Today on Ocean Talk Friday, Nathan and I record our episode on Blab.im, for the 3rd week in a row! This week we chat about the slow recovery from the collapse of the Pacific sardines; a new breeding population of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna discovered?; Decommissioned oil platforms act as great ecological habitats for ocean animals; and, Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama meet to discuss climate change emission reductions and protecting Arctic waters.
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welcome to the speaker for blue podcast session 130 today is one of my favorite days of course it's ocean talk Friday and Nathan and I recorded it again on blower third time in a row really like in this platform if you want to join us follow us on blab so go to blab dot I am follow speak up for blue and you will get an email when we schedule the next pot the next podcast recording on blab which will probably be every Wednesday so do that blab dot I am go to speak up for blue and follow us and you'll get access and then you can come on and have an interactive talk ask questions give your opinions and all that kind of stuff really make it that community feel anyway let's start the show for the speaker for blue podcast welcome to the speaker for blue podcast helping you get involved in ocean conservation and now here's your host he still puts his hands in the air because he doesn't care Andrew Luen hey everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of the speak up for blue podcast your voice for the ocean I'm your host Andrew Luen founder speak up for blue dot com marine ecologist and self-proclaimed oceanpreneur and today is ocean Friday ocean talk Friday excuse me and we have Nathan Johnson that we're Nathan Johnson and I recorded our our ocean talk Friday on blab dot I am and we've done this three weeks in a row and it's really worked out well last week we had a bit of a hiccup in terms of getting the the file sent to us but I can record right on there the file gets sent to us I download it I put it together I put an intro now to together like I'm doing now and then you guys get to listen to some great content so what we want to do the reason why we're starting on blab is actually we want to hear from you guys during ocean talk Friday because ocean because speaker for blue is really about building a community blab is a great way to get feedback from people and get their opinions on specific issues that we talk about on ocean talk Friday stories and stuff that and articles that we talked about today on the program we decided we picked four articles not in any particular order we chose the meeting the first meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from Canada and President Barack Obama they talked about a lot of climate change things a lot of Arctic security marine protected areas and transportation which was a huge issue that for both countries and just because of the onset of climate change more people are using the Arctic so we decided to talk about that we talked about some fish collapses the sardine collapse in the Pacific we talked about how the recovery is taking a little bit longer than expected a lot longer than expected because of other different factors and of course just natural factors of boom and bust population find out more about that on this episode we talked about the the management and what's interesting about something interesting about tuna I'm not gonna give it away right now but the Atlantic tuna something was discovered about the Atlantic tuna that was a blue tuna that was not really known before and sometimes it can have some positive and negative effects to it so that we're gonna talk about that the last story or one of the the fourth story that we talked about was how oil and oil rig and oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico are acting as habitat attractors to a lot of species and actually produce quite diverse amount of species and we talk about how that could be a good thing after platforms decommissioned and we talk about this sort of the ethics of keeping a platform in and taking it out or taking it out and what the advantages and disadvantages are to those so stay tuned for that that's what we're talking about here on Ocean Talk Friday here is the episode and I will talk to you right before we leave hey and how's it going welcome back to another Ocean Talk Friday doing well thanks for having me you bet you bet now of course we're doing this on Blab so it's actually Thursday night that we're doing this so we're doing this live we got a couple people who have joined us so thank you very much for joining us and if so essentially what we do if you're not not familiar with what we're doing here is we have a podcast out called Speak Up for Blue podcast and every Friday we discuss ocean conservation topics that have kind of come around during the week so we cover four articles Nathan usually gives a description and then we both kind of chime in on what we think about those articles and then maybe this time we'll open it up to some of the people and you guys can kind of chime in if we make it brief because I don't want to make the podcast too too long and then afterwards maybe when we start recording then we can we can move on have a have a more a larger discussion depending but does that sound good Nate yep sounds great all right cool so let's get right into it we're gonna start talking about a collapse of sardines so why don't you give us a little bit of a brief description about this yeah the civic coast of the US has really been hit hard with a lot of fishery mortality so we talked a while back about the Dungeons crab fishery off the coast of California I think that stretched a little bit up in Oregon that fishery had to be closed or the opening of that fishery had to be postponed because there just weren't as many healthy Dungeons crabs as they were in years past now we're looking at the sardine fishery off the coast of Oregon it's about a year into its band so it a year ago they decided to close the fishery just to let the sardines recover and unfortunately a lot of preliminary studies and monitoring show that they haven't recovered as quickly as they'd hoped so this is a story in Oregon live on their website and a fisherman from Bellingham says that he thinks that the fishery will probably shut down until 2030 so I mean obviously if if it takes that long for these fish to recover that's a huge blow to the economy that relies on these fish for a huge amount of their revenue but also to the ecosystem