If you like sharks, then you're going to want to see climate change reduced before 2100. Because there is a new study out that says that if in the worst case scenario, if we continue to develop fossil fuels the way we are now, that sharks will only hatch at an 11% success rate. That means newborn sharks will only have an 11% success rate of actually hatching. We're going to talk about why that's important on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show.
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. And this is a podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about sharks and why we love sharks so much. We love
sharks so much because they're interesting. They're mysterious. They kind of scare us a little bit, but there's a lot of different species of sharks out there. There's over 1200 species of, sharks, skates, chimeras, stingrays, whatever you want to call your different types of sharks. They're out there. There's over 1,200. We talk a lot about sharks over on the Beyond Jaws podcast that I co-host with Dr. David Ebert, a.k.a. The
Lost Shark Guy. So if you ever want to hear more about sharks, check out that podcast. But really, when it comes down to it, we love sharks. And sharks are important to the ecosystem. They're essentially a predator, and they pretty much have a good formation and form what a food web looks like because they, a lot of times, are apex predators. And we need to protect sharks as much as possible. We need to make sure that not only are they surviving in
adulthood, but they're getting to adulthood. And to get to adulthood, you have to be able to hatch from their egg cases, right? That's what a lot of sharks do. They hatch from egg cases. And there's a study that came out that says, hey, you know what? the worst temperature gets and the more acidic the oceans get, the less we're going to have of sharks because they're not going to be able to hatch properly. And so that's a
problem that we're going to talk about today. Before we do that though, if you're interested in news and you want to know more about the ocean news, this is your resource. As this podcast, I hope that this is your resource you come to to learn about the new studies that are coming out, people that are doing them, and just overall how you can protect the
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and you get to listen to it right in your email. So if you want to sign up for that newsletter, you can do so at speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter. All right, let's get back into this. Now this original story was found on fizz.org. I found this on The Cooldown. The Cooldown's a great website to learn more about climate change. Gotta love that. I'll see you And her team has found some disturbing data involving oceanic warming and acidification that are affecting small spotted
cat sharks. So these are just one species that they've found. and that they did some experiments on, and they looked at some scenarios. And so the whole thing is we know that extreme weather is here. We're seeing spikes in ocean temperature. We're seeing increases in pH, meaning if you know the pH scale from 1 to about 15, I guess, somewhere around there, normal pH of an ocean is about 8.2, 8.3, normally 8.3. As it gets less of pH, as the pH decreases,
we're actually seeing more acidification. So it's getting more acidic. So 7 is about neutral, anything under that is more acidic. And so when you start to see acidic water, you start to see the dissolving of anything that's made from calcareous material. So you'll see corals start to decay. You'll see mollusks like clams and oysters start to decay. Mussels start to decay. Scallops start
to decay. Anything that has a shell, crustaceans such as shrimp and such as crabs and lobster, you won't see them grow as well because of the acidity in the water. The higher the temperature in the atmosphere, the more carbon dioxide that comes into the ocean, That carbon dioxide reacts with the calcium in the ocean, and there's less free calcium for those organisms to pick up,
and so it becomes hydrocarbic acid, I think? And so it becomes more acidic, and then you get acid water, and you get less crustaceans, you get less molluscs that have shells on them. And that is not good, because those are habitats, right? You get less coral reefs as well. Anything that has a calcium-based shell, you get less of,
because it'll slowly start to weather away. It won't be as strong. And so what they're saying here is as temperatures increase and as acidity increases as well, you are going to get less of these types of organisms, including, apparently, small-spotted cat sharks. essentially study was about, that they said here, the hatching success
of embryos is crucial factor for population dynamics. In the case of skates and sharks, which have a slow pace of life, low hatching rates could be critical for population renewal. This is Coulombe, the PhD student who shared this article. So luckily we've gotten advanced notice about how environmental changes due to heat and pollution can affect Not just ocean life, but every creature on the planet. So why is this
information important? Studies have shown that warmer ocean temperatures impair cognitive function in fish and abnormally high spikes in North Atlantic seas could lead to high mortality rates. The NOAA's projections for the year 2100 showed a pH and carbon levels that could begin dissolving the shells of crustaceans. So this is like lobster, shrimp, crabs, and so forth. Kulo's team created several tiered scenarios for the future and had, so they basically went from less impact
to most impact. So SSP2, or middle of the road model, which describes a future where progress towards reducing pollution is underway. This is what we're hoping to see, but net zero isn't achieved just yet. They offered an 83% survival rate of the sharks. But if you go to the other extreme, the SSP5, or the fossil-fueled development scenario, was quite dire. They were shocked to see the low survival rate observed in the SSP5 scenario with only 11% of embryos hatching. So
what is the problem with that? You're going to have less sharks. You're going to have less small spotted cat sharks, which also could mean less sharks of other species of sharks and skates and stingrays that have these egg cases. There's something in the water when it's acidic that these egg cases don't do well. The development is not as good. And so we're gonna start to see low development, low survival rates, and that's gonna kill off a lot of sharks in the
future. Now, what can we do? It's really take action against climate change. That is the big thing. More research needed on figuring out which species will be affected. But other than that, you wanna find out how we can reduce climate change. Reducing climate change should be the biggest movement that we've ever seen. And we're starting to see governments work on that. too slow in my opinion, but slowly starting to work on that,
but they need to do better. They need to start focusing on more advanced policies, stricter rules for emissions, getting back into policies that are positive for the environment, that are positive for the atmosphere, looking at equality and equity within action, giving back local communities with help, just it's everything. We need to throw the book at it. We need to throw everything we have
and say, hey, you know what? We're going to reduce climate change. We're going to reduce climate change as much as possible, as fast as we can. And more governments have to act more aggressively. Now, it sounds easy to do. But it's not, right? You know this, like we've been talking about this for a long time. Climate change is a complex problem because there's money tied to it. There's businesses, there's industries that are tied to it that contribute to climate change.
