How To Protect The Ocean
SUFB 094: Spending A Life Protecting the Ocean with Dr. Carl Safina
Dr. Carl Safina is not just a Marine Scientist, or ornathologist, or ocean plicy maker, or science communicator...He's all of those wrapped into one. I had the pleasure of interviewing Carl and asked him how he has been so effective in protecting ocena life during is career. His answer was wonderful.
I also asked him about some major issues like Climate Change and the Seafood industry.
Carl is an Ocean Leader and a great person, which I highly respect. It's not everyday you get to interview you heroes. But today was one of those days!
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/session94
welcome to the speaker for blue podcast session 94 today's a really special day because it is wednesday and normally in the past i've done an interview every wednesday sometimes i can't a lot of times recently i haven't been able to get an interview just because of time constraints or differences and schedules or some tech problems but i'm trying to bring that back in 2016 and trying to bring an interview and i'm starting off this year with a fantastic interview because i'm interviewing one of my ocean heroes carl sefina carl if you don't know who carl sefina is uh then you've been living under an ocean conservation rock i'll tell you that right now uh but he's a great guy he's been a lot of things for uh different aspects of ocean conservation we're going to talk to him all about that on today's episode of the speak up for blue podcast so stay tuned welcome to the speak up for blue podcast helping you get involved in ocean conservation and now here's your host loves football so much i mean he really really likes it and drew luen hey everybody welcome back to a special episode of the speaker for blue podcast your voice for the ocean i am your host Andrew luen founder speak up for blue dot com marine ecologist and self-proclaimed ocean prener and today is a special day because we have an interview finally we have another interview on a wednesday for interview wednesday and today's very special just as many of our other guests are special but even more so because this is somebody that i've looked up to ever since i got into ocean conservation dr carl sefina will be on the episode today talking about a lot of different aspects of ocean conservation and what we can do whether we are scientists whether we are just advocates whether we're just interested in ocean conservation what we can do uh to better protect the ocean in our daily lives and beyond uh now before we get into more about carl sefina i just want to thank our supporters of the speaker for blue podcast today it is ron and judy dr judith wice and chris and clair jefford thank you very much for your support i really appreciate all the support you've given us if you the audience member who is listening to this podcast right now want to learn more about ocean conservation and how you can support it you can support our speak up for blue podcast by going to speak up for blue dot com forward slash patreon p-a-t-r-e-o-n which is essentially a site that allows people to support uh podcasters and other artists that they like and they want to support their efforts and for this particular case for our case we want to support ocean conservation so by supporting us you're supporting ocean conservation raising awareness of ocean issues educating people on the solutions and hopefully inspiring them to take action that's what we're all about here at the speaker for blue podcast but let's get back into the podcast uh with carl sefina now the way this interview happened i was kind of off the cuff uh our blogger and writer and and ocean talk friday co-host a lot of the times nathan johnson wrote to carl sefina uh at one point because he saw a quote in an article that carl was quoted uh about climate change and he wants to know more about he want to get clarification on said quote they started a dialogue um you know through email which was great because you know a person like carl is busy he's got a lot of things on his plate he's got a lot of work on his plate he runs the sefina center he writes seven books he's just an amazing human being he does a lot of uh he has a pbs special out um on on ocean conservation and it's just he's just a busy guy just talks all the time so the fact that he actually emailed nathan back was just we were both flabbergasted we were just like this is amazing we were excited that somebody is so busy and to us is an ocean celebrity ocean conservation celebrity the fact that they took the time he took the time to email us back uh to get you know uh clarification on that quote and to start a dialogue essentially because the emails went back and forth it's just phenomenal it just shows how humble he is how important his work is to answer individual emails from people who have inquiries i think it's just amazing then we had the gall to ask him to come on the podcast and he said yes right away he was like let's do this let's do it through skype and uh send me dates of when i can do it and we did and he signed up and we did it the next week and we recorded it which was awesome it was last week that we recorded this interview and he was phenomenal we had a couple tech problems he worked we worked through it um his dogs even made an appearance um it's just a lot of fun to go through this kind of um this kind of podcast at first we were gonna focus the i was gonna focus the conversation on climate change and then as you're gonna see through this interview uh we kind of went all over the place we talked about fishing because i know he was used to be an avid fisherman we talked about climate change we talked about uh community ocean communication we talked about his life through ocean conservation and how he sort of evolved through this entire process starting off with research then going into policy making then going back into a little bit of research and then the communication hit with his books that he wrote he's written seven phenomenal books uh his last his recent one most recent one was released in july of 2015 is uh was second on the best uh new yorkine's bestseller list at the time of his release uh and it's just done for it's just been really well it's called beyond words we're gonna put a link up to each one of his books and the on the um on the um the show notes which will be speak up for blue.com forward slash session 94 and you can get all the information to his books his pbs special will probably put up the trailer on there as well as the sephina it links to the sephina center and the work they do there so just a phenomenal interviewer uh just a great guy and i look forward to um interacting with him in the future maybe working together in the future and that will be uh a great time so lo and behold here is the wonderful dr carl sephina in the interview enjoy the interview and i'll talk to you after hey carl thank you very much for joining the speak up for blue pock as i appreciate it you're really welcome thanks for having me this is great i have to admit the way uh this kind of came about was really awesome uh first of all not to embarrass you or anything but you are like an ocean celebrity to to me and a lot of other people here at speak up for blue uh and just in our community so we really are very fine thank you um and uh the way this came about actually is uh one of our writers nathan he actually contacted you from a quote that you were quoted as saying and we were talking a lot about climate change and i want to kind of continue that conversation on this podcast so that our community could be a part of that um but once i started to think about it i was like there's so many things that i wanted to ask you that i decided to just ask you a bunch of different things so there'll be a lot of different topics that we can go into i know one