sardines are a lot our major food source for marine mammals a lot of larger fish out in the area they think that one of the reasons it's been declining it's probably a combination of climate change over fishing and a loss of their food source which is probably also tied to climate change but they haven't noticed as much zooplankton in these waters over the last few years so they think that that could be one reason why the sardines aren't doing so hot is that on your own do you hear no I hear from your speakers I think okay do you have your phones your buds with a mic not with a mic no okay that's fine it looks like it's better now anyway I find this article interesting because you know we're seeing a lot of collapse but this is fish that's at the bottom of the food web that is collapsed and the moratorium is on but we're still not seeing a quick recovery it's interesting to see how we're we're so quick to think that you know if we put a moratorium on you know back was it that I think it was back in 2007 by now it'll come back like I don't think we understand how much of a how much pressure we put on fishing populations commercial fishing populations and how much you know how much that affects the actual the actual ecosystem they haven't recovered to anywhere close to the numbers that we've had because we've had such a problem you know we just have such a problem fishing and and we just fish we over fish so much that these species just don't have a place to recover and or chance to recover and they it takes a really long time you look at the cod up in the Atlantic it takes a really long time it's been taking a really long time to recover and even we've covered it before on other ocean talk Fridays were in the Northeast Atlantic I think the cod species down in like I think it was Maine were recovering slower than they were up in Canada because of fishing impacts and climate change and it's just like it's just nuts how you know you just you just don't see that all the time right like you just don't see that quick recovery but we have to understand that it takes time and there's other factors that are play right now that can affect the recovery time of of fish so you know I I think it's it's definitely an eye opener to say hey the sardine population hasn't come back but it's also a fact of us being so naive to understand to not understand how much of an impact we have plus other factors that are having now what do you think the causes are like based on what the article saying what do you think the causes are of of this collapse is it fishing is it a natural boom bus kind of thing what is it it's I would imagine it's probably both I think one I mean one thing I learned in grad schools that for a lot of science stuff there's usually not one explanation right it's usually a combination so it's probably mostly the sardine fisheries been hit hard over the last few decades and then with the climate changing with temperatures changing you're getting ecosystem shifts that are that means there's lots of food supply for them so you're not going to work even if you stop all the fishing you're not going to recover to the same extent as the population was before just because it's facing a different food source and going back to your point at the time it takes that's just that's part of dealing with ocean conservation for freshwater for rivers lakes that sort of thing it's a closed system so you can you can better understand that there's a problem you can see it quicker and then you can act and then you can see you know the effects of that quicker whereas with open systems the ocean you don't necessarily see that there's a problem until you know years past the tipping point of that problem so it does take longer time than a lot of people think and a lot of people are happy with but that's just the nature of the system we're trying to to protect yeah I agree and it's it you're right it always is more than one thing and and you know it's unfortunate but it's going to take a long time for this for this thing to recover for this population to recover especially when you have things like for the past two years you have that blob that's you know sitting right above where the population naturally occurs and all on the side and you're just you know you have to the environment is going to change because of that which may not be optimal for sardines I don't know but I'm just assuming it's it's not part of their natural habitat so yeah I think it's interesting article I think it just says we need to be a bit more cautious and we need to avoid getting in a situation again there will be a natural boom and bust I think it was to it wasn't the moratorium wasn't in 2007 I think it was last year 2007 according to the article I think was the peak of population that they've had in the last little bit and then it's it's kind of dropped off in that so it could that's where the people are saying it could be more of a population boom and bust as well as you know fishing related pressures as well as climate change and other things so it could be shifting a lot of different things so I think it'll be interesting to see how this recovery happens I didn't realize the starting population the Pacific had collapsed or had been considered collapsed so I think that's that's interesting there's a lot going on in the Pacific especially in the last two years and it'll be interesting to see how the recovery is of these species to see you know if it's actually going to recover to the numbers they had close to 2007 I can't imagine they get 2007 numbers often but to get close to that those numbers maybe like the three years previous to 2007 to see how those for that population reacts because lower prey population means lower predator population right right in that area and it made those those predators may shift somewhere else so that is kind of that is kind of interesting speaking of predators what a good segue speaking of predators our next our next our next story has to do with with tuna right which is it which is a pretty good predator want you to give us a description about what's going on this story yeah it's well basically there's a study that came out in proceedings the National Academy of Sciences by a bunch of researchers from NOAA that suggest bluefin tuna populations may actually be larger than we thought specifically the the breeding population of Atlantic bluefin tuna so they were doing some tuna monitoring in the Atlantic and just to give you some background Atlantic bluefin tuna have previously only been known to really spawn in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean so they were up I believe almost in the northwest Atlantic so around Washington DC New York area and they were doing some larval fish sampling and they found tuna that they identified to be about five to six days old and they figured that based on the age of these larval tuna the direction and speed of the current in the location that they found them in they didn't come from either the Mediterranean or the Gulf of Mexico which means that there's another breeding ground of tuna probably close by where they're sampling in the north Atlantic so what that means is that there's well so it means a couple things one the population of tuna may be larger than we had thought because now we have this new breeding population they also noticed that these individuals are younger and smaller than they previously thought bluefin tuna need to be before they can spawn so that shows that they the tuna don't necessarily need to reach the age that we thought they did before they can reproduce which means that there may also be greater fecundity for the population a greater ability for that population to recover on the flip side the fact that there was the separate breeding population also means that we have higher goals now for conserving bluefin tuna populations because now we're not just trying to protect the Gulf and the Mediterranean we're trying to protect this other area as well so it's you know it's a really interesting study a lot of scientists are cautioning that you know this study does appear to be valid they don't have any real questions about the data but they do just want to caution people against interpreting the data too far because in a bluefin tuna has for years been heavily fished it's kind of become the poster child for overfishing so even if it's not doing as great as it was before there's a huge demand for it there's a huge market for it you really want to have more than just one study saying this before you do any policies cutting back on the amount of protection you're giving them so I mean I I've skimmed the article I have no qualms with with the science that was done right you know I would be hesitant to say let's go ahead and change the protection we're giving these tuna just just off this one I would say this one study definitely validates that we need more research done and hopefully it turns out that these the species is doing better than we had thought yeah you know one study doesn't it tells you a little bit of a you know a window it opens up a window but it doesn't give you the full breath right you need to really study this more to find out where these populations are coming from where is the breeding area and the thing is is in the article Carl Safina kind of says it where he's like you know they're still depleted regardless of an extra you know spawning area they're still being depleted so just one extra spawning area might raise them up a little bit but they're still in dire straits there's still an endangered species according to the IUCN Red List so we still have to be very cautious and how we manage them we might have had a bit of an out and a bit of a saving with the fact that there is another breeding area however we have to be very careful that we don't exploit that population right you know the one benefit of this if that's if it if this is happening and it can be confirmed is that it gives us more diversity in the in the area right that gives more diversity with this species yeah you know they're obviously the genetic makeup is not probably not the same there's probably something that gives them you know some sort of advantage of survival and that could help the the Atlantic population even even more in terms of survival and evolution so you know it's a good thing I think this is this is nice to have and and I think it's kind of a cool article to say hey we've actually found a new breeding population of a species that is likely to go extinct the way we're treating it you know so it's kind of a kind of a cool thing and we might have had a bit of an out in that respect what do you think yeah I think it's good I think it again it's kind of all how you interpret it you know you could look at it and say this is great we have this other third population that means the fish are probably doing better than we thought that means that they may be able to reproduce sooner than we thought which means later on down the road if this turns out to be true maybe we could raise the amount of the raise the quotas that we have on these fish but you can also look at it as hey we found this new breeding population which means we need even more protection not just in the Mediterranean and Gulf but we needed in the Atlantic where these other populations are breeding we need to do a lot more studies we need to cut down further on the amount of fishing we're doing because now we see that we're not just trying to restore two populations we're trying to restore three and that was you know we need to take even more cautious approach so at this point I mean I all I can say is we need to look more at it we need to figure out you know verify that this population is in fact breeding verify that you know this seems to be a functioning population genetically distinct from the others but the I mean the one interesting thing is normally when you have a population that's reproducing at younger times in their life or when the fish are smaller in size that's usually a factor of overfishing or heavily fished areas because you're taking all the largest individuals out of the system so the ones that survive and reproduce are the ones that can reproduce at younger ages or when they're smaller so the fact that these fish do seem to be reproducing smaller just means that fishing you know whether or not you want to call it overfishing fishing itself has been a huge influence on the evolution and selection of the species yeah no absolutely I completely agree you know I always find interesting with the whole the whole tuna thing I've seen I was that is it a long I always forget the name of the movie along the line or at the end of the line forget that you've seen that documentary did dance and what's that walk the line the one with Joaquin Phoenix and not the tuna one oh no it's it's a along the line it's on Netflix anyway it's it's thanks Cuba path we'll see you later but you know it's one of it's a movie about the tuna fishery it's focuses on the tuna fishery and it talks about long lining and whatnot and you see how you know how the quotas are set and you know first the scientists give advice and then and then part