How To Protect The Ocean
SUFB 065: Ocean Talk Friday is All About COP21
I'm joined with Nathan Johnson to discuss all the news surrounding the climate change talks in Paris and what it will mean for action to live for a better ocean.
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Show Notes:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/session65
Welcome to the speaker for blue podcast session 65 today is ocean talk Friday and we are going to focus on cop 21 the climate change conference or form or whatever you want to call it that's happening in Paris right now for the next few weeks. We're gonna talk all about it we're gonna talk about climate change we're gonna talk about what countries are doing about it what they're not doing about it the problem with the conference all the protests that are going on we're gonna talk about everything. So stay tuned for the next speaker for blue podcast. 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 room luan. Hey everybody welcome back to an exciting episode of the speaker for blue podcast your voice for the ocean I am your host Andrew luan founder speak up for blue dot com marine ecologists and self proclaimed ocean printer and today is ocean talk Friday and I am joined by none other than the recurring guest that we have on here Nathan Johnson Nathan how you doing. I'm great how you doing Andrew I am wonderful you know we Nathan we've been talking about climate change for a while now we've been talking a lot about the consequences and a lot about what's been happening with the research has been coming out and saying and what people have been observing and now and we've been leading up to this conference and it's a it's a un sponsored conference over 180 countries coming in are you ready to jump in and talk all about this this wonderful. Think we call a conference let's do it right out so the way we're going to do it normally ocean talk Friday Nathan and I pick a bunch of articles and we talk about them but we figured that this is such a big deal people are talking about in all the major news media they're talking about everywhere all the articles are on that there's protest going on so it's making a lot of news we're just going to focus on this because climate change affects the oceans and if the oceans affect climate. So this is really important and we really encourage you guys to go on the comments section so if you just go to the show notes speak up for blue dot com slash forward slash session 765 sorry 65 and you'll get on you know put a comment on what you think about what's happening and stuff now what I don't want to see is you denying climate change that there's no room on that I'm just going to can't I'm just going to I'm going to I'm going to delete your comment. Because it's just there's no point in doing that I know a lot of people you don't believe in it but you can't you can't be a non believer in a fact that's just the way it is okay. So this is not a faith thing this is these are factual things that are going on a lot of countries have considered this their number one priority including the US and Canada so of course countries that we're very close to a lot of European countries though have said the same thing Asian countries have said the same thing. So we're going to talk we're going to get right into it and the article that we've read that we're going to base everything on Nathan found it he did a great job finding it's on LinkedIn now I'm going to let Nathan Nathan I want you to caution. Don't blame about this article yeah I want you to caution because we were talking about before and you said it perfectly so why don't you want you sort of give that caution out that little bit of a preamble before we get into the article. It's it's a LinkedIn article link and and LinkedIn articles are great I think actually the first article I read from you Andrew was a LinkedIn article so yeah yeah be careful now it was a lot better than this one. I mean I read them a lot this sparked my interest I saw you know I was talking about the climate change talks it said the headline is you know why they're important. But it's a LinkedIn article so if we wanted to find you know the the most accurate the best written the most well written article about these COP 21 talks we could have found a different one. So I just want to caution everyone that go go ahead read the article there's some interesting comments to it there's some interesting points brought up it's written supposedly by the UN Secretary General I think is his title. Probably not actually written by him. No I don't know it is it was pretty poorly written there's a couple it's it's riddled with typos yeah typos repeating of phrases and it's just yeah it's terrible. Yeah so take it with a grain of salt where you know we're not going to go and dissect this article but it was a really interesting springboard to get into the larger conversation of the climate change talks in Paris what's going on what we can expect from it what are the issues associated with it. When people's reactions to it. Yeah and to be honest to be fair like the article had some promise you know it's it's a basically an introduction from ban King Moon who is the the Secretary General of the United Nations. The title of the article is what is needed from the Paris climate change conference so it's almost like when you read it when you get into it you're like okay so this is what he wants from this conference it's almost like okay what are going to what are the results going to be because we all know what's going to happen. You're going to get a countries from over 100 or representatives from over 180 countries a lot of times that they're the leaders of each of these countries and they're going to talk climate change they're going to talk about these commitments that they've made each country has made a commitment and they're going to talk about how that can be integrated and how they're going to I'm sure they're going to critique each other because a lot of them are you know everything's intertwined so one person affects the net one country affects the next. However you know it'll be interesting to see what comes out of it but I thought this article what they were going to do is like this is what we want to see. You know it's almost like a like a list of demands from the you know the Secretary General saying I want to see this by the end I want to see these kind of commitments and and it just doesn't seem like it. It kind of got there it definitely goes written I think I hope it is anyway because I think I hope Mr. Kimoon can actually write better than this but you know it's a good introduction like you said it's a good springboard on what we what we want to do so before we get into sort of the conference. I thought it'd be a good idea and you know I both thought it would be a good idea Nathan that we would just briefly talk about the consequences of climate change. Because some people don't necessarily understand what the consequences or they don't necessarily feel them because a lot of the people that I talked to will be like well they still first of all they still refer to it as global warming. That is a term of the past it's climate change global warming sort of insinuates that everything is going to be warming when that's not necessarily true. Climate change is more representative of what's