i know you're a pretty avid fisherman are you not or you like fishing and that kind of yes i i i once was very avid i i still enjoy it okay good well we'll we'll talk about uh the fishing and seafood and and all that stuff and and sort of the the issues that we're facing now and get your take on it and so forth and of course we'll talk all about the work that you do so we're going to get into a lot of stuff today good right on so first of all for those who don't know who you are can you just kind of give our audience a perspective of who you are and what you do uh yeah well i'm mostly a kid who uh likes to go fishing and uh i spent most of the 1980s studying seabirds and i spent most of the 1990s working on fisheries policy reform and since then i've been writing and i was writing in the 90s as well but um uh since then i've really been focused on essentially just writing and speaking and uh written seven books mostly about how the ocean is changing and uh my last book is a bit of a change my last book is about how animals think and feel so um it's not an ocean focused book although there are some ocean animals in there absolutely and and definitely it it pertains to the way we view oceans and the animals as well i mean especially these days the way the way things have been going but let's go back uh before the 80s when you were a kid uh just to find out what made you get into ocean conservation what made you pursue uh seabirds and just in the ocean in general i just always really loved nature i always loved living things and i happened to um be born in Brooklyn New York which most people don't realize is a coastal town right right there are boats there uh my father was a fair weather fisherman but that was enough and uh his uh his hobby was breeding canaries so uh in a way through him i got introduced to birds and i got introduced to fishing and um that really became my life birds and fishing and combining those two things you get seabirds so uh before i studied seabirds i followed them around because i was fishing and um i really loved the bird them better and uh spent a lot of time trying to know them better that's interesting you know a lot of people who get in who are into birds and study birds are you know what we call quote unquote hello yeah hi hi i think we lost you for a second there yeah you did that's okay well uh we'll if the if the video keeps giving us a problem what we'll do is we'll just do the audio but um i'm going to just continue to record it do you have your video on right now my video is uh every time we get disconnected it turns off there we go okay there we go okay so we'll just kind of continue sorry i'll cut the if we get cut off i'll cut i'll go back and edit and just yeah yeah right so um so yeah so as i was saying you know people who study birds tend to be called you know quote-unquote birders and they really get involved in seeing as many birds as possible and studying their behaviors and things like no no no no no those those people are not people who study birds okay study birds are called ornithologists okay birders are people who uh make a hobby or in the worst case a sport out of um not only seeing as many different species but counting and keeping score i i have very little interest in that although some of those people are incredible experts i i admire their expertise right i think we have a cameo here but yes chula and lies chula has joined us hello chula how are you welcome to the podcast stay high to the people out there she she loves your attention hey yes that's awesome so that's interesting because um you know i it's a good it's a good distinction to have when you were a kid and you start to you know look at these birds uh before you really be you know studied as a scientist did you what what specifically did you look at for these for these birds my chula is knocking the desk wall okay lorries uh i just i just wanted to um know what they do and why they do it right and um also when i was uh when i was quite young when i was about seven my my father caved into my demands that we get homing pigeons so i could raise homing pigeons so uh you know i got to know them as i love it i got to know them as uh you know as as their own families really you know they they had their little their little cubby holes where they built their nests and they raised their babies they had their mates and they were very much like us so that's always the perspective that that i've taken at nothing i've seen since then uh has changed my impression right that in the main other animals are essentially like we are yeah absolutely yeah and that well i want to dive into that uh later on in the podcast especially your book beyond words because i think that is a very uh interesting perspective because not and then we don't think about it that often in that perspective as well um but going into you've led some pretty major campaigns uh in your life from from the research that i've done in the 90s dimension uh you you led campaigns to ban high seed drift nets uh you help uh lead campaigns to rewrite u.s fisheries laws work towards international conservation of tuna sharks and other fishes um there are a lot of people right now in in their in their careers beginning of their careers or mid careers who would love to be a part of that sort of movement right and so how what i want to kind of get a perspective on is how did you put how did you get in those types of places where were you working in know to get to to lead those kind of campaigns yes yes um well first of all i i was working at a big not-for-profit group one one of the big conservation groups right and secondly i had the i had the advantage of being a bit of a square peg in a round hole uh people at that group were not that interested in me and um and the ocean so um what i learned was that if you can if you can get people interested in funding you you can pretty much do what you want right and so because i was studying seabirds and because i was fishing i had this impression that um had not seemed to really occur to other people in the conservation world which was fish our wildlife too right and that was the gathering slogan for the idea that we need to work on fish and fisheries as a conservation issue not as a commodity issue or resource allocation issue but as a wildlife conservation issue and uh i was able to interest some people in funding the the work that i wanted to do which uh initially involved uh just a few local legislative things that affected only the waters of new york and then affected some of the interstate waters on the atlantic seaboard and and then i started to get involved in uh major campaign to try to list blue fantuna under siteease the convention for international trade-in endangered species and immediately after that uh gigantic overhaul of the us fisheries law which is called the magnus and stevens fishery management and conservation act uh and in between there i guess toward the beginning of that i've got involved in uh a big multi-group international campaign to ban the high seas drift nets that were um uh just unbelievable in the 1980s there were about uh there were about 40 uh 40 000 boats uh no how did this work no there were a thousand boats there were a thousand boats running 40 mile long nets and that's 40 000 miles of netting in the pacific ocean every night it was a uh catastrophe yeah and um i i jumped in on that campaign kind of late but the part that i brought was that i was the person who discovered that they had moved into the atlantic ocean so um realizing that they were really spreading worldwide put a lot of extra energy into that campaign that was i think already poised to ban them in the pacific but uh really helped to create the momentum needed for the un to ban them worldwide so yeah so that the fact that there was already there was already uh a spotlight on the pacific helped