of the movie where the scientists this is for the European Union the scientists give advice they say okay you shouldn't take more than 15,000 tons if you want a sustainable population and then they're like okay so the politicians and the negotiations take that to their European Union and right off the bat they raise it to 30,000 without even asking a scientist they just say this is going to be a good negotiating spot and at the end they bump it up to 60,000 so it's actually four times less sustainable than the original quote a quote it should have been and it just goes to show that it's just people just don't care about the fact that this species is going to go extinct they just care about what they can have what kind of money they can have and it goes on to further to say okay you know Mitsubishi the automotive industry is actually collecting the most amount of tuna and they're freezing it long-term for like 20 to 25 years so when tuna does go extinct they can actually sell it at a higher price which is messed up right because then you see tuna like this and that's why like you see a movie like that and you look at tuna saying hey we have another breeding population and this is a good thing it's like yes it's a good thing but when are we gonna smarten up you know when are we gonna finally say hey you know and I know in the states it's it's a little different it's a little better managed and you've seen stories where people catch tuna by accident and they get fined for it or they lose they don't get they don't get the money for it and stuff because they you know caught it by by accident quote-unquote but it's still like I just I get I get so negative when I hear things about tuna because I just know they're just not managed properly and and protected properly around the world and that just frustrates the hell out of me so when you hear a story like this you're like hey this is great we found a good breed population but we really have to take care of it yeah we really have to you know it'd be great to do more studies to find out where it is but then almost like you don't want to find out where it is because you're just like I don't want to know because I don't want any other anybody else to know because I don't want them to exploit that area right because you think about spawning area or nursing area you'd get the biggest best tuna going there genetics wise and that's typically where the fishermen will we'll kind of sit so you know you just never know you just you know so I get I get a little elated when I hear stories like this I'm happy about it but I just still get frustrated well and hopefully to it'll also bring like some sort of fresh enthusiasm to tuna research I mean it's it for I think we kind of touched on this tuna have for the last like 10 years been just something that is very depressing to talk about because of how much they've been over finished so hopefully this will sort of bring a new perspective some new fresh enthusiasm to tuna research I agree I agree all right let's move on to the next story which is the marine life straw thrives in unlikely place offshore oil rigs I like this one because it's very relevant to down here in Texas there's yes a lot of researchers have known for a while that offshore oil rigs act habitat for a lot of marine life this story in the New York Times talks about how not only does it act as a habitat for marine life that come across it but it actually functions as an ecosystem to produce to produce a lot of marine life so similar to how coral reefs promote a lot of diversity they act as sort of the base of the food chain offshore oil rigs abandoned ones do a lot of similar functions so you know you see it all the time down here in Galveston and just throughout the Gulf the thing I like about it is it really is a way to sort of bring together a lot of energy folks and a lot of environmental folks because whether and how we like them there the oil rigs are are there they're not going anywhere in the next five years in the Gulf of Mexico there are a lot of oil rigs oh yes like oil yeah like you could look out into the Gulf and you see lights like you're looking out across a bay to another city right yeah yeah so you know it's good to know that they also do provide some sort of benefit even if it's after their decommission it's also incredibly expensive to just pick them up and move them or bring them back to land once they're decommissioned so it kind of gives an argument to save money to keep them out there to you know oil and gas companies can be a source of funding for research that looks at how to study these areas and I know in the Gulf there's a lot of research on highly migratory fish like billfish sharks figuring out how they utilize these habitats how they move between oil rigs because they do attract a lot of marine life and so there's a huge just sort of ecosystem that springs up around these areas which is which is really really interesting to see yeah I you know I haven't worked in the Gulf of Mexico you see oil rigs wherever you go whether it be offshore or along the continental shelf and you don't realize how much life they actually provide they actually you know they build up a habitat that can that can span hundreds of feet where corals sort of encrust along the pile along the pilings and and fish should get attracted through there and then you see sharks get attracted so you have a great food web and a great habitat within each of those places and I remember it was a big issue of about ten years ago and maybe even more I'm actually about ten years ago where oil oil and gas companies were trying to figure out what to do with the decommission oil platforms and so was the energy board and Noah was trying to figure it out and they want to do studies on what would they do if you know they just kept it the way it is or if they actually sunk the platform and put it in the water of course sinking the platform wasn't the greatest there wasn't the most popular idea because you know one you have to explode you know you have to use explosives it goes in the water it could damage the habitat that's already established but they thought well over time would build habitat but then people are like do you really want to see these massive platforms underwater wherever you go not just the pilings right yeah so it's it's kind of interesting debate a lot of people you know they just don't like the look of looking out into the ocean and they see these oil platforms from an ecological standpoint yeah they do provide a lot of habitat now whether the metal in the platforms actually