Happy Monday! Last week, I interviewed James Pribram about his work as an Eco Warrior after his pro surfing career. James spoke about different levels of being an Eco Warrior and it made me think how we all are different in how we approach Ocean Conservation. I dedicate this episode to finding the type of Eco Warrior you would like to be.
Comment on the show notes on which type of Eco Warrior you are and which type you would like to be.
Support the Podcast:http://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon
Shop for the Ocean:http://www.speakupforblue.com/shop
10 Ocean Tips to Conserve the Ocean:http://www.speakupforblue.com/wordpress/sufb_optinpdf
Show Notes:http://www.speakupforblue.com/session131
Welcome to the Speaker for Blue podcast session 131 Hey everybody. Thanks again for joining us today. We're gonna switch it up a little bit usually Mondays I talk about a news item that happened over the weekend, but today I've been thinking a lot over the past couple of days I'm thinking a lot about The interview that I did with James Pribham where we talked about what it's like to become an eco warrior And that's what he sort of brands himself as and we got to the different types of eco warriors So today I want to talk about what type of eco warrior are you this all this on the speaker for blue podcast. Stay tuned Hey everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of the speaker for blue podcast your voice For the ocean. I am your host angel luan founder speak up for blue.com marine colleges and self-proclaimed ocean printer and today is Monday and I hope you guys had a good weekend. I know I did we had some nice weather spring looks like to be it's like around the corner So we're getting rid of the minus degree Celsius in in that type of temperature range to you know 5 to 15 degrees, which is fantastic soon. We'll be wearing our spring jackets and Eventually not wearing any jackets at all. And then of course there's the spring forward that's affecting here We get affected by that here in Ontario, Canada So we go one hour forward. So we lose an hour But it tends to get a little brighter now over time and I just like I said spring is just around the corner So it's in about a week or so anyway, I'm glad that's happening cuz it spring always you always feel fresh Right you always feel good, you know, everything's blooming the sky is blue longer There's there's green grass and everything like that everything happens everything comes back the birds are coming back You know, it's just it's just a lot of fun and you just get this there's a smell in the air And it's just like refreshing, you know, you get some nice weather He's some most of the days and and there's a little some winds, but not too cold It's just bright and sunny and it's wonderful And that's what I love about nature and everything and and to be honest over the last couple days I've been thinking a lot about the interview that I had with it's made this beautiful weather has kind of made me think about You know, what type of ocean conservation is am I and it really stems from? what I spoke to James Pribham our interview last Wednesday, which was Speak up for blue calm forward slash session 128 we talked about what it was like to become an eco warrior we talked about James's evolution from being Kitted on a beach in Laguna Beach growing up with a bunch of surfers becoming really good at surfing and then that's that was his passion And then became a pro surfer in the late 80s early 90s and then after that and I guess all the way through that that whole time he always had a bit of a Sort of a stewardship of the ocean because you the ocean gave him so much gave him a career gave him You know, it felt gave him like a life where he got to travel around the world to all these beautiful surf spots and really see What the world is like which he may not have had the opportunity, you know, otherwise, so He wanted to give back as a one is career when his pro career started to come closer to an end and he started to get Sponsorships to become hosts of shows and whatnot. He really wanted to use that opportunity to Make light or bring about awareness of what's happening with the oceans He's traveled a lot and he saw a lot. He saw a lot of beautiful things He saw a lot of not so beautiful things one One story that he tells and you can see that in the interview one story that he tells is how he was on a trip on a cruise and it's just a couple of guys and They were out and they saw all this trash I think it was I think he said it wasn't it was in Tahiti and he saw all these he saw all this trash in the water And he he witnessed for the first time the Pacific jyer what a lot of people call the Pacific garbage patch Which is essentially a big jyer process. It's a big circulation ocean circulation that goes in a circle It takes currents in a circle and it accumulates all the trash that's in that area and you get to see it It's just I've never seen I've seen pictures of it and the trash is just everywhere and it's really saddening to see and surprising and This really brought him to say no hold on we need to do something about it You know one thing leads to another. He becomes this host on this environmental chauffeur Surfing and ESPN and he becomes almost like an environmental not eco-warrior at this time But something like it, you know something closer just bring about awareness to the surfing community and then he goes into Chile For for to do an expose on what the people what what I believe was a mining company What we it was putting into the water supply like the one of the major rivers in Chile and there was a protest that was happening So James said you know what I believe in this cause I'm gonna go and I'm gonna join the protest Lo and behold next thing he knows he's holding up a white cross not really not a religious thing But a white cross to say you know Hey, I believe in this cause and I believe that you know our water should be pristine It should be taken care of and chemical should not be dumped in at will because it's gonna ruin the environment That led him to become almost like dubbed the eco-warrior and that's what I really that's a turn that