in in terms of the atlantic all you to do is just that helped that helped you a lot at that time and and i was able to learn very quickly how people do these things because i didn't know anything about that i knew how to i knew how to watch seabirds i didn't know how you uh anything at the un or legislation or lobbying or any of that stuff so that was a quick a quick uh crash course and from that i um you know i took that into the other campaigns that i that i mentioned about uh the bluefin tuna incites and us fisheries law and uh worked with uh a small handful of very talented really excellent conservationists most of whom have moved on to work on other things and don't don't really focus on the ocean anymore with uh i think one exception right so you had to adapt a lot of your a lot of your schooling and education to really focus on the the conservation of species and and learn how to go through the legislative process and work with a lot of international groups did you find it did you find it frustrating work like trying to get these uh you know like say the rewrite the us fisheries law did you find that a frustrating process to go through uh to to get people to hear you especially since you were saying that a lot not a lot of people were focusing on the ocean at that time uh yes and no i what i found was frustrating about doing research was that i would do this research that would take a few years to you know answer some question and then and then a few more years to answer another question then publish an article in a journal right and uh i i really liked doing all of that i i loved being out with the birds but then it was just well nobody really cares about this and it doesn't really address a need meanwhile the fish are uh you know are are being destroyed and so the frustration was i i loved the work i didn't like that the result didn't do anything right with the with the legislative stuff i hated the work and i really liked that the difference that you could make was monumental in some cases and there was a lot at stake and we won a few things and we lost a few things but the things we won have continued to make a huge difference uh i mean in us waters a lot of fish are recovering because of the mandates that we were able to get into that law it took it took um four years to get the law passed and then another two years between passage and first implementation then there were some loopholes and it took about another eight years to close those loopholes and by then i wasn't really working on it too much mostly other people had taken over after that initial legislative thing but i worked on that a lot for those first four or five years so and that was very satisfying and now when i do go fishing yeah i see the difference a lot of fish that were extremely depleted and very hard to find are are very very abundant now right in in our local waters here and we're talking about mostly the you know the ones that live their whole life within the exclusive economic zone of the united states the ones that don't that go in and out are um are still very depleted in talking about the the big stuff the sharks and the tunas and the and the billfish with with one exception that the the swordfish in the western atlantic are are much more abundant now than they were 25 years ago uh and that's a big change yeah i mean it is harder to to manage outside those boundaries the exclusive economic zone just because it's it's been such a big question in the in the past and even now of who manages it you know what legislative body can do that and and i mean that's really up to the i guess the un and those international bodies to to do it but enforcement is so difficult to to and right and monitoring of course so right um it gets kind of kind of interesting now you know something you said you mentioned uh lately is you realize that you know the research part was a lot of fun and then you would you would publish in a scientific journal after doing a few years of research but then nobody really saw it potentially just other other scientists would would see it in within your circles and other scientists working on the same question yeah exactly there were they were eight very very interested people now now you've uh for most of your career now well i guess after in from the 90s on you really focused on uh science communication uh to to a pretty massive audience uh was that sort of the the realization at that point when you said okay well i published this paper but only a few people are really looking at and caring for it i've done a lot of work and policy and now it's time to really get out into the public what what made you sort of realize like to write that first book and say i i need to write this is it was it to reach more people well first of all i i always was interested in writing to reach people and even when i was writing those journal articles which reached very few people it was very obvious that i wanted to create a written body of work whether it was going to be research or whatever whatever i was going to do which at the time i wasn't entirely sure at all um but late in the 80s or like right at the time i was getting uh sort of geared up to start actively working on conservation policy regarding fisheries i started writing a series of articles for a local weekly fishing newspaper okay and it was just for recreational people um and it was mostly about who's catching what and where right but my my twist was that um i only wrote about conservation or or you know something having to do with appreciating the the natural history or biology of fish i never gave anybody a tip on how to catch more fish or fishing techniques it was about like who the fish are and the immediacy of the wider response to that was very eye-opening and it made me want to do more and i had read some books that like all of us we've read books that we really loved but um in my case i always thought i think i could do something like this or i'd really like to try doing something like this so i had an idea about wanting to do a book for quite a while and then i had the opportunity i had i had gotten some funding some open-ended funding based on some of my initial uh conservation policy work and i decided that this would be my shot to try to work on a book so that's what i did and i thought that you need you know the the more people know about crucial issues the more public support can be tapped when uh when people need public sentiment to right change policies or or you know call legislators and ask them to vote for things and that kind of stuff um so that's what i did i i tried to write a book that would help people understand that fish are wildlife and that there are enormous problems and issues about those fantastic creatures and that that's really what my first book was about right and and you've you've written six others after that correct you've written seven total seven total books so obviously that's that's been working for you quite quite well over the over the years and um and uh and books are are a very good tool to reach to reach a mass audience but things have really changed over the past you know 20 years since you're writing that first book and our technology and the way to communicate has really has really increased and um and especially with social media coming into play and video and and you know podcasting and things like that that have come into place you've really you've embraced that quite well um how did you did you notice right away like this is a way to really um to really reach a lot a lot more people like almost immediately now one thing i want to mention uh in terms of social media and it's been recent that you that i that i did this one of our podcast was actually inspired by one of the posts that you made that i shared on my speak up for blue facebook page oh yeah and it was the recent well i guess not