happening because we are seeing a change in climate not weather but climate and climate patterns wind patterns and all sorts of things and we've seen that in North America in the last two years for sure. And we're also seeing it now with the El Nino effect so it's not necessary so we're going to talk about climate change and really kind of get into the consequence of it. And then but we're going to just do that briefly if you want more information on that we can go you can we'll put you we'll put a link up sorry we'll put a link up on the blog post on the show notes at speaker for blue dot com slash session 65. You can take a look at we got there's videos that people have made I basically put a resource together all the cons of all the sort of ocean issues that are facing the ocean all the issues that are facing the ocean and now most of its climate change so you'll see all all the stuff that we talk about in there so well let's talk about let's let's let's go kind of one for one here. Do you want to take the increased temperature what what kind of effect that's having on this. Yeah so we are on pace for it if what remains is what people call business as usual. We're on pace for about a four degree Celsius increase in global average temperatures over the next century compared to pre industrial times so when we talk about temperature increases. First of all it's a global average it doesn't mean every single day for the next 100 years it's going to be warmer than the day before it. And like you said it doesn't mean all across the country things are going to be warmer it's just a global average warming and it's compared to pre industrial times pre 1800. And kind of the the issue well there's a lot of issues associated with that but the major one is that. Ecosystems plants animals including humans cannot readily adapt to such a rapid increase in temperature because there's a lot of other it's not just warmer days. We've already talked about coral bleaching a lot of animals cannot survive increases in temperatures that rapidly and that. Yeah so that that all across the board increase in temperature is going to have a drastic impact on agriculture. Eco tourism a lot of industries so it's not just you're going to have to wear short sleeves for the next few years it's it's a lot worse than that. Yeah for sure and just to add on to that you know you're going to see warming oceans which affect weather patterns and climate. You're going to see animals at Canada we talked about coral bleaching increased temperatures can can really ruin that relationship that symbiotic relationship that corals have with their phytoplank then the coral host has with their phytoplank that cause them to change colors and feed and get the calcium carbonate that they need. You know increase temperatures can change the ph level which we're going to get into in a bit so it just changes everything it's really the preamble of all the types of consequences that we see. So I'm going to go to the next one which you know again is the increase temperatures the preamble is the increased frequency of storms and droughts. We're going to we've been seeing more and more of these events especially on when the years that we've seen high temperatures really really record breaking temperatures and we've seen increases of hurricanes which have led to major damages. We've seen droughts so again leading to damages leading to water resource use over in California everybody has to be careful with water resource companies who are using a lot more water than they should be and they're being allowed to so there's that management. It's costing people money is costing people lives you know hurricane Katrina super storm sandy you know these are causing billions of dollars in damages and it's costing lives right it is just amazing of what these storms can do. So do you want to take sea level rise next. Yeah so that's kind of related to a lot of things we talked about but as temperatures warm sea ice melts that's kind of an obvious thing that people think of so you're going to have rising sea level temperatures but also chemically water expands as it's heated up. So you're just going you're going to have kind of that twofold impact and even if it's just you know a meter or so over the next few decades depending on which model you look at you'll get different projections that a lot of our posts line is within that range. So you'll see like you said a lot more flooding you know not necessarily related to large storms just general sea level rise day to day flooding events land loss associated with a lot of this so economically that's a huge issue. You know from from just a personal safety point of view that's if you have a six inch or a foot rise in sea level that's a lot of area that you're that you're now affected so. Yeah no absolutely and also I mean you're getting. You know we often take it for granted because we don't see it all the time in Canada and the US and developing and develop countries but a lot of small island states are below sea level. And they're feeling the effect some small islands had to like the communities have had to just get up and leave after they've been there for a thousand years right so and that's going to happen more and more so these are dangerous for these kind of for these kind of areas you know so we got to be careful with that ocean acidification again you know increase temperature changes the pH because you're getting more carbon dioxide into the water. It's throwing the balance off of calcium that is usually freely available in the water for corals and calcium based animals so anything with a shell, muscles, oysters, clams. You know these are these are animals that create habitat they solidify coastlines you know they provide a huge benefit to us in many different ways from fish habitat for fishing to coastline protection and you know delaying over erosion these coral habitats these calcium based habitats need to be in place and ocean acidification caused by climate change is throwing that off and it's just one of those things where we're going to see a big we're going to see the damage from that and you know one case when the 2004 tsunami hit in Indian Ocean the coral reefs were the coral reefs that were degraded did a poor job in saving in saving that coastline or protecting that coastline and more people died along that coastline then areas where the habitats were actually intact right so that makes a big difference even though we don't see it it makes a big difference. Alright so the last one and I guess this has to do with like storms and drugs but change in weather patterns. Yeah so again a lot of this a lot of the increased storms and everything are driven by changes in atmospheric pressure because that can be related to larger storms or more frequent storms so you know with with all the increased carbon emissions CO2 emissions you're going to see just a shift in weather patterns more prolonged weather patterns we talked about the El Nino year that we're having you know that is a cyclical thing but we're seeing a more pronounced El Nino recently so that's kind of one example of when you talk about larger or more frequent storms it's usually translated back to or they're resulting from these shifts in weather patterns. Yeah for sure for sure so that's really the breakdown the brief breakdown of