leeches out I don't know I'm sure it's been studied but I haven't seen anything on it not that I've looked crazy but I'm sure there's I'm sure there's stuff on it just like there are like when the people sink boats for for scuba to have a park scuba diving parks right but yeah so you get a lot of you know you get a lot of debate back and forth on whether it's good I think it's kind of cool because it provides such a great habitat there's what is it I think it's the aquarium in New Orleans that actually has a mock habitat where they have like the actual the actual stand underwater of the of the oil platform so yeah pilings and then they and then they have like a habitat all around that and the fish and the and the corals you'd actually expect to see yeah it is it is kind of it's kind of neat to see and speaking from experience being tied up to an oil rig at the in the middle of the night in the Gulf of Mexico when I was when I was working out there and then we were doing some we were doing some fishing there are a lot of lemon sharks you know around like the 10-foot mark that kept taking her bait and it was interesting to see how many they're actually work you don't realize and then another example was last year on shark week they actually had they were looking for specific what was it they were looking for something they were looking to put down an instrument or a camera of some sort and there were some sharks around and they made it look all dangerous and stuff but what you really saw was they actually tied up to an oil rig they went down I think it was the Mako shark they were looking at and they went down and they started to actually hide within the habitat once the sharks came by so they wouldn't get they wouldn't get seen so it's kind of it's kind of interesting to see the actual habitat that's that forms around there yeah and how how good that is because if you think about you're in a barren ocean in the open ocean on the continent stuff you may not see a lot of things you get this these wonderful rich habitats out all around all around wherever you see a rig and you've just made this this wonderful rich diverse habitat you're also drilling for oil but once once it stopped drilling it's becomes decommissioned like you said so expensive to get rid of that it actually could be a benefit to to the ecosystem right and I I mean I understand the argument against keeping them there in that you know oil companies are gonna make the argument well hey let us you know drill from oil because now you guys know that when we're done we'll leave it out there and create habitat but you know it makes sense if the oil drilling was already going on but if you're talking about letting more drilling in for the sake of having these habitats then it becomes I don't think you can make that logical argument that the benefit of these habitats is worth the drilling right right so you know it from from like an actual policy point of view or management point of view you know how are we going to use this knowledge to to go forward I think you could use it to say you know oil rigs that are already out there in the Gulf can be left there you know following the proper protocol following you know either the oil company manages it for like five years after they would let it go or you know some they have some sort of partnership but basically instead of just leaving it there they can leave it there as long as they provide for you know some little extra care for it and funding to study it to see exactly how it how it pays out but yeah I mean I wouldn't ever use this as an excuse to put more oil rigs out there it's just kind of a nice added bonus of the ones that are already there it's kind of like the silver lining yeah of the situation where y'all obviously how many people don't want to see the oil rigs out there it is a huge part of the economy in the Gulf of Mexico area states however yeah they're unsightly they're drilling for oil that's a potential you know when they actually drill just like the BP deep sea horizon it could be a potential for a huge spill but once they're decommissioned what do you do with it do you get rid of it take it out can you take it out how much does it cost obviously the oil and gas companies and and the platform companies don't want to take them out if it costs a lot of money right they're gonna save as much money as possible these guys although they're greedy they're very cheap because that's how they make their money and to move a platform like that you're looking at probably tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars just to take one out right the other thing that I would like to see if they continue to keep them in there is that company paying the maintenance yeah and like you said put money into the research you know for it and unbiased research like scientific research you know where you can actually look at these habitats and say hey you know this is what this is what's here this is why it's important it could you never know it could be an area that's good for scuba diving for ecotourism it could be an area that is good for to protect like for protection as a marine protected area because it has some that has a huge diverse you know a huge diverse number of organisms it's just it could there could be a lot of benefits to this if you keep it in there of course taking it out is is would be optimal but I have a feeling that that's not gonna happen anytime soon and they're gonna use it more as habitat and then I guess there is also the ethical questions once you let the habitat build is it is it ethical to take it out and ruin that habitat anymore like are you actually are you augmenting the habitat by keeping it in or are you destroying the habitat by taking it out right yeah it's a good deep question there's what we do here at Ocean Talk we should talk about deep questions you get deep into stuff right I would say yes in the strictest sense that if you were to take out an oil rig that act as habitat in you know a relatively open ocean I mean that is the exact definition of destroying a habitat because right I mean I would imagine the reason it's so productive is because you don't have that substrate and that topography elsewhere so you have a lot of Benfic sessile organisms that can attach to this that couldn't attach elsewhere so exactly yeah you I mean you are destroying it if you think about it's almost like a seamount yeah depending on how deep it is it's almost like a seamount except it goes right to the surface right right and for those who don't know who's what seamounts are they're basically