reason it was back in september you uh released a bunch of pictures of uh of uh of uh i guess a campaign that you went on in british columbia oh yes for the great bear forest and uh and you did it with a celebrity a very popular celebrity that has a bit of a controversial reputation i guess of as of late um miley syrus and it was interesting because i when i posted that uh that camp that those pictures because i just thought it was it was really cool that you know not only you went over there you know i'm from canada so of course it's kind of you know dear to me um but that you went with a celebrity who has a huge fan base of people that you wouldn't really expect to know a lot about the ocean on a regular basis just because they're probably a younger younger base and but it's a really good way to reach a different audience um especially someone who people who love such such a celebrity as as miley syrus i got a lot of flack for putting that that page up not because of you but because of miley syrus people said i'm not gonna look at your page anymore and this and that and and it kind of angered me because i was like this this girl is doing a very good thing and she obviously cares about it so i just want to i would love to hear the story of how that came to be um and then what you what you got is feedback from posting those those pictures and and that campaign sure um well first of all i i went there because i i loved the british columbia coast i actually think it's one of the most magnificent places in the world yes it is and um uh i went with ean mcallister whom i had met about maybe eight months earlier he gave a talk i went to and um i just arranged to go there with him that the main draw on that trip were these wolves that live on the coast and on these islands and catch salmon right and dig for clams and they um they eat seals they don't you know they're very unusual ecologically compared to most wolves right so um i went to see them uh we didn't quite see them we saw some on some remote video cameras right and we saw a lot of fresh sign uh we saw a lot of salmon we saw a lot of grizzlies right um and of course that whole system with the eagles and the ravens everywhere i mean it's just a really wondrous thing yeah but completely coincidentally uh milie syrus had seen something about british columbia's plan for killing uh a lot of wolves right and she had uh just done one instagram post against that idea yes because she's an animal over yeah and the the premier responded back in a very catty way and that made the whole thing very public and then ean's publicity person responded back to milie on instagrams just saying if you would ever like to come here right we'd be very happy to host you and uh and milie instantly wrote back saying i would how about this weekend wow and uh completely coincidentally that was the weekend that i was planning to go so i was already on ean's boat right and we were um in touch with the float plane that was going to bring her and her brother and suddenly there that there was the plane and suddenly there she is and she came aboard and you know just shook hands and said hi i'm milie um yeah i i will say that um completely contrary to her or at least uh the the biggest recent chunk of right her public persona uh i found her to be uh instantly i found her to be incredibly smart uh remarkably modest and uh a very strategic thinker and uh just a totally surprising person in in a lot of very you know positive ways i i didn't get any negative flat that i recall yeah seeing or hearing um i mean i maybe there were on some some some of the things that i posted but i i don't uh i put one thing on i think huffington post i don't usually troll uh i don't usually you know scroll through the comments because right right uh you get really depressed if you look at that's true that's so true uh hopefully the the people who comment are not a cross section of the people who are uh reading yeah but uh milie syrus has 27 million facebook followers obviously there are a lot of people who really like her and she is a trend setter and a and a style setter of sorts and um at any rate i i found her to be remarkably delightful so um well that's awesome i mean experience and i it's good to hear and from just from the general pictures and and your account from it that i shared you know you you you guys seem it looked everything like went well and she seemed really into the beauty and the nature of of the coast where you guys were very into it yeah she said uh two or three times we had like one full day right together where we we went ashore in a bunch of places and um uh you know where we where everybody was on the boat together and right two or three times she said this is the best day of my life i mean she was like really really super into it and uh it was really good well and it's also nice to see i'm sure uh a person who's so young and so enthralled in showbiz and probably travels the world uh you know regularly to just come in and say this is the best day of my life being around nature and just being you know probably very peaceful for her for her day-to-day activities yes i this is great right i think that's really true and i think it was very liberating for her to just be with a small group of people and uh you know nobody hounding her about anything at all no absolutely and it was interesting because that the day after i got that i got those negative comments on the on the post i did a podcast of it and talking about the exact same thing or how i just thought that it was great that that she went out there she has a huge fan base like he said 27 million followers um and and i thought it was great that's a it's a good way for celebrities to reach their audience with something that they care about and show something about their personality and the way they love animals and many celebrities do it they're she's not the only one so i thought it was really really good and to this day it is still our highest downloaded podcast i think it's almost hit eight thousand so you know maybe we were reaching a new audience based on just saying her name so we i always thought that that was quite interesting how that how that became because it was just a podcast that i just decided to do based on you know just because some i got some negative feedback on that and it turned out to be a positive so that's awesome but my question also comes for someone who's in communication and reaching a lot of people um i noticed that it's through my work with the podcast and speak up for blue.com that especially when i first started i always thought it was great that i could just talk about my experiences you know in my career uh and and the stuff that i've seen and the stuff that i'd like people to know about you know it's a lot of people just don't really understand the ocean issues they don't they don't know about them first of all sure yeah and it's hard and i used to be like no i got to convert you to to you know to to um to be aware of this stuff and and and i've got to make sure that you know about this and how can you not know about this but and it was really frustrating at the beginning and now i've just kind of come to the thing of of just i'm gonna try and present it to as many people as possible and let them make the decision and i find that like i'm not as aggressive as i used to be in your experience how do you find like do you find it's it's do you do you like write your books to convert people to look at the ocean differently and and be more aware of the ocean or how do you go about that in terms of making people aware well i i don't think of it as converting people although um you know if you put it in that in those terms yes i'd like to i'd like for people who don't know about these things or don't care about these things or don't think there's anything they can do yes to change their perception of