I really want to dive into today because you know that led James on a journey in ocean conservation that has brought him to where he is today. So he's gone from participating in protests from that to going to Osaka, Japan And and actually being and not being in the movie the cove but Being part of that Protests were in the movie if you haven't seen it. I highly recommend it But if you haven't seen it there's a part where there's a bunch of surfers in Celeste celebrity hate and penitentiary who? paddles out into the cove and tries to Basically not tries to stop dolphins being for being slaughtered, but try and bring about awareness to the cove It was a big deal. He was supposed to be on it You know, you have to listen to the interview to why he wasn't at that paddle out He was at an earlier patio paddle out. I think it was the day before But just listen to why he has at that interview at speaker for blue.com for slash 128. It was it's quite an interesting story And quite scary at times, you know for for himself and and the people that were with him But you know it led him to that and that eco-warrior really got more almost aggressive in terms of let's really bring about awareness Let's be part of some big things And and really and use his celebrity status in the pro surfing circuit to really bring about awareness within his within his surfing community Then he starts he comes back You know like I like I say if you listen to you he you understand what happens to him afterwards And he kind of finds themselves like what do I do and he goes back to his roots and when he grew up on a beach surfing in luguna beach He took care of that beach because the sort of the older surfers the adults at the time Would take care of the beach and that was sort of I was like a hand-me-down kind of thing if you there was no They had I believe he said they had this this sort of saying is you never walk by trash If you see trash on the beach, you pick it up You put it in the garbage doesn't matter if it was yours or not you put it in the garbage, right? And if you did walk by you would hear about it and when you may have gotten roughed up a little bit because you didn't take care of the beach Now I don't agree with the whole violence thing, but that's the way things were done back then That's the way these surfers were sort of regulate their beach they want they want to be steward they want to take care of their beach because who wants to surf in in trash who wants to see that all the time and so when when when James came back from pro surfing from all the protesting and things like that comes back to look at a Beach and looks at the beach and notices so much trash Even little pieces of styrofoam everywhere pieces of plastic everywhere trash coming from the river systems and everything and he takes he takes initiative he puts together the eco warrior foundation and of Essentially what he does him and his his co-founder and his other partners Basically what they do is they hold and organize community events to clean up beaches And now these community events could be kids could be adults It doesn't matter all walks of life they come and they clean up their beach because they care about their beach and What that does not only does it bring the community together, but it instills that stewardshipness Where they you know, I bet you the next time they go by next they go on a beach They actually take up there, you know They pick up garbage if they see it on the ground because they've already cleaned up the beach They don't have to do it all the time, right? But they'll do it they'll do it if they see like little pieces here instead of having to do it all at once And I think that's really important and I think you know seeing You know hearing the story of James going through all these different These different sort of evolutions or the you know these different levels of being an eco warrior quote-unquote eco Where you really see how he changes and how he uses it to different effects I think a lot of people and the reason why I'm bringing up this story is because I think a lot of people See things like big protests and you see environmentalists do all these different things where they're they're always up and about They're always like okay. Let's do let's go over here. Let's do this and protest this. Let's paddle out here Let's bring attention to this matter Right and if they don't do that if they don't do the big things the things that bring media attention and get on the news then they think well maybe what's the point because we're not going to be able to change anything and I think that is the Wrong attitude. I think There could be different levels of eco worries You don't even have to call yourself an eco warrior because an eco warrior almost seems aggressive, right? But you can call yourself a notion conservationist. In fact, we should all be ocean conservationists, right? Just like we should all be You know Advocates of human rights. We should all do it because it's right It's the right thing to do. It's the ethical thing to do You know We shouldn't have to label ourselves as that because that's what we should be doing We should be practicing that anyway and the same thing with ocean conservationism We should look at what we need to do in life to sustain a proper ocean right not the things that we want to do Because there's certain things that you know we've come to a bit of a lifestyle where we're saying hey I want this I'm gonna get it no matter what the consequences are even if they're direct or indirect consequences I mean think about and a good analogy is like okay I want an iPhone or I want an Android phone They're super expensive. They're like mini computers in your hands and they're awesome. They are fun. They are great I'm addicted to mine. I know a lot of people who love their phones and it was awesome, but they cost a lot of money Right, they cost like four to eight hundred dollars if you don't get a deal with your phone plan Do we really need and people will actually buy it and go into debt over getting it because they just want to have it because it's what they want Whatever the reasons is it whether it's to keep up with their