climate change like I said we'll put a link in the in the show notes at speakerforblue.com/session65 to show you so there's some videos and there's some talk about the different climate change consequences as well as other ocean issues so you can take a look at that it's almost like a start of where you're you know all the ocean issues if you're not familiar with them. So the second topic I really want we really want to talk about today is we're going to talk about the number of countries that are coming to the to the conference and the commitments that they've submitted according to the article in the LinkedIn article over a hundred and eighty countries have submitted commitments already that's a lot of countries that's a lot of commitments. We're going to talk about accountability where is the accountability Nathan in these countries. Is there accountability is the conference setting standards are there going to be some some fines how's that working. Well so it's it's a little unclear at this point and I think the organizers of the conference made it intentionally unclear and vague because they probably don't want to be held to saying yes we're going to create sanctions and you know like you said accountability. Basically accountability infrastructure for if these things don't happen because all so the individual countries submit individual commitments and those are voluntary I don't I don't believe they have to submit it for going to the conference and the talks but one of the outcomes of the talks in addition to figuring out a way that these countries can meet these their individual goals is creating some sort of cohesive framework for accomplishing a global accomplishing global change basically and go to the website of cop 21 a lot of what they'll talk about is very vague but they specifically mention that they will be working towards implementing a financial and a legal framework to sort of guide these goals and projects over the next few years so hopefully what that means is all these talks will be okay these are all great goals but how do we actually meet them what are the annual checkpoints what are the policies you're going to put in place to make these things actually happen what sort of financial you know are there going to be subsidies involved or is there going to be government funding is there going to be changes to the market to accomplish these things and another interesting thing from the website is that smaller countries the talks also want to set up a financial system or a funding system so that smaller countries that can't afford to do certain goals can have basically a pool of money to apply for so we talked before about the Kyoto protocol back in the 90s it's kind of a similar idea you know have everyone set these goals but there weren't any sanctions if they don't meet the goals so a lot of you know like Russia didn't ratify this thing until eight years after it was put in place right the U.S. I don't think ever ratified it a lot of the countries yeah so so a lot of countries that had great goals there's just nothing really keeping them to those goals so I think hopefully this the talks will address this but they they definitely didn't say that's what they're definitely going to do yeah I mean it is pretty vague in terms of what's going to happen out of these you assume that each country has already made its commitment and they have their own reasons for it the U.S. has made it because it says it's their biggest security risk Canada has made its commitment because we were formerly or we have been an oil and gas country we have the tar sands which is a huge emitter of carbon just because the process it takes to extract the oil out of the tar sands it is you know a lot of countries need I think they need to make a change and it is a different sort of shift in perspective coming in there's a lot more support for people or for countries to make change from their own country like Canada and the U.S. we keep focusing on that because that's what we know most about because that's where we're from but there was a poll before this conference in Canada and it said 63% of the people in Canada want something done about climate change want the country to do something about climate change and I think 50% of those were willing to pay an extra 10% in taxes or some sort of payment system to actually get that done so you can see there's a will with the people in a lot of these countries and there is so that means just forcing the leaders to do something about it now it's all a matter of will they act on it you know you can talk and talk and talk as much as you want and a lot of these countries in the past have done so last time with the Kyoto Protocol in the 90s Canada almost basically led the talks and were sort of the leaders in that kind of movement and then when they got back to Canada there was another election and the liberals who were in power at the time lost and the conservatives who were very anti-Kiodon anti-climate change adaptation and reduction just basically said no we're not ratifying it we're not going to go with it so it became a big problem you know and we it sunk our environmental reputation for Canada and now you know we're trying to get it back with another liberal government and they're going all forward so the question like you know we look at we look at accountability and we say okay well you can promise all you want but how do we we hold these countries accountable for whether they're going to do it or not you know I think that will make a difference and stop the shift if there's a shift in power to different parties in a country you can't stop it from happening like you can't stop the adaptation or the reduction of climate change causes because it's there's there's a punishment for it you know what I mean like they're held accountable for it it doesn't look like that's going to happen I hope that the people of each country will hold their leaders accountable that's what we plan on doing here in Canada I hope if the liberal government doesn't actually act on it what are your thoughts on that need yeah I think you're right I think it's more of a national issue I don't even know what the COP 21 talks could you know what sort of agreement we could even include sanctions in you know I don't know what type of legal authority we would have to do anything significant if you miss the sanctions and you know it I think again it's got to be based nationally I think it's got to be each country is going to have to hold their own leaders accountable for these types of things and the problem at least in the US with this sort of thing is that we elect people every four years climate change is not a four year issue so you know you have to take a longer term viewpoint to combat a lot of these things and you'll probably see a lot of resistance on the initial side and by the time you actually start to see any progress your term is up so it's a difficult thing for politicians to take a stand on that doesn't mean they shouldn't take a stand on it but I think any sort of sanctions that are going to come from these talks or any sort of accountability system I don't think is going to come from the UN I honestly think it's probably going to be country by country and they'll be based on the situation and the goals that we put forth and hopefully the UN can put a framework in