all of that stuff but um i don't feel like i'm chasing people around i guess uh i guess you know having having been a fisherman for a long time right to me it's more like fly casting like you just keep casting right in a likely spot and every now and then you attract something that likes what you are presenting right so uh you know my my let's say books for instance which are my main works yep um i kind of feel like you know i'm trying to set a a very interesting banquet for people with words and everyone is invited but um i'm not trying to chase people around or hit them over the head simply because it doesn't work i'm just trying to figure out what will work right if if that worked i would be that's what i would be doing but it doesn't work it's not too pleasant and uh it's not really how i think of it yeah no it's it's uh it's interesting yeah i agree i completely agree with that and it's interesting to see i find the last few years especially a lot of people are really coming around and realizing these issues that we're facing is probably because we're seeing a lot more um uh specific events that allow us like unfortunately they're tragic events and a lot of them in storms and um they were super storm sandy and then hurricane katrina there's um you know some tsunamis uh in in the in ocean and we see a lot of things happening where the destruction of those habitats that we've allowed to happen have almost increased the damage that that has from the from these storms and but i find the last you know five or six years people are grasping a little bit more of it and they're believing more of the science behind it and and climate change is one of those those issues that people are starting to come around on it you know from from 10 years ago or from 20 years ago to now people are realizing oh wait a minute hold on this stuff this thing is real and we need to to um to address it even like you know governments all around the world especially you know after this last agreement at the Paris climate talks uh the climate talks in Paris um it seems like a lot of countries are on board and saying we're going to reduce emissions to a certain point and this is what we're going to do yeah what did you think of of that agreement and how do you think it's going to play out in the future do you think this is actually this is a another starting point and things will change this time or what what would be the difference between this time and and when we did the say the Kyoto protocol well um it's encouraging that they agreed to something and of course the politics in the u.s. are very discouraging right but um just leaving it at that yeah um i don't think i think one of the things you see is that it's not more science information that is changing minds it's that people's experience of reality is what they believe and the science information gives them a perspective on what they're seeing to say you know instead of saying here's the information believe this it's okay now you're experiencing certain things and and you believe those things because of your own experience here's some information to explain what you're experiencing so you do need both of those things but information alone for people who are not scientists especially doesn't carry the day it doesn't work it's not why people do things they don't do things just based on information they do things mostly based on values and their own experiential sense of the world which is of course very very messy yeah but that's where we're at with that and um i'm you know i'm very hopeful i i admire the people who keeps logging at this uh at these international meetings and trying to get a global agreement i before this i i was um pretty convinced that humanity did not have the psychology and emotional capacity right to deal with a problem such as the way we're changing the climate and specifically that problem but um maybe we will i i do think that with with big problems we tend not to respond early yeah where we could fix something fairly easily we we tend to argue over some things until they are inarguably terrible and then we figure out what we need to do at that point it's it's it's very painful to to watch humanity thrash around like this yeah when you know many people very early we're sounding the alarm and saying here are the consequences and here are the trends and people of science respond to that and most people don't right yeah it's it's interesting because here in canada we see a lot of what's happening in on the political side in the states obviously there's there's uh you know there's going to be a huge election coming up in anybody and i i guess it's this year in november of this year and there's a huge nominations going on right now and it seems as though you know the the the democrat candidates sort of get it you know in climate change and of course obama president obama gets it you know he completely understands he's he's almost saved and really pushed for this for this climate change um adaptation and reduction to really to really occur on the republican side though it just seems like they just they just don't they just don't get it or they just want to ignore the problem um yeah and that's true why do you think that is why is there such a separation when it's when the evidence is so it's it's right there in front of them um not only in the science but in the policy and then even in like i mean you look anywhere around the world you can almost you know come up with some sort of a fact of climate change why do you think why do you think the politics are running like the politicians are running so hard to ignore climate change well they they're anti-science right they're anti-science because some things that we know as facts get in the way of some people making money right and that's really the major split since ragan was president and especially since uh george w bush was president they're really intensified then right but up until up until george w bush um science was the arbiter of facts and pretty much everybody agreed and accepted sciences you know power to detect trends and measure things and understand what was really going on as as the best thing we have to understand what's really going on and then people would argue about what to do about the facts they might say um uh well this problem is something that we could live with or this problem is something that we must solve or this problem would cost too much money to do it this way so why don't we do it that way you know why don't we use private investment instead of public money or those were the debates it was never we just don't believe the science or right science is just another special interest so all this kind of stuff is only in the last um really only in the last 15 years and um only in the last 25 years was there any hint of that kind of an attitude right um and that's uh that's the way it is i think you know if it wasn't if it wasn't climate change it would be whatever whatever the big thing is that is you know they are anti-science they're they're against uh uh you know stem cell research they're they're against all kinds of things that have to do with trying to find out what's going on because um strategically they just have decided that they're not going to pick and choose they're just going to make science political it used to not be political it was the one thing that transcended politics and of course in science there is a tremendous amount of debate over findings and there's a lot of skepticism and there's all of that and that goes on in science and that's how science spirals in on what is really going on right right um but nobody ever thought that scientists were a dishonest essentially and um and and they basically view i don't know if what they really believe it's hard to tell exactly what they really believe but strategically the view is um we will treat science as