friends or make it look like they need it Or they just use it to play on there You know to some people use it to make money other people use it to do whatever they want with it, right? Just play games on it But they buy it because they want it no matter what the consequences are financially to them even if they have to go in debt Right and we are guilty. We live in a nation of debt But it's the same thing with the ocean We do things we eat seafood Because even though there's a lot of seafood that's Unsustainably caught but we eat seafood because we feel like having it that day right we will buy things that are not recyclable or that are really unsustainable like plastics and plastic cups and you straws because we want to Not thinking about the consequences of our actions So because we don't see the consequences so we do we hear about them sometimes, but we don't even see them So it's almost like see no evil here. No evil, right? There is no evil So it's an interesting Dilemma of like what level should you be should you be a full eco warrior being out in protests being out? You know out in the media, you know teaming up with large protests and doing some pretty crazy things or should you be the person who just does things Acts on things if they see peace of trash on the street They pick it up if they're at a beach and they see someone littering they pick it up Even though it's not theirs because it's the right thing to do and you lead by example Right. I'm not saying one of them is right is better than the other. I think we should almost Practice both, but they're two very extremes and I guess the point of what I'm trying to say is that we don't always have to be that full fledged eco warrior and go out and You know and make a difference by bringing lots of media attention and going on NBC or ABC and CBS and everything I'm beginning on the news about this big protest What we need to do is we need to look at what? What needs to be done that will cause change at whatever level and I think a great example that is James Right. He went from going to protests, you know making a big splash using a celebrity make a big splash To going to like Japan where he's followed by different authorities and things like that It's just a crazy story and then he comes back and he starts holding local community events And a lot of people would argue saying you know what you don't really need to do that Because it's not really gonna do anything, but it does It does it makes a local change and if people start picking up garbage on a beach a community They may just think twice about saying hey I'm not gonna throw out or I'm not gonna use straws because I keep seeing straw picking up I keep seeing I keep picking up straws on the beach You know or I'm not gonna use things that you styrofoam because once those are the hardest things to pick up once they break up And they're in little little pieces they take forever to pick up and we don't we never get them So I'm gonna order things that don't have styrofoam. I'm gonna request they don't put styrofoam in Packages and things like that. So I don't have to throw it out I don't have to discard it and then it goes in a river system or something like that That makes you think about how to live properly because you actually see the change And you don't have to live by a coast to see this change to pick up trash just this weekend My daughters came back they were over at the we have a bridge right in our neighborhood Our neighbor has kind of segregate for the rest of the city that we live in and There's the bridge and they were going out They like to run up and down the bridge and they noticed under the bridge that there was a lot of trash So my youngest daughter Jade she said daddy can we pick that trash up? I want to come back and I want to pick up that trash bring garbage bags and everything like that So we said you know what that's a great idea. It's spring, you know We see a lot of trash after the the snow melts and in our neighborhood a lot of times We'll just go pick up stuff and so we did that yesterday beautiful day We got another another family and a neighbor's family to come on with us So there's eight of us four kids four adults actually there was another one because we had another girl over so there was nine of us Five kids four adults even brought the dog out and we went and we picked up trash It took us maybe a half an hour 45 minutes to just filled up six bags of trash We saw lamps a lot of coffee cups with lids that are there You know and I'm not saying people are just going there to throw them away, but they get there somehow whether it be through wind You know the people throwing them off the bridge I don't know but they're there there were quite a bit of things and you notice that kind of stuff Right and your little pieces of plastic you got bottle caps from plastic bottles From beer bottles a lot of broken glass and that kind of thing So it was interesting to see what was under there But it felt great the kids felt great afterwards and they wanted to do more even around the neighborhood So we're gonna go out when I walk the dog and we're gonna look for trash and just bring a garbage bag with us that is being a Conservationist that is being an ocean conservationist because eventually that stuff's gonna make its way into the river systems into the lakes and into the oceans, right? I know it's hard to believe but it does make it there and It was interesting to go out there and see the kids really Bring that on say hey, you know, we need to we need to do this You know, we need to clear it up because it's you know, my jade basically said my daughter base said I want to help the animals. I want to say the animals I don't want them to choke on it. I don't want them to get stuck in it You know and I think that's the thing that we need to do sometimes as as a parent as an adult You forget about what we need to do the basic things that we need to do to take care of our ocean We don't see it all the time and I think I Think we need to do that more I need to do that more and to be like hey What kind of conservationist am I you know? Am I just someone who talks the talk and tells people hey? This