Unfortunately, a lot of those businesses have the backs of a lot of politicians who are in power now and will be in power later on.
We have two major elections coming up in Canada and North America or in Canada in the US in the US in November 2024 this year There's a huge election for president as well as for Congress people and some senators and then of course in Canada in 2025 we have a big election federal election of who will be the new prime minister or will this that will Trudeau stay prime minister now when you look at what we're looking at in terms of action for these
different groups. One party is better than the other in terms of taking action. One party doesn't take action at all. So it really comes down to do you want to see a future where you have seen less change in the environment or do you want to see a future where you're going to see a ton of change in the environment, and it's not going to be good. It's going to be more expensive, more weather-related events, more natural disasters, and a
lot of money going towards fixing that. And I don't know how we're all going to pay for that. We're going to get less services so that we can put our tax money towards that. No matter what country you live in, it's going to be bad. It's not going to be good. So the ways that you can help according to this article, you can get involved in climate issues, talk about climate issues, you can support forward-thinking policies, so support the people who want to put forward forward-thinking policies
and do your part in transitioning to cleaner tech. such as EVs, solar panels, and whatnot. I even think now they have heat exchangers and coolers. There's geothermal that can work as well. They're expensive. This tech is really expensive. It's very difficult to get if you're not in a position to get that. do what you can, get involved with your government, get involved with non-profit organizations that are working towards changing climate and making changes towards reducing climate change is
what I really meant there. But that's really what it comes down to is, you know, if you want to save these sharks, if you want to make sure that we are going to see sharks and other species continue to persist within the environment. Now, we're also not just talking about sharks that sort of, you know, Form aware or have influence over a food web, but you're also looking at you know Organisms that create habitats, you know, some of the most diverse habitats in the
world, you know You're gonna have coral reefs. You're gonna have oyster reefs You're going to have mussels and clams and scallops, all that have shells that can form these complex systems, these complex habitats that provide hiding places for fish, that provide food, that clean up the water through filter feeding. There's a lot of benefits in keeping these organisms intact and reducing climate change to do that. The ocean can only take a certain amount of carbon dioxide before it starts to
change, and it's already changing. huge spikes in temperature that we haven't seen before. And it continues to get hotter and hotter in that ocean. You can only do it so much where you're going to get a change where you just can't change back. So let's do our part. Let's talk about more climate issues. Let's start to talk about it with our government representatives or future government representatives and become a government representative, especially
if you're into changing climate. And I think, you know, just in the previous episode, we talked to Janelle Kelman, who is someone who is very forward-thinking. She's an environmental lawyer. She's also was the mayor of Sausalito City in California. She now sits on the council. She's running for lieutenant governor of California in 2026, where she will have influence over policies and programs that have to do with the environment, including the ocean. This is
how you can get in. Lieutenant Governor may not be the spotlight position that you'd want in government, but it's something that she can be most effective at in the background that she has and the motivation that she has to help save our planet, one city at a time, one state at a time. I think that's a valuable lesson. If you want to listen to that episode, you can go back to the last episode, listen to
that interview. It was a great interview. She has such great energy, loves the ocean, loves the environment, and she wants to protect it. And I think that's great. That's what we need, more political leaders who do that kind of stuff. And who want to be motivated to
do that kind of stuff or who are motivated to do that kind of stuff? So check that out and of course That's it for today's episode if you want to have a conversation about this you want to talk about this Please feel free to visit us on YouTube because I'm starting to put out these YouTube channel YouTube video podcasts I'm also putting the video on on on Spotify where you can actually comment and and or answer polls
when they're there. It's a great platform. It's really turning into such a great platform for podcasting and interaction. I love the interaction because this is the start of a conversation that I want to continue with hearing from you and what you think. Whether you agree with me or don't agree with me, that's fine. I don't really mind. I'd love to just chat with you and hear your thoughts on all these items, especially, you know, sharks being affected by climate change even
before they're born. Like that's, that's the crazy part. It's even before they're born. So something that you can chat about, you can hit me up also on Instagram at how to protect the ocean and you can just DM me there, but there's so many ways to get ahold of me. You can use any which one you want. Love to hear from you. And thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host,