to humans that is the problem. We can move away from the equator and coastlines, we can build different buildings, we can heat homes or provide air conditioners. The problem is the small species, the micro organisms that are not a hearty to change as we are. What if we lose bees, or worms, or plankton, or algae – any of the keystone species? What if a different algae or bacteria or virus bloom in the new environment? The first problem is that these species can affect food – ALL FOOD. We may all be starving in our AC or Heated Homes. And some of those micro organisms affect our atmosphere. Like provide the majority of our oxygen. What if they stop producing oxygen and start producing something poisonous to us instead? We could all suffocate due to a bloom of some algae or bacteria. Maybe a new airborne bacteria loves the hot temperatures and just kills us all?
This needs to be explained to humanity, cause the 1.5° messaging just does not cause the panic is should.
I was happy not to hear "1.5 degrees Celcius" or "2100". Any science communicator that uses these terms should be put in jail for a long time or at least be banned for publishing.
Thank you so much Nate. Another illuminating discussion that brings home the scale of what we as as a species have done, and what we face as a result.
As has been said elsewhere, for as long as our economics is blind to energy (as Nate puts it) and as long as it ignores the value of Nature, our economically classically-trained politicians and their enmeshed business associates will do NOTHING. Look at the evidence: endless COP meetings that have no effect on rising emissions. None of the 20 2011–2020 Aichi biodiversity targets and none of the mileposts on climate trajectories intended to limit warming to 1.5°C have been met. It is not seen as important, compared to growth and making money.
Climate, biodiversity, and societal challenges are intertwined but are often treated as singular problems. Nate, you are so right to see this holistically – in a wide-field right hemisphere way. Only by changing our hearts and entire way of looking at, thinking about and feeling about the world do we stand any sort of chance. There needs to be a 'sea change' in our perceptions, and a recalibration of what is valuable. To have less, and be richer.
Left to its own devices, nature is efficient at carbon capture (by photosynthesis) and sequestration (long-term removal from the carbon cycle), provided that warming is limited to natural variations. As has been said below, the natural cycle was already approaching a natural peak when we started raising greenhouse gas levels by our actions (and inactions).
Massive efforts to restore and enhance Nature on land, in rivers, lakes, and in the ocean could support climate change mitigation, adaptation, biodiversity, and human well-being. We need urgently to increase the protection for the remaining less damaged carbon- and species-rich areas and to implement large scale re-wilding and restoration projects, with more attention to enhancing, extending and sustaining biodiversity and the fair distribution of the resulting benefits.
Нейт!!!
Це фантастичний круглий стіл!!!
Дякую, дуже дякую, поширю всім кого знаю!👍😃
Man there is gonna be a lot of suffering in the near future . Climate change is just one part of the mix 🥵🤧🤮☠
Reality + Basics = no GHE
Earth is cooler w atmos/GHGs/albedo not warmer
Ubiquitous GHE heat balance graphics don’t + violate LoT
Surface cannot radiate “extra” energy as BB
GHE=bogus&CAGW=scam
Thank you so much ! Very very depressing….We are really in the times of consequences.
Hey Nate, would you interview Jem Bendell?
Thank you all…Such an informative and emotion invoking discussion… I am more aware now of the issues particular to the oceans…It is such a tragic state of affairs….My sincere gratitude to all…
Thanks Nate ; providing us all the parameters of our fragile system called Earth with those brilliant experts is very useful. And it gives more and more goosebumps !
Scary stuff, though I dont understand how you can hear stuff like this from your guests and still think people who speak of human extinction are going too far. Maybe they are but I dont see how you can dismiss that as a real possible future for humanity
Thank you Nate for hosting a great discussion and for highlighting the importance of the world's oceans for all life on Earth.
The news is not great; our oceans are dying. The oceans have been saving humanity ever since we started spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; over 90% of heat retained by the Earth due to greenhouse gases is absorbed by the oceans. If it wasn't for the oceans ability to sequester excess heat, the Earth would have become uninhabitable a long time ago.
However, we are now witnessing increasing stratification in the Earth's oceans and this is one of the causes of the recent off the charts sea surface temps that have been recorded.
Oceanographer Jim Massa has done a lot of work to highlight the desperate plight of the Earth's oceans, particularly regarding the heat content, and you may wish to invite him for your next roundtable discussion on the oceans.
Thanks again for all you're doing.
i was lucky during my uni days at Otago uni in New Zealand, i had a true mad scientist as my chemistry tutor. he was so cool. He said they (NIWA) did an experiment where they dumped tons old iron into a specific part of the southern ocean to see if there was an incease in plankton, and there was a huge increase. The iron rich sand that gets swept into the sea from the deserts of Australia help marine life. Thats the 2c of info that i remember from 19 years ago.
I feel deeply about the Mariana Trench
Very good discussion… for part 2, questions I have:
Sea water acidity , from co2 adsorption, update on impacts.
The oceans have absorbed around 30% of co2 emissions in the atmosphere, as water warms solubility will be less, if H2S forms acidification will rise, making co2 less soluble… is a tipping point likely where the oceans release more co2 than they take up?