place to guide these and countries can just adopt the policy but yeah I don't know what type of sanctions or accountability Paris could actually have well yeah and in that direction I don't really think they can but I think what it is good for and I was just thinking about this is other countries who are not necessarily putting out maybe developing countries we should term them but who are smaller countries who are not putting out the the carbon output that larger countries are like Canada US the UK they get to have a voice at these conferences and I think that's an important aspect for developed countries who are emitting these carbon these high carbon outputs have a listen to what's happening because I have a feeling a lot of times you know presidents prime ministers and what not who are there and their sort of their teams are so focused on themselves they don't hear about other people and that's what we are like you know as the people we were focused on our own country we know the major news but we don't see island communities like complete island communities moving islands because they can't handle the sea level rise you know or they've lost all their crops or you know they've lost their fish for whatever reason you know they see a bunch of plastic that washes up on their beach but it's not from them because they don't use plastic it's more from other countries so I think those small countries actually have a voice and I think that's extremely important at these conferences that the little guys you know the smaller countries get to talk to the bigger countries and they're all on an equal platform yeah and they're the ones that are most affected by it too as you mentioned a lot of them are below sea level so yeah yeah exactly and that's and that's a huge problem for a lot I mean we just saw what happened with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans who is also below sea level and that's just part of the country you know it's a smaller part of the country it's not going to affect the entire country so that makes it that makes a big difference now you know another thing that I always look at is the support at home you know of each of these things Canada seems to have the support at home right now according to these polls and even then it's not that strong it's only 63 percent the US on the other hand I don't know do you think it has a support of the people according to like the the the the the Republicans in the in the house in the Senate which I think they dominate right now it doesn't sound like their representatives but based on what they're saying really agree with climate change and so if they don't agree with climate change they're not going to act on it yeah what is your perspective you get a closer look into that kind of stuff well and so I was looking into this before before this episode in 2013 there was a poll that showed 33 percent of the United States people believe climate change is a problem and then in 2014 which the 2014 Gallup poll showed that 50 percent 51 percent of Americans don't believe it's a big deal at all that doesn't say anything about whether they believe it's happening it's just they don't believe it's a big deal and then it was like 26 percent believe you know it's it's a pretty big deal and 24 percent believe it's like the most important thing so as far as people who think it's an issue and who don't it seems like it's pretty much split 50 50 yeah there are you know it is split between party lines and I know not a lot of I don't know if any of the Republican presidential candidates right now there's like 50 of them I don't think any of them have gone out and said climate change is here and it's caused by humans and I know the Democrat candidates there's like four or five of them now it's pretty split between I think they all acknowledge that it's happening but then there's a group of people who acknowledge that it's caused by us but they've been kind of if you own if they're going to do anything about it and then the other half you know haven't said if they think it's caused by us and that's I'm maybe it's the pessimist and me but I gotta think that's because of where their funding is coming from and the fact that it's election season Yeah I agree I think it's interesting to hear you know President Obama just kind of come out he's in his last term he has nothing to lose he doesn't have to win in that direction he's basically retired after this and he's going to go on speaking engagements with Bill Clinton and the Bush's He's basically saying that this is the number one priority and he's listening to the people around him the Navy have said it and all these different agencies have said it and scientific parties have said it so he's basically on board because he has nothing to lose The other candidates both on the Democratic side and on the on the Republican side are in a bit of a problem because they need to get first of all nominated then they need to get elected as president And you want to piss off half the population if your population is split you almost want to avoid the question completely you know and because you don't want to take a side Right and you're not if you come out and say as if you're a presidential candidate and you come out and say climate change is real it's being caused by humans and we need to do something about it Kind of like what Obama's doing now you're not going to get the million dollars and donations and funding because the organizations that you know would agree with you and that statement probably don't have the cash flow that like the large oil and gas companies have So not that they wouldn't support you it's just if like you said if you're trying to get the majority of Americans it's not a popular stance to take which is unfortunate but that's kind of what we're dealing with Absolutely absolutely I think it's I think the support from the people at home is an imperative because that's going to drive politicians to make changes and that's going to drive policy policy change that's why I hear on the podcast we always tell people speak up Hell yeah your your local representative whether they be a senator or you know somebody or what do you call them I guess a house a commoner what do you call them the guys in the rest of the Congress? We don't have Congress but we just have MPs you know so or MPP so you know it's it's just you've got to speak up you've got to tell your politicians what you believe in and because that forces them to believe in because if they don't and they don't listen to the people then they can't get elected because hopefully they won't get elected but we're going to stop that this for that's essentially like when the countries come together there's going to be a lot of talks it's going to be a lot of negotiations you know especially one of the biggest things that come out of this conference is will the larger countries pay the smaller countries for the damages that are being done if they don't reduce their emissions or you know or they don't reduce their emissions causing these changes so I think it'll be interesting I think also the negotiations are going to be like okay who has to reduce what? Right right and then buy how much so each country is going to have to reduce a certain amount based on their output some are going to be more than others and I'm sure that's where the