though they're just another form of business and we will just say we don't believe things that don't accord with what we already believe or what we already value and and you know and there's uh i think there's a lot of cynicism there or they know how to whip up a big fraction of people um and i you know to me it's uh it's it's really very dishonest it's certainly yeah really shameful it's uh it's discouraging to live in this country and see that the people who are running for the highest office um include some uh real idiots i agree i completely agree and it's not and it's not just the states you know uh Canada we've had for the past 10 years a very conservative government that was a fascist yeah absolutely and it got to the point where you know we the you know the Canadian government just just invested and put all its resources in natural resource development uh which have and changed a lot of environmental laws for the worst it it decreased our reputation for being in a country that that really preserved and valued it's it's uh it's natural resources and protection of its environment and now we seem to be shifted back with a new government that's all for adapting to climate change and reducing our emissions and it seems like it's just like a breath of fresh air for a scientist in Canada especially with the attacks that we've gone on that we've documented on this podcast uh many many times so it's kind of refreshing to to of course yeah and hopefully we'll still work we always like it when when things go our way every place like our way but the most important thing that should always be preserved is an honest debate yes and um i heard from several scientists several Canadian scientists that uh the Harper people were were literally burning files of data yes um that is a truly fascist thing to do that that is absolutely abhorrent and there's no place for behavior like that in the civilized world yeah no it's absolutely true and and and we were silenced that you know as scientists uh you know there was there's no doubt about it when the liberals uh won the election about a week or two later they had a conference call with all the the scientists in the government and they basically said you are unmuscled you can say whatever you want in the in as long as it's scientific and it's a scientific debate you know be be scientists you know go out and criticize each other if you need to go out and make the science as best as possible so that was kind of nice uh to see from from i mean what it should be you know well that's it's crucial i mean it's it's it's much more important than you know it just being nice or as it should be because without that you you really don't you really don't have a reasonable country and a reasonable government people have to be able to say what they believe yeah is really true i mean under under um the second bush in the united states federal employees were not allowed to use the phrase climate change and a friend of mine who did got into trouble because at he was giving a talk somewhere and he he said the word climate change that you you know our first amendment yeah it's freedom of speech but it's it's freedom of speech unless you actually are part of the government who was supposed to uphold that constitution it's it's horrendous it is it's deeply horrendous yeah it's it's uh it's just it you don't believe it and when you when you first hear it and then when you witness it you're just like you you this is um this is ridiculous i completely agree let's flip the switch a little bit let's talk about um fisheries and the seafood industry um and this has been something that that's interested me in the last in the last year or so there was a uh now we've we've all known that you know when we go buy seafood at at the supermarket or at a fisheries market uh or a seafood market you know you know you you you you know what you're buying um you in the past you may not have known where it's from or how it was caught but now there's programs like seafood watch and here in Canada there's ocean wise where you can have apps and just information to to sort of empower the consumer to you know say okay these fish are great you can you can eat these avoid these and and so forth and make you know more of an informational science-based decision but but i guess it was a year and a half ago maybe even two years ago uh oceana released uh a study that they did where they tested uh seafood that was labeled a specific fish uh or seafood or i think it was mostly fish they did genetic tests on that fish to determine whether it was say tuna or so or so and they realized that i believe it was almost 60 percent i'm not i may be quoting it wrong 40 to 60 percent were not what the fish was labeled as based on genetic testing right how can consumers make an informed decision when the the markets don't even realize what they're selling or and and whatnot how do we how do i'm not sure they don't realize what they're selling i think they're obviously lying about some things so how do how uh you know is it is it more of we just have to stop eating seafood and and until this is corrected um and and just sort of boycott things or is this something we have to work harder to make sure there's proper labels in place or proper regulations in place to make sure these markets and grocery stores are selling the the right you know the right fish that they're saying they're selling yeah well um boycotts work if they're really well organized and really well publicized but um i i think uh as a way of changing the market i i doubt that enough people right are likely to just say well i'm just going to boycott seafood until they label them all properly right that that doesn't sound like a path to success really no it's one thing to say you don't want to eat seafood because of a lot of things about the seafood industry or you'll only eat a few things that you can be really sure of um but i think it's it's very hard when when you're relying on people to be telling you what they're saying is selling and they're and they're lying about it i i don't exactly know a good way around that except to try to um try to work with people that you think you really can trust right and um that's i there's no rule for how you work that out i don't really um i don't really know um i would say probably the the bigger they are the more they are restaurant chains um the more they are big companies the more likely that the facts will get lost and uh if if you know somebody who is you know runs a restaurant and is super into local and organic and right um seasonal food they they probably yeah i mean they're they're selling a certain thing that if they are caught lying about that i mean that's the entire basis of what what they're trying to sell so they probably need to be telling the truth we we work with one seafood retailing chain that is Whole Foods and i trust them because i i know them and the woman who runs the seafood branch of Whole Foods right used to work with me and it was sort of a protege of mine so i think that um to the best of their abilities i think they're trying to do everything really well so i do trust them but but it is it is definitely a tricky thing i i also think that there are some kinds of fish that are easy to lie about and some that are not easy to lie about i think if something is labeled as swordfish or mackerel or striped bass you can usually see if that's exactly what it is right if it's fillets labeled as red snapper and they have no skin on them right chances are very good that it's a bunch of stuff because red snapper is just a grab bag name for a variety of different groupers and west coast rockfishes and things like that that all can get swept under that name because people know the phrase red snapper it's it's not any better than that really wow that's it so maybe even more uh educational campaigns for the consumer