is what you need to do to implement? You know conservation internet and implement actions to you know to be the solution of these problems Or do I need to just do it as a as someone who just does it? You know, it's it's like second. It's not even a thought in my head. It just happens like a reflex I see trash I put it in I put it in the garbage or I put in the recycling or whatever it is and it's done You know and I feel and not only do I feel good about myself But I know I've done a good thing because I've protected the planet in my own local area And if everybody starts doing that and starts taking care of our our planet and our oceans and our environment Then we can all live a better life a healthier life, right? Have a healthier system So my point here is not to say hey, I went out and I got trash and I'm better than you My point is to say don't try to be all the time the person That's the next kusto or you know, you like I'm not I'm gonna do the fullest I'm not gonna do anything You know I'm not gonna if I don't get on TV to bring about awareness or if I don't if I write if I put together petition It doesn't work, you know, then I'm not gonna bother anyway because it's just not gonna work. Don't give up Do what you can do the different levels start off slow start off small Do your neighborhood pick up trash around your neighborhood, you know Look at seafood that you're eating and say do I really need this is this is this something that's gonna be better for the ocean? That is sort of the eco warrior that I think everybody should be and everybody can be with just a little thought into it And that's what here at speaker for blue We're gonna just keep giving you these little tips to help you get through that and just make you aware of hey You know, yeah, there's some really crappy news out there But there's a lot of good things that we can do that will reduce that crappy news And yes, you can say, you know There's things that need to be done at it from a government and policy level to really make a big change like things like climate change and cutting emissions true But we also need to do our own part and we also need to take care of our planet as an individual as a family as a community And that's what I love about what James is doing Is he's getting his community together to make people aware of that through actually doing something and I think that's great I think it's gonna be really important and even the fact that you know James takes people not only just on the beach and cleans out but they take the people upstream and When you go upstream you really see where this trash is coming from and what kind of what it kind of debris is coming in What kind of trash is coming in and I think that really makes people aware like holy cow? This is where this is coming from and and you know You'd be very surprised at what you find in there, especially the items that keep recurring and reoccurring One of the great things that I love is is Tango or a blue who's it's not Organization Australia when we had them on the on the podcast before before Christmas in December We actually saw you know them actually taking note of what trash items were constantly being Picked up and then what they do is they go back to the government and they say hey, you know This is what constantly being picked up the microbeats was a big thing and let's see if we can let's see if we can Let's see if we can ban it or put somewhere kind of regulation or policy for microbeats so that they don't end up in the ocean They don't affect the you know the ocean the ocean animals in the habitats That helps but it all comes through a community Anticipation community events and that's the type of eco-war that you can be you can be an eco warrior in your own neighborhood You know on your local beaches in your local coastal areas if you live on the coast if not just do it in your own area And that's important that works well So that's my point today on Monday It starts about 20 minute podcasts. I didn't want to take it too long But I just really want to make you guys aware of what we can do as an eco-war the different levels of how we can act from a local level Right even within your family within your community to a larger level Protesting on large protests on larger issues to make governments aware to try and bring change and bring a really immediate tension There's also a lot of different things in the middle So what I want to do with you guys it I put this to my email list this weekend I got some great responses of what people do to become an eco-war and what kind of eco-war they were They thought they were and which I think was great There's a lot of people doing a lot of great stuff out there But what I want to know from you guys and you can go to speak up for blue forward slash session 131 which is the show notes for this episode and put in the comments I want to I want to hear what kind of eco-warrior you think you are or what kind of eco-warrior you want to be? And let's have a conversation on how you can become that eco-warrior and maybe every week from now on We'll do like a little bit of an installment of how to become a specific type of eco-warrior Okay, so thank you for listening to the podcast if you go to session if you go to speak up for blue.com Session 131 you can put in the comments. Just type in the quick What kind of eco-war you think you are and I think it'd be great to we'll have like a little conversation on that as well So thank you very much for for listening to the podcast and your continued support on the podcast We are well over a hundred thousand downloads and they really appreciate it And I apologize for last Monday. We had a bit of a blip in Some technology and didn't the podcast didn't come through right away But that month last Monday's podcast is up and again if you want to look at James Prick problems interview or you want to hear is session 128 so speak up for blue.com for such session 128 And yeah, thank you for listening to the speak up blue podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewis. Happy Monday And happy conservation. You You You You You You (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