like mountains or hills or however depends on the size of them that come up from the bottom of the ocean they come right before the surface maybe could be a hundred meters before the surface or even less than that but they provide a lot of diversity and a lot of habitat because it's this big long structure that that people that animals and organisms can actually flock to so that you can almost use as an analogy to describe what a platform does except the platform is made of metal some type of metal right so that's that's the thing as long as it's not harming the environment by doing by leaching out metals then I think we're looking at at a good thing that I think is where you'd almost have to continue to study and have the oil and gas or platform company or whatever it is pay for the maintenance of that of that platform or rake or whatever you want to call it but anyway that's a good let's go to the last article and I'm glad you chose this article because this is interesting to both both of us as you know you know Canadian citizen and United States citizen because our two leaders met today to on Thursday they met to talk about trade and in the environment and environment came up and it was one of the first things that came up because both of our leaders one realized the climate change is real and they both have their head on straight it seems I'm know I'm sure a lot of people may disagree but they are taking a great stance in reducing emissions methane emissions and greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change or further climate change and so they've actually come they today they met for the first time it was the first first of all it was the first time in 20 years that a Canadian Prime Minister has gone over and met with an American president so that's a huge thing if you think just if you think about just from that perspective because of course we had you know you had the Bush years which our Prime Minister Kresain didn't really get along with with Bush because of their difference you know differences in opinion and then we went conservative you guys went Democrat and then so they didn't really get along too well they met but they didn't really get along too well and then now we have to basically Democrats we have a liberal which is like your Democrat and they have a lot of things in in sync you know I mean like in terms of of environment and they met today and they actually started talking about cutting methane gas emissions up to below 2012 levels which when I first read it I'm like that can't be that much because 2012 was only four years ago apparently we've increased quite a bit since then and there was a person I think from the Environmental Defense Fund who said if if we if worldwide if we cut emissions it's like cutting a third of the coal plants you know away so you know that's it like globally that's a huge thing so if we can get you know Canada and the US is sort of lead in that emissions cutting which shows action from the climate change talks back in 2015 you were on a good path here and it seems like this is gonna happen so what are your thoughts on that aspect well first timing is the key to any good relationship so first in 20 years not necessarily because we don't want to work together the timing just hasn't really worked out so I mean it's good I think we're we're at a unique point in both of our country's leadership and that you know Obama's on his way out we kind of talk like he he's typically more environmentally focused than other presidents we've had in the past but especially now that he's what you might call a lame duck president or you know he's he's out of there next January yeah yeah you seem to see a lot more environmental legislation pushed through towards the end of presidential administration so I mean we've got that going for us Trudeau is new he's young he's he's eager to get this started and he's mentioned before that climate change is gonna be one of his main priorities first takes office so you know he's he's still kind of riding that wave of first few months you know how is he gonna make a name for himself what issues is gonna tackle hard so you know I think this is a good a good time for environmental legislation hopefully over the next year a lot of the stuff can get done between you know you mentioned cutting emissions they talked about protecting areas of the Arctic they've talked about introducing more environmentally friendly shipping channels so that's a big thing that's facing the Arctic is as the climate changes as sea ice melts gonna be open more to shipping right you know on the one hand that might be great for studying these areas you can have better access to them but on the other hand it's shipping up in the Arctic you know there's a lot of things you're gonna have to worry about from an ecological point of view so yeah hopefully it's the start of something good I like the fact that they're working together on this you know I'm not sure if it's just because since we started this blog and podcast we've started paying more attention to this or there's actually more movement being made on this front I think I think a lot of the climate change talks in Paris like you mentioned have spurred these things yeah whether or not they'll actually result in hard legislation and hard changes as yet to be seen but the fact that we're talking about it the fact that we're country leaders are meeting for the first time in 20 years when they live right next to each other yeah that's amazing I couldn't believe that number I thought it was a lot less I know they haven't met a lot and they've seen they've met over at like you know G20s and things like that but never really invited each other over yeah the US seems kind of like that college roommate who's you know comes home at like three in the morning and sleeps until noon and Canada is kind of more that roommate that has their stuff together and wakes up at eight and goes to bed at 10 hey look sometimes they cross each other in the hall but yeah it's just like the US is still sleeping he's not going up for a while he had a rough night did some stupid stuff in the US is like Canada's you know going up early going to study yeah yeah you know and to be fair it's not all the US like I'm not playing on the US you know for the last 10 years we had an administration that was very anti-environment anti-science and we've just been pulled out of that in the last what four months five months so I think it's it's really a good it's good timing for us there's there's a couple of differences in terms of for pushing through legislation