negotiation is going to come in and we'll see what happens but there are some won't coming into the conference this is this is a controversial issue I don't think it really should be but it tends to be a controversial controversial issue just because of the stuff that we've talked about there've been some criticisms of this conference do you want to kind of go over some of the criticisms? Yeah I think it's probably good too it seemed to kind of fall under a few different arguments one is that why are you having this conference in Paris when you could Skype over you know Skype in all the world leaders save a bunch in carbon emissions from the flights that you're not taking but you know the taxis you're not taking to and from different places in Paris and also it's not a new issue so a lot of people are kind of worried like we talked about earlier that nothing's going to be done so that's one of the major criticisms of it and as far as the whole destination thing I mean I kind of agree with that but that's because I'm a poor young guy who thinks everyone should just Skype in everywhere and save money but I mean there's no way you can really address that I think you can make the argument that like meeting in person creates more camaraderie and cooperation and you know yes that's true but you also can't deny that flying 180 world leaders or transporting them however they're getting there is basically adding more of an issue to the thing you're trying to come back so you know I don't have an easy answer for that but I can see people's point of view I can see people's point of view but then now I find in these kind of situations there's always someone who says that you know I mean there's always someone who says well we shouldn't be flying to this conference we should be talking from our computers at home and yeah you kind of have a point but let's be honest here this is bigger than what we're going to produce into this thing it's not as if they're doing this every day they're doing this once every year right it's all in moderation okay yes presidents and prime ministers and leaders of countries probably fly too much but when you're flying to this you have to speak to people individually you have to go into small rooms you have to negotiate you have to listen to everybody it's better in person I know like we're now in a generation and in a time where you know internet is king and we can do a lot of things from the comfort of our own home that's fine and it'll probably decrease you know the transportation emissions eventually as more and more people work from home but there is nothing better than getting things done in person I like I can't like stress that enough so I have to disagree with you a little bit there I you're right I see their point but I always find they're like they're like these these one these people who probably the people who are making the argument probably really don't care you know but the whole situation there's like oh well if you really cared you wouldn't fly there and cause so much carbon like they're trying to negotiate these are like multi billion dollar negotiations here this could cause countries a lot of money this has to be done in person it has to be it has to show you know like it has to be a show of support you know from each country and there's over 180 countries that are meeting there and there are all these and then most of them are leaders that are going themselves you know and so I think it's important that they that they do this in Canada I'm really happy that the prime minister the new prime minister Justin Trudeau brought all of the opposition we have four with five parties total he brought all the other four up all the other four leaders in the opposition with him you know to get their perspective and to work with them to do this that's not an easy thing to admit to do and he did it right off the bat something that he promised he would do so you know you're seeing like this this in person thing it's actually doing a good job if people did it from like the comfort of their own homes these people are so busy there's gonna be people walking up to them distracting them I've been on webinars before where I get distracted you know who knows you know Justin Trudeau and Obama could have a chess game going on and while they're watching a thing I don't know you know I think they get distracted too I'm sure right and I think I mean I do agree with you that the fact that it's not ideal to throw all the carbon emissions out there on a climate talk yeah they've got a point but I think when you step back and look at the big picture like it's not worth canceling this thing just because you're gonna have to fly people in and I agree with you I think a lot of this you got to step back and take a bigger picture approach and yeah I mean it's it's you'll get more stuff done in person you'll create better connections in person and we're working towards stuff on a larger scale than a few you know hundred flights will release so no for sure and I yeah it's gonna be a lot of carbon used up right now hopefully they'll offset that but let's be honest it has to be done let's move on to the next criticism where some people have said there are other things going on in the world why do we have to focus on this things that are more important war starvation and again this is one of those things where it's the same thing it's like you shouldn't be flying there because you're causing all this carbon and stuff this is obviously war and starvation and other issues like that facing the world are extremely important you know obviously but these people are leaders of countries they have to deal with multiple things this is a two week conference that they're attending and I'm sure I'm sure the leaders are being briefed on everything that's going on in their military you know like Obama's not sitting there just gonna talk about climate change for two weeks I'm sure he's got his aides coming up his you know his secretary's coming up basically saying okay this is what's happening with ISIL this is what's happening with the bombing this is what's happening here and these are our programs here guys getting updated all the time you know and so the fact that you know people are saying well we should be focusing on more things this is a major issue for every country to deal with and now the countries are really starting to realize that so I don't know I think this is more one of those again a cheap shot criticism of what's happening I think this issue has to be addressed and it's not more or less equal than the war or starvation obviously but it's up there it is up there yeah I kind of I agree I think they're kind of just missing the point like no one is saying that because we're holding these climate talks that like you said everything is just going to be pushed in the back of their minds and they're not going to think about it's basically a two week climate change conference with nothing else on your mind so yeah I don't know with comments like that I kind of just think what's the point of telling us these things like everyone is fully aware that there's other things going on and you know for countries that have a lot more immediate issues safety issues security issues food issues no one no one would fault them if they didn't come to the conference you know if you've got to deal with terrorist