How To Protect The Ocean

This has been an interesting week for Climate Change in Canada. The Federal Government roled out the Carbon Tax for Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick, then the government released a report that Canada was warming more than what we initially thought, and then the Environment Commissioner came out with a scathing report saying that the government was not doing enough about reducing...

I am very happy to present this interview I had with Erica Moulton, Director of STEM at St. Petersburg College and fellow Oceanpreneur. We chat about all her projects that she has on the go because they each contribute to Marine Conservation in different ways.  Erica's Director position at the college offers students a chance to get a feel for the hands-on work it will take for various jobs in STE...

Maxime Ducker, the founder of OurGoodBrands.com , joins me on the podcast to discuss her work profiling and promoting great brands that do social and environmental good.  Maxime provides us with information on Social Enterprise trends in the social impact sectors. We discuss 4Oceans, the Fashion Sector, and the Zero Waste Living sector. Consider visiting OurGoodBrands.com to find out more about tr...

I published an episode on herring fishers in British Columbia that were harassing sea lions, who were also catching herring. the trouble was, the herring were being caught by sea lions while in the fisher's gill nets. I asked the question "Who has priority over the herring?" I felt bad for both sides of the issue (the fishers and the sea lions), but as a conservationist, I tended to side with the...

Canada has finally implemented its Carbon tax for the remaining provinces who hadn't yet implemented the Federally mandated program . The Provinces had a chance to implement their own carbon tax; however, Conservative leadership in the provinces of Ontario, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan refused to abide by the plan. Therefore, the Federal government instituted its own Carbon Tax for th...

A new article in Think Progress has reported that Renewable Energy, such as solar and wind, are becoming more competitive than coal and natural gas as prices for batteries (for energy storage) and manufacturing parts drop.  The article comes at a time when the President of the United States mocked wind energy at a recent rally. We all know that the President backs fossil fuel energy as many of the...

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has been shaking up Congress on many levels including calling out banks who support fossil fuels, calling out crooked business people making shaded deals, and backing the Green New Deal.  The Republicans have decided to attack the Green New Deal and anyone who is trying to address Climate Change and tagging them as "The Elite Left." You would think that this rhetoric should...

This is a listener request episode, where Alexandra Avila emailed me to ask me how the size of Marine Protected Areas (MPA) was determined for nearshore fisheries. Of course, the size of an MPA varies from place to place and fish to fish (some times the MPA is protecting several different species). Therefore, you will really need to listen to the episode to hear my answer.  Do you have anything to...

Ocean Optimism is always good to have when trying to do Marine Conservation; however, the optimism is quickly dissipating with the Vaquita in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico.  As you may know, the small porpoise that is known as the Vaquita is closer to extinction every day because of the fishery of another endangered species called the totoaba, which is fished for its swim bladder and shipped to Asia f...

We are always asked by Marine Conservation organizations for their support for the work that they do. The organizations often ask us for money to help fund their work, but there are other ways in which we can support organizations without having to fork over our hard-earned money that we may not be able to donate.  In this episode, I discuss the Marine Conservation Organizations that I love and ho...

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are a great tool in the Conservation toolbelt as they have, do, and continue to protect fisheries and biodiversity all over the world; however, MPAs do not protect certain species from other human disturbances such water pollution and climate change.  A new Mongabay article covered a paper that was authored by John Bruno and a team of scientists that reviewed 18 peer-...

Buying seafood is a difficult process these days, especially if you would like to buy sustainably caught seafood. There are so many things to take into account such as farmed vs wild caught, how the seafood was caught, where it was caught, and who caught it. Then, when you finally think you have everything solved with apps such as Seafood Watch and programs such as Ocean Wise, you find out that th...

Nick Wehner joins me on the podcast today to discuss some huge news from the ongoing world of Pay Wall Journals vs Open Access Journals. The University of California has officially ended its contract with the publisher Elsevier , which was worth $11 million. UC said it was ending the contract to continue its pursuit of more available Open Access documents.  A whopping 70% of Marine Conservation Ma...