on the Canadian side we have a majority government it's a little different from you guys a lot of what you guys elect right so it's a lot easier so essentially the liberals dominate the House of Commons the Senate it doesn't really veto anything it will review bills so it's a little different from what you guys can do but what happens is because the liberals have the majority so so Trudeau's party has the majority they can really put anything through that they want and it was the same thing when the Conservatives had the majority last time last year they can really put any kind of legislation they want and they did and that's what true and that's what Trudeau and the Liberals are going to do is what this government's going to do so they have a little more power and a little more say in terms of what goes through so if they want a bill to reduce or have methane gas they're going to put it through okay right and it seems like they're taking environment over sort of the economy in a way you know whereas before you always saw you know well we don't affect the economy because you know we're in a recession and we got to be careful but we were going to put all of our eggs in one basket in oil and gas and then when that went to crap then our economy went to crap so it's almost like now it's like well let's get our environment in place let's get that short up and then the economy will follow I think that's the idea but with Obama leaving now how many times has he like over his administration and in the last two sort of sessions I guess in the last eight years has he vetoed sort of anti-environment laws or keystone pipeline approvals you know he's done it a lot and right because I think was it for the last two years has been mostly a Republican dominated Senate and House of Commons was it yeah I think so I think it's Republican Senate Republican House because the speaker of the House's Republican right I mean where we're really showing my poor politics I didn't pay enough attention in fourth grade but I guess my point is is that it's harder for Obama to put through legislation because it's an opposite party that has a very different review from his view and Democratic view well and then because you've had I mean that's that's one of the main attacks against Obama that the the Republican party is saying is that he's just doing whatever he wants but you know from from the other side he has to do this because not only is he up against a Republican House which you know just based on party lines is not going to agree a lot of what he does they it seems like with Obama and over the last like four years a lot of the Republican focus has not written necessarily been implementing Republican and conservative policy it's been blocking Obama policy so you know you seem to be seeing like you know less production than you would if it were you know 30 years ago and you had different parties in power but I know yeah a lot of what he's had to do or what he's gotten done has been based on executive orders or vetoes strictly on presidential authority so he does have this next year to sort of ride it out pursue whatever policy his administration feels is worth pursuing but it'll be really interesting to see whatever they agree upon how it how it translates into the next president for us yeah and that's that's gonna be the interesting thing if you if it's a Republican president and a Republican House in a Republican Senate you know there's gonna be a lot of anti- environment bills going through it don't probably get repealed one of the many things that the Republicans say though repeal if they get into office so yeah yeah well so we'll see now on the other hand if sometimes you can you know the the outgoing president can sneak through bills you know on his way out and then they kind of get the beginning people like oh no we're gonna repeal this we're gonna repeal this and then it kind of gets forgotten and it doesn't get repealed right so that could happen to where you can just kind of shove it in and even George W Bush didn't he designate the Hawaiian Hawaiian Northern Islands Marine Sanctuary in his last month as president because his his wife was a huge environmentalist and believed in sanctuaries I think Clinton did the Hawaiian one but I know Bush Bush did some I don't remember yeah there was one a big marine park I thought it was the Hawaiian one but regardless he put one through and it was it was and the story apparently goes Sylvia Earl and Jamishad Kusto were at a state dinner and they were sitting at the they found their way at the table the president the first lady and Sylvia Earl spoke to the first lady and essentially convinced her that there need to be more protection and then within the month one of these areas got designated which was pretty cool just just to see the power this your power of what that little woman who stands I think what five three yeah she's sure but she is so intelligent and so passionate that how do you say no to her I mean she's an amazing amazing woman I think I think what that tells us is we need to start getting more politicians on speak up for blue or spouses of politicians yes going around about way absolutely I completely agree and yeah so it's pretty good you know overall I think that the trip on well the Alaska the the Arctic stuff is very important obviously both countries having a stake in the Arctic again being neighbors in the Arctic and you know the the Northwest Passage has to be protected I like the fact that talking about designating transportation routes yeah that can be one that the routes can be protected but also the environment can be protected around that I think that's very important establishing more marine protected areas there is a you know Trudeau has come out with his government saying that there is a definite push to get the environment protected up there a specific amount of land up there or a specific specific amount of water or continental shelf will be protected in the next five years so that is that is a good sign it looks like it's you know they're getting the approval of or the support of of the US and I'm sure vice versa and just a little note that Trudeau took his minister of fisheries and oceans with him on the trip so just goes to show that you know they're not just not just a a show of you know a pony show that's that's there of them just talking and exchanging jabs it's they're actually talking some some big business and environment is on one of the top priorities which I think is is great and just I saw a video of them exchanging jabs and I thought it was quite