to recognize specific species uh by just by sight to to kind of help maybe that would would help them yeah you know you do have to learn a little bit about what it is you're looking at um in a lot of cases it's not too hard i i think uh when i go and look at fish i generally know what they are just by sight with other things you can't tell you know you see shrimp it says shrimp from tie land shrimp from next door that's difficult i don't think there's any way that a consumer can know you really you're at the mercy of uh of the vendor to be telling the truth i think yeah no definitely definitely um now let's get in i know we're kind of running a little low on time so i want to get into your book um that you you released it last uh last summer uh beyond words um and it's done really well i believe it's it's uh number two on the on the new york's bestseller list for that for its category yeah for animals but for a while i don't know if it's two anymore i okay well regardless it hit number two congratulations on that i mean that's fantastic and i was really interested when i saw the book just to think of you know beyond words well why don't you tell people what beyond words is about and then we'll talk about why you why you wrote it and and it's about how animals think and feel right so you know a lot of people when they see animals that aren't say domesticated animals yes where we actually attribute like with dogs i mean obviously with you know just from the podcast here your dogs were very community they were communicating with you you can almost tell what they wanted and and how they were how were they how they were feeling with other animals you know that are that are in the wild you just you see documentaries on them and and what not you don't really attribute a personality or a feeling to them um a lot i find a lot of people just especially when you see like adult animals um babies yeah because we just don't we just don't know them well we we would feel that way if we saw a dog every few months right just you know for a few minutes every few months we wouldn't know dogs and the only reason we have that impression about most other animals is we really don't know them and we don't really get to watch them right if uh the only way to really watch them is to be a professional animal behavioral ecologist or a filmmaker or somebody who really has the hours and hours and hours that it takes to do that right but when you do that what you see is that many of them do a lot of very complicated things almost all of them have individual personalities and they they know where they are they know who they're with they understand a lot about their lives and what made you decide to write this book at this point you know when you when you when you decide to release it what what brought brought on that that idea and and depicting all these different species with the with these different personalities well there were a few different things um well one thing i i wanted to make sure i wasn't writing the same book over and over again about how the ocean is changing and um i wanted to circle back to my original interest in life which is what do other animals do and why do they do those things and i also realized you know somebody who's always immersed in conservation that as we were talking about earlier with climate information is not what makes people make choices values make people make choices and we can tell people a lot about the declines of wildlife and shrinking habitat and that kind of thing uh it's obviously not winning the day right so i wanted to figure out what different approach to try and i decided to try to let the other creatures make their own case for their life on earth and let's hear from them for a change when it and it makes i find it makes people excited about animals again because you attribute these personalities you're like wow i had no idea no wait i don't attribute i don't attribute anything i right i i'm just showing i'm trying to get people to see through through the lens of of other people who've watched these animals for 40 years right sometimes the same individuals in the case of elephants and killer whales they've known the same individuals for 40 years yeah and and they interpreted for me right what we were seeing and what they had learned and and who these creatures are and what the trajectory of their lives has been and how it changes when something happens in their lives very similar to our lives right yeah i know i apologize for using a tribute but you're right it's really just showing this is what they this is what they do this is how they this is their life and and and it's very similar to a lot of the things that that we feel and and it allows us to connect to to these animals and it gets us excited about wildlife again and i think it's a great way to get people back into it and it's very similar um dr craig mcclean i don't know if you've ever met dr craig mcclean i have never mentioned that he's he's the chief editor at deepcnews.com and that's what he wanted to do for for the deep sea is just make people excited or allow people to get excited about science again and deep sea science for him yeah and really just show what's happening and this the stuff that he sees on time and and other authors on on the on the blog so i think it's a great way uh to to to do that kind of stuff uh now you also have um the the sophina center which is which is newly named uh you know what was the name before and and and what and can you just give a an idea what people what you do through the sophina center yeah we we used to call it the blue ocean institute uh sort after the title of my first book song for the blue ocean right but then there just became way too many things with blue ocean in the in the title everything from a trucking company to a religious sect had blue ocean in the title um so we just decided um we need to bring everything under one one term yep and the most unique term is my name so we just decided to call it that um but what we do is um we try to help people connect and understand how the living world is changing and feel very excited about what's at stake um how thrilling the living world is and and you know give people a view of what's going on out there that we gather firsthand by witnessing nature and the changes and and telling people uh these stories that we bring back to share right i mean that's so we do that you know mainly through writing and also tv and films and things like that yeah and you've done a fantastic job at it i mean i've seen a lot of things that you did and especially i have to commend you uh in in 2010 uh when the when the BP deep sea horizon oil spill um occurred you were one of the first people on site to not only be you know on the shores but you chartered a plane to you know fly over the area you also chartered uh boats to go in the area you did a a TEDx talk on the effects uh the potential effects because at that point we didn't know that the complete effects um and you you recounted a story that still i think about today during that during that TEDx where you even got emotional during it where you were talking about seeing a dolphin that was trying to kind of come to you a friend friend of mine saw that friend yeah and i was not i was not on the boat okay i'm sorry my friend told me about it and then i called the i asked him for the phone number the captain and i heard it from both of them and they both told right exactly the same story which is uh they were they were there fishing off Louisiana right and the oil was just coming uh they were basically trying to squeeze out the last couple of days before everything went chaotic right and uh dolphin appeared at the side of their boat right it it had oil on its skin it was um it was sort of splattering oil out of its blowhole and they they kept moving away from it and it kept following