Florida is thinking of banning plastic straws in the state, but not before a 5-year study to see how it would impact the people of Florida. You are probably wondering why Florida would wait for 5 years, or you might be rolling your eyes saying "Oh Florida!!!" However, I don't necessarily disagree with the State government on this matter. Banning plastic straws altogether could be bad for people wi...

Have you ever wondered why Mako sharks swim so fast through the water? Well, researchers have found out how they are able to handle the resistance of a medium such as salt water. It all comes down to their denticles.   Mako sharks have flexible denticles that move to lower the resistance of water in places that will offer the most resistance (the gills) where flow separation exists. Flow separatio...

There was a National Geographic article that came out a couple of weeks ago claiming their research team found a "New" type of Orca in the subantarctic (coastal Antarctica).  The "New" ecotype of orca is called Type D and it has clear morphological differences as the eyepatch is larger, the dorsal fin is longer and more narrow, and the animal is shorter than other Orcas.  Unfortunately, their clai...

Greta Thundberg, a 16-year-old girl, was the inspiration for the global student strike against climate change that occurred last Friday, March 15th during what she calls #FridaysForTheFuture.  Greta started protesting against climate change after she saw inaction from politicians, engineers, professionals, and even her own parents in August 2018. She missed school for 3 weeks to protest in front o...

One week ago today, more than 150 people died tragically in a plane crash in Ethiopia. Several young and bright scientists were among those who died in the crash as they were on their way to a United Nations of the Environment Conference in Kenya.  Today, I read their names so that we can remember who they were and what they did for conservation.

Illegal fishing is a big problem in the Ocean. It's a problem because the ships can be hard to find and marine conservations may not know a lot of distribution information of the fish being illegally caught. Fishers tend to know where the best fish aggregation sites are. Illegal fishers do to and they won't tell anyone where these sites are. Tools are necessary to find these sites where illegal fi...

Oil spills happen. As we have seen over the past couple of episodes, oil spills can happen anywhere and sometimes governments  facilitate the process by not protecting their citizens. Unfortunately, oil spills can have a drastic negative influence on small communities such as Renell Island, a small island within the chain of the Solomon Islands.  A tank carrying 700 tonnes of oil was ashore during...

The Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico was one of the worst oils spill disasters in US History. The Obama administration wrote specific regulations in response to prevent another disaster from happening again.  Since 2016, the Trump administration has given out many waivers to those regulations as oil companies have stated the regulations will slow their process down. The waivers mean t...

Husky Oil Company was responsible for an Oil Spill of 250,000 Litres off the Coast of St. John's, Newfoundland last November (2018). The slick was 21 km long and 8 km wide; however, the media relations people for the company did not make the dimensions of the slick available for the public. Why didn't they make it available? Perhaps it was because the public has difficulty picturing how much Ocean...

Dr. Edward Hind-Ozan shared a great article that really got our Speak Up For Blue Group thinking about the prioritization of finding Ocean Solutions. The article discusses how there seems to be a heavy push in funding and policy for plastic pollution, but little support for Climate Change, which has been deemed a number one priority for many governments.  Plastic pollution is an interesting issue...

A video of a fisherman throwing a bear bomb into a pod of sea lions out in the ocean went viral on the web recently. The fisherman laughed about the incident confirming his distaste for the pinnipeds. He's not the only fisherman who finds the sea lions pests. Others have been complaining about sea lions eating their herring catch right out of their nets often damaging their fishing gear.  There se...

I got the chance to sit down with John Davis to discuss how funding for projects for fighting marine plastic pollution is shifting from a non-profit model to a for-profit model. The shift comes with companies and venture capitalists that have identified a number of opportunities to make money off of harnessing ocean plastic pollution to make a profit and an impact.  John and I dive into how the fu...