interesting because Obama started it by saying you know that we try and compete in sports and this and that and he starts talking about hockey and Justin Trudeau makes a face and then Obama said oh yeah where's the Stanley Cup now because Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup last last year and so he starts making this little smirk and of course Justin Trudeau is just like okay okay then Trudeau goes up to speak and he's like you know the US uses a lot of our exports and he names about three people on the Chicago Blackhawks that are Canadian and that basically are the stars of that of that team and it was just a cool exchange of Jabs showing that they're getting along and obviously they both have the same kind of wit and they belong really well but I'm glad that helps that that relationship helps in terms of negotiating these these different trade agreements and just plans in the future and I think I just think it's really important I think this is I know it's been 20 years but I think this is probably one of the most important because who knows when it's gonna happen again depending on who comes president right yeah Obama's a confident man for bringing up a challenging Canadian to a hockey knowledge I'm actually surprised Trudeau didn't bring up like the last Olympics where I'm surprised I'm surprised Obama knew that Chicago won the Stanley Cup oh he's I think he's a bit of a hockey fan I think I think he's a Chicago fan and hockey's big in Chicago yeah hockey's here that's like I think baseball like obviously the Cubs and then of course the White Sox and then and then the Blackhawks I think maybe the Bears I don't know which one comes first but I know Chicago what do you call Chicago Indians people from Chicago I don't know they love their hockey I know that and it's a great atmosphere but but yeah anyway anything else I think I think that's the last story but do you have anything else to say on that last story no I think yeah just just to reiterate that it's it's great to see you know this type of cooperation even if it may only last for a year or so but you know any any sort of work on that front of addressing climate change in areas where it's most detrimental like the Arctic is great work no for sure yeah no I agree I completely agree so anyway that was a good episode I like that thank you for for listening I we really appreciate you guys listening to to Ocean Tuck we're doing it on Blab we're getting some more people coming in and out seeing who we are and stuff like that but if you guys are listening to the podcast and you want to come up on Blab and ask a question maybe next week we'll open it up for questions and do like a Q&A or have people give opinions on some of these stories so if you're interested in that you can join our Blab we usually we do it on Wednesday today's it was just a bit of a just for scheduling purposes it was a bit of a change but usually we do it at seven at one Wednesdays usually between anywhere between eight and ten o'clock it's usually the times I think those are the ones that work best for us right so you guys can join us next time maybe ask some questions give some opinions on some of the stories and we'll open it up open up the I guess you could call the phone lines or the chat lines or or you can call in and you can and we can have a discussion so I think I think we're we're getting more and more comfortable with Blab and and whatnot and we're getting more followers and stuff so come up if you if you're not familiar with Blab go on is Blab dot I am and you can just look up for look us up speak up for blue you can follow us if you follow us you can get you get access to emails an email be sent to you when we schedule a podcast or or a live show and you guys can do it last time on Tuesday I had an interview with James Privram which we talked how did you like that interview did you like the interview oh it's cool yeah he's very candid yeah he was pretty he was pretty interesting and and totally surprised me with the fact that he did you know he was out paddling and at the cove and with the dolphins and and all the stuff that he went through I thought that was that was pretty interesting so we get interesting conversations like that we'll probably have interviews every week and then just us being on the show and and and having a live showed it so we get to interact with you guys and talk I think this is a great platform to do it so I'm really big on this so anyway Nate thanks a lot for joining us again I really appreciate it Nate picked all the stories this week again and and subscribe to all of them and I thought it was really well done and then of course if you want to see more of us you can go speak up for blue dot com and you can see all the blog posts that need actually writes I do all the podcasting he does all the writing which is awesome and yeah so I think that's that's it for the show so thanks for listening alright Dan I'm gonna stop the recording now so that was our ocean talk Friday that we recorded on blab like I said before if you want to join us next week on blab and to know when we're gonna schedule it you can follow us on blab so go to blab dot I am you can sign up using your Twitter account or sign up using I've I use my Twitter account for speak up for blue you can follow us on blab so you just look up speak up for blue you can just follow us and then you will get an email to the link of our next talk and that when it will be and you can even put in your calendar so you don't forget what we want to do is we want to build a community by getting feedback from you guys not only feedback but just participation in what we talk about because we don't want to just be the only ones talking about this we want you guys to do the same so we might start scheduling one episode a week and then we bump that up to two if more and more people start to join us so it all depends on you guys and how we build this community so I'm excited for this I think this is a great live streaming platform that we can really hear from you guys the community the speak up for blue community our conservationists out there and I get to get to know you I get to know you guys better you guys have gotten to know me over the last eight months or so but now I want to get to know you guys so don't be shy come on and on come on the on the blab and and on the podcast and you'll be featured on the podcast so anyway thank you very much for joining us we really appreciate it this has been another episode of the Speak Up For Blue Podcast I'm your host Angel Owen happy Friday and happy conservation