attacks in your country you should deal with that but I think you're right like the climate change is a huge issue and it gets pushed a lot to the back because environmental concerns are kind of viewed as luxury concerns just because like I said if you're dealing with war or starvation you address those issues first yeah the problem is climate change has an indirect hand or direct hand even in a lot of those so this is working towards addressing a bigger picture than most people are used to dealing with it's not fix this one thing and everything will be fine so it is important it's not the first thing on a lot of people's minds but that doesn't mean it doesn't warrant attention yeah no I completely agree I mean you know without going into too many details war and starvation other issues are probably linked to climate change a lot of it you know you look at war and you know a lot of people think that a lot of the wars that are happening now are going on because of oil and gas control decreasing our climate change impact will decrease decrease our dependency on oil and gas you know and of course starvation comes with agricultural crops which are being affected by the by climate patterns again you know it's linked to climate change so you're right Nathan we just have to be careful on what we say and these are just critics who have nothing better to do in my opinion these are not leaders these are just people on social media who are criticizing this kind of stuff that are just you know not really really talking about the major issues that's going on and the last kind of criticism that we're going to talk about is oceans are not on the actually on the agenda of this conference like specifically you were mentioning that to me I was surprised to hear that what are your thoughts on that I think it's dumb like I so I looked at the agenda briefly and a lot of it is related to reducing carbon emissions which is you know a really important thing I don't think anyone can say that they shouldn't have focused as much and I think it's great that a lot of the talkers are a lot of speakers are people in private industry or like heads of organizations because you can have all the scientists and all the politicians in the room you want but if you don't have people who have monetary incentives to reduce you know carbon emissions then you're not going to have much success so I think what they have is good I don't want to give off the impression that I completely disagree with the whole talk I think you know overall this is a good thing where you are just addressing some of the major criticisms that you know no conference is perfect right but yeah sorry go on I just didn't want to say and then so I mean the ocean is one of the most important factors when you're talking about reducing impacts of climate change because it's an enormous carbon sink so you know there's a lot of things that we can do that focus on protecting the ocean that will have very beneficial results regarding climate change and I'm sure behind the scenes and during these talks the ocean has brought up a whole lot you can't ignore the ocean when you talk about climate change but is it is kind of frustrating that it wasn't given its own I guess you know at least a session or a day just because I think a lot you know this goes back to what you're saying about a lot of the small island states that have a voice the ocean is critical to their economy to their way of life and small island states are probably more connected and see more of the connection between the ocean climate change then maybe larger developed states so it would have been nice to kind of see the increased awareness that could have come from a whole session on ocean science so you know it is kind of frustrating but it's you know I can't imagine that it's being neglected yeah no I agree I think it's going to come up in a lot of the talks you know a lot of these countries have a lot of their borders along along major oceans so it's it's going to be up there but I was just it was peculiar to see specifically oceans not on the agenda but they're talking about reducing emissions which start the whole thing you know and that's that's very important and I think hopefully they're focusing on action and they're not going to focus on okay this is what ocean acidification is this is what sea level rises it's this is how we adapt to it this is how we reduce the effects you know try and reverse it if that's even possible so I just yeah it is very peculiar that oceans itself is not on the on the agenda but let's go into some other things these are some more of lighter things there were some protests that happened over the weekend in preparation for this to in particular that I want to talk about the protests in Paris and then the other was there were some protests in Canada there's a major one in in Ottawa the Paris one let you describe that what happened in Paris it made news all over the world of course so the conference but it was kind of interesting what happened in Paris and why so it's tied back to there've been a lot of climate mark excuse me marches over the past few weeks to kind of lead up to the talks basically you know I don't know if I would call them protesters basically to raise awareness for you know this is an important issue where we're going to be heard that sort of thing so but because of the the terrorist attacks in Paris the heightened security didn't want any sort of marches you know for understandable reason so what what a lot of the climate activists did instead was just place pairs of shoes throughout Paris basically saying you know we know we can't physically be here but this is a representation of not only all of us who would be here if we could but also it's it's sort of an indication of future generations yeah of how important this is not just for us but for all the people who will be you know walking in our footsteps generations from now yeah I thought it was pretty interesting I thought it you know it it kind of drove the the message home that people care enough to put their shoes out in the middle of the street in Paris and I'm assuming it's a busy intersection to make the statement that one we care about this issue so much that we're willing to risk going into the streets putting our shoes down and leaving that's a it's still a big risk because you have a lot of people coming it's not as if one person just laid out all those shoes people laid their shoes out and they all had to go out there so that's a security risk but they cared enough to say no we're going to go out and we're going to make this statement I thought it was interesting how they how they did that and plus you actually see how many shoes are out there it was kind of interesting you see how many people you know really believe in that yeah there's a lot yeah because I don't know how you find your shoes after you know what I mean like you basically lose your shoes right it's got to be a crappy pair of shoes like you borrow your friend's pair and tell him you'll bring it back later yeah these are like your cheap flip flops that you bought you know at the local store because you can't afford to lose a good pair of shoes but you know all kidding aside like I think that was a it was a pretty strong statement to say you know we know the security risk we're going to head out there anyway