them and coming up along the side of the boat very much as though uh they both had the impression that it was asking for help right and uh it's it's hard to even think about that story without getting emotional no absolutely i went when you were recounting it uh during the TEDx i mean i even got emotional because and i think you know that's what a lot of people when we when we see it was great to tell that story obviously it was it was sad and a little bit depressing but it's one of those things where you see all this oil being splirted about in this ocean but we we don't see the animals we didn't see the animals being sick we didn't you know we didn't see them sort of asking for help and and and coming up to people and being like you know it covered in oil and i think that was one of the stories that really hit me just being like wow this is already happening you know animals are already being covered in this and of course it makes sense because it's covering such a large area so i think that's that's even better and when you came up with the book beyond words i was just like that those two stories for me connected because you see these animals feel they're hurt yes you know and and you see that so i think uh that's fantastic i mean the fact that you were able able to tell that story and through the cephina story through the cephina center tell all these other stories positive and negative that we need to to be aware of uh one more one more question for you now you've had a a very good career you know from from being dabbled or not dabbling but being immersed in research to policy and then communication and and and just you've been able to travel around the world to see all these different places and show people these wonderful places of the ocean and and land and and all over the place um for people who want to do the same thing for people who are just graduating university or they're in high school um what would you think if you could attribute a couple of things to you know allowing that career this very similar career to yourself for them what would you say the key things that they need to do to to achieve something like this well i did get as much education as one can reasonably get and it has in fact always proved extremely valuable um both in how i'm perceived as a credible witness but also being able to understand information and and sources of information but the other i think really key thing is i never waited for anybody to tell me what to do and the things that i wanted to do if people didn't understand why or what the value was i did it anyway right and mainly that was talking about the things that i thought were really important and talking about it as publicly as i could and that all started in fact it more or less matured before we had the internet before anybody had a blog or anything like that and um now everybody has a voice of course you know it's hard it's harder to get above the noise but um it's much easier to get your stuff out there and um as you yourself have seen if you keep at it it works yeah if you have something good to say you know it it works yeah no absolutely i mean that's it's the consistency and the persistence that that you know that will allow you to get above the you know the other not noise but other information that's out there you're competing ocean conservation is competing with all this other information whether you think it's valuable or not but it's right you know you keep doing it and you will and well keep doing it is the key thing and perseverance is the key thing especially when uh you get signals that it's not working or you're not good or people are not interested if if you can push through that yeah um i i think everybody who is perceived as successful um has pushed through a lot of really tremendous disappointment and you know people just trying to crush them or people people ignoring them um if you if you believe in what you're doing and you just keep at it um it can take a long time but eventually it usually really finds a lot of traction and it really works yeah absolutely absolutely well carl i just want to say thank you very much i appreciate you coming on on the podcast and and giving us you know a lot of your you know the history of how you became uh who you are and and all the all the work that you've done and i just want to thank you for that work because it has changed so much thanks so that we really appreciate here um and we'd love to invite you back on uh at a later date to continue off with with different things that you're there uh are you work do you have plans to put out another book in the next few years or oh yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah right and i also should mention that you have on your website uh if you go to carlsafina.org where you can see all the books and and whatnot you also have a uh a tv series out yes called saving the ocean it's on pbs and if you just uh if you just google pbs saving the ocean and my name carlafina it comes right up and there's ten episodes and you can just watch them anytime yeah we'll put that we'll put all the links to the not only your site the safina center uh and these episodes all up on our show notes at speakupforblue.com right and i have a new new TED talk about the book beyond words as well so yeah we'll put that we'll put that up too and we'll link to all your twitter and and whatnot so people can right can contact you and and uh and get to know you better so thank you very much i i really appreciate it just stay on the line a little bit and i'll tell you what's gonna happen after i'm just gonna wait after i stop recording so thank you very much uh and and have a great day great have a great day yourself thanks so that was doctor carlafina interviewing basically about everything that i wanted to ask him uh which was awesome he spent a long time like i said he's a busy man and the fact that he spent 60 minutes with us uh was just uh an absolute honor for me he never complained once he answered all the questions truthfully and honestly and i just think that is phenomenal so i really appreciate him coming on the program and hopefully we can have him on in the future and talk about a lot of different uh things again or maybe we focus on one specific thing who knows but i just you know i want the big takeaway here for the people who want to get into ocean conservation either as a career or just want to spend more time is work through be persistent work through all the trouble work through all the frustration because there's gonna be there is a light at the end of the tunnel i mean carl talked about some of its policies that he helped mold and he helped shape and he helped push through on an international and a national scale and it was frustrating however he was able to push through it he was able to continue with it learn from the process learn from others team up and collaborate with others and then go through that whole process and see the change it takes time it takes effort but it's actually worth it it might it won't happen overnight but it will happen in time so be persistent be patient be aggressive when you need to be collaborate quite a bit those are the messages that i got out of of dr karlesafina's interview and i think there are messages that we can all take home from that so uh thank you very much for listening to the speak up for blue podcast this the session notes are on the speak up for blue dot coms for slash session 94 page you can go to that the the link will be in the session notes will be on our patreon page if you want to support us you can go to speak up for blue dot com for slash patreon and uh you can access all of our links through there as well so thank you very much for listening you've been listening to speak up for blue podcast i am your host Andrew luen happy wednesday and i'll see you tomorrow happy conservation [Music]