but we're not going to stay out there because we're going to respect the law but this is how much we believe need to be done now in Canada there was some protests in Ottawa our capital to basically tell the government that we are serious the citizens of Canada are serious about this climate change we want to see changes and we want to see action and I thought it was interesting and because people who have been on this podcast who have been listening have known that I've been very happy that there's been a change in government the previous government the conservatives that were in power they did not they didn't even I don't even think they addressed climate change you know they brought our international reputation for environment down to basically the bottom by just not addressing it focusing more in the tar sands all this stuff the new government that came in right away because these climate talks were coming up this these climate this climate form was coming up they basically said not only are we going to are we going to go to this conference we're going to say we're ready for change and I'm going to bring all the leaders of the other parties that we beat to get in here to come with me and we're going to work this together you know knowing there's going to be conflict in terms of how things are done but they're going to go and they're going to do things together so I found it really interesting that there were still protests you know everything that governments are supposed to do they're going to do so all these environmentalists or environmentally focused people went out to protest to tell the government hey we want you to do something but the government's like yeah that's great we're going to do it you know and other than the fact that hey we're just going to drive the message home to say yes we want stuff done just to remind you I just didn't see the point of the protest what are your thoughts on it might just being a little picky here or what no I mean honest it's okay I think at a demonstration and we talked about this earlier I think a demonstration to let people know we you know we're going to be following up with you guys when you get back from the conference something like this something like that yeah I think that would be fine some sort of like rally that yeah that's fine and something like the Paris the shoe demonstration you could label that a show of support for the world leaders going to talk about climate change you could label that a protest for not enough being not enough focus being put on climate change it's really all how you spin it but I think any sort of like hard protest is kind of pointless because what first of all it's not going to do any good because like you said the government just got into power they're already doing what they said they would do it's too early yet to see if anything's going to come of it so they can't be angry that nothing's coming of it yet but so and then at least in the U.S. with like half half the population not really considering climate change a huge impact or a huge issue the the major criticism against climate change activist seems to be that we're reacting we're overreacting basically yeah that you know people will say climates change naturally people will say the climate may not even be changing people may say it is but it's not our fault all that sort of stuff so to have this sort of thing where you have a pollute a leader of your country who supports action on climate change who's bringing other party member or other people from different parties in the under the same roof to address this and then have climate activists still be upset or seem like they're upset if it's a protest that just seems to be hurting the cause more than it's helping the cause yeah yeah and I think I was a little bit uh miffed if lack for a better word uh by some of the emails I received you know of some of the environmental organizations ones that I respect who were you know they would email about the con about the upcoming protests and they'd say like hey you know let's tell the government how we feel and it's kind of like we did we elected them you know what I mean like I guess because it's so close to the election and they've been saying such good things maybe I'm biased because I voted for liberal I don't know but it just seemed unnecessary the way they were going about it and I agree with you if you went about it say hey we're just gonna remind the government we're gonna let other people know that you know Canadians do want climate change to be addressed and changes to happen then we're gonna do that but it just seemed like wow like it just seemed a little over the top to me I don't know maybe I'm being a little too picky but it's so it's so unlike you guys too Canada is supposed to be the most polite place we did it politely though you know we probably they probably apologize profusely right after you know yeah you have a couple of signs that just say please read these yeah yeah yeah and then sorry for the inconvenience you know yeah no stereotyping on this show at all but anyway no let's let's okay so let's move on it's talking about people and the way they talk about climate change if one good thing about LinkedIn articles is anybody can comment and this is done like through LinkedIn they've got this pulse which is you basically read what other articles people write I've written as you mentioned I've written a bunch of them on there and this essentially it's just like you can read essentially what everybody's doing from business to environment to anything right but anybody can comment and climate change in the past and now always gets a lot of comments from varying people and so when you sent me this article today I replied to my hey have you read the comments like like the first ten and we read you went back and you read them I thought they're pretty funny I read like the first ten some I couldn't read because there were different languages but one thing that was interesting there's still some climate change deniers in there I don't get it but there's still some climate change deniers you know there are some people who said you know with all due respect there are other people like the United Nations should be doing other things you know and mostly just keeping peace well that's their main focus but they have an environmental focus which they kind of bring back around on peace what do you have to say about some of these comments I don't know I thought some of them were pretty funny well I mean I didn't read them at first I normally don't read comments on this sort of thing because like you said anyone can just comment on it so it's kind of what I expected I mean if you have a social media article that has climate change in the title you're going to attract people who are really for climate change be really against climate change or you know people who accidentally clicked on it and decided to read it anyway so you're gonna get the entire spectrum I'm not surprised that people commented on there saying you know climate change isn't happening or climate change is happening but it's just a natural process and we shouldn't do anything about it I think that's just kind of what you'd expect it's disheartening you know it's kind of some of it's funny but I think it's kind of sad that it's funny at this point but yeah I don't know it's something that I think just comes with the territory yeah yeah I just want to read like one guy he wrote you know I guess he's Canadian and so that's like I kind of figured it's pretty funny so he mentions how the Secretary General didn't really write the article which we kind of agree he probably didn't that's probably true yeah but secondly he said and more importantly not many people in my part of the world believe you and he said certainly I do not this is perfect quote from the word for word from him I said despite the lefty government so that's the liberal government and the gushing media that are representing Canada remember that they are representing less than 39% of the people in this country so he's saying that basically 39% of the people voted for liberals but you also remember the liberals won a majority vote they got like over 185 seats so from now on they don't need the other parties to agree to vote for them so if there's you can either have a majority government or a minority government in a minority government you need another party you need some of the opposition to vote with you on a bill if you don't get a bill passed it's basically we have to start over we have to have a new election and everything like that with a majority government you can basically pass anything you want because you have the majority of the votes right and that's what the conservatives had for the last five years and now liberals have that so I think he's pretty pissed you know even though 39% of the people that voted voted 39 I guess there's 63% of the people voted or something like that 39% voted for for the liberals so he said however they will the government will make enough noise at our countries that other countries often believe that they are the only example of Canada they are not far too many scientists this is what I love far too many scientists of strong reputation deny your words remember when we were all worried about rapidly approaching ice age and the fear it brought when all that cash was running out of that one we were told to fear global warming all the cash has been run out of that one as well so wrong on so many different levels yeah like just ridiculous like just it's just ignorance ignorance it goes now we're now we're told the climate is changing well tell you buddy climate is changing global warming that was all part of the same movement people just termed it differently and it was the opposition people who didn't want climate change to actually say you know to debunk that or try and debunk that you know and he even goes what's next the sky is falling or the earth is spinning too fast I love it I just think it's it's so I don't know you get a lot of comments like that there are comments on here that people are like supporting it they want to see more action and stuff and I really appreciate those I agree I think these talks are talks and we need to see more action I'd love to see countries come out of this with more of an action plan and then implement it right away or already implement show that they're already implementing I think that is going to be the biggest struggle for each of those countries but I just find it interesting to see what people are saying there were over 180 comments I believe or 140 comments yeah there's a lot yeah and they're all varying but people a lot of people liked it and stuff so I think it's I think it's interesting but anyway final thoughts what are your final thoughts on this before we head out I think it's a good thing to focus on and I think I think if we take a step back and you know we've we've critiqued a lot about this because you know both you and I have science degrees we're both ocean researchers so we're obviously going to focus more on the ocean and how you know these things can help impact climate change in a beneficial way how we can slow down climate change but I think in the grand scheme of things it's good that world leaders are still coming together and talking about this yes we hope that there's actually some action taken from this that there's some sort of you know guidelines or some sort of tangible document that's produced from these talks that can help guide future policies but yeah I think this this is mostly good this is mostly good yeah no I completely agree I think I mean this has to be I think we're coming into a talk is the first time we've come into a conference like this a climate change conference where the world is pretty much on board for changes and so I feel positive about the outcomes of this conference and I feel good about it there are a lot more countries especially the developed countries that denied it before that are going in with positive attitudes of change the question that remains is if and when those parties are out of office what's going to happen because it seems like the opposite end of the spectrum for politics is very against addressing climate change or denying climate change so it'll be interesting to see what happens after the next elections for each government or when a party changes in leadership to see what happens and this of course is just in Canada and the U.S. it's very polarized I'm sure it happens also in other countries as well so there's 180 different countries there so over that so it'll be interesting to see what each of their outcomes are if their commitments change after the conference that would be interesting to see as well so but I think it's a lot more positive than it has been in the past and I think we're I'm hoping I've got a lot of hope in me that this will be a lot of better outcome so yeah so that's basically it for our climate our our COP 21 Paris conference critique and review maybe next week when we see more more developments we'll talk we'll put in a we won't do a full episode dedicate like we did today but maybe in the next ocean talk Friday and anything you and I can talk about maybe one or two articles about this and spend make five ten minutes on it on each one and just talk about some of the developments that we're going to talk about some of the developments that we hear over the next week or so yeah there there is some good news that I wanted to bring up Palau became the 15th country to go for the Port State Measures Agreement which is a thing we talked about a couple weeks back the international restrictions on illegal fishing and so Palau became the first Pacific country to agree to that and from what people are saying that is that it'll probably be reach that 25 number and take into effect in the next year so that's good that's awesome maybe we can do a little bit more about that next week as well because I think that we should focus a little bit more on that that's awesome but thanks for that putting in that good news it's always good to hear good news about the ocean absolutely absolutely so and Nathan thank you very much yeah exactly way to go virtual high-five but yeah so anyway so that's our that's our episode today that's our ocean talk Friday I hope you have a good Friday hope you have a good week and I hope you enjoyed this we'd love to hear your comments on the show notes just go to SpeakUpForBlue.com/session65 we appreciate you guys listening to us you've been listening to SpeakUp For Blue podcast I'm your host Andrew Lewin with Nathan Johnson we hope you have a great Friday we hope you have a great weekend happy conservation [Music]