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Pastime, Ross, Kenyan, we have a bonus episode with an alumnus dr. Brian Vaughn hurts in, you are back on the show executive director of the climate foundation and globe-trotting for marine permaculture all over the place. Exciting things, afoot, and I recently saw you in a movie, I didn't expect to I was watching 2040 by Damon Guillermo. I believe is how you say it? Brian. Damon Gamo. Damon game. Oh yeah.
Greetings from Earth. It's great to be here and we love working with Damon on the 2040 film. That was such a great opportunity, to showcase our chance to draw down in the soils and the Seas and be able to work towards a healthy climate by 2040. I heard about it through the drawdown, Seattle group, the organizer reached out and said, hey, you want to watch this. We're doing a live screening, I said, sure.
And I was wondering ahead of time if any familiar faces would appear lo and behold Brian Vaughn Hartson out there on a boat looking like a real nada. All professional out there. Very, very cool. So yeah. How did that happen? And what exactly were you doing
with Damon? Well, you know, I'm reading this book and podcast right now by Amanda Palmer called The Art of asking, and this is all about, you know, leaning into the change that the earth needs and we asked our friends, my friend had a 39-foot, Hinckley sailboat, beautiful boat. He spent like 12 years restoring the hall and building the whole thing and getting it out. We got Damon down in Woods Hole.
Our home town in Massachusetts. We Got out on the sailboat and we shot this and it was just so much fun to capture that, you know, my partner, Rebecca got a picture of that sailboat on the on the front cover of wooden sailboat magazine and it's just one of these classic Hinckley 39s.
You know, it's just, it was so much fun being part of that but that's it, you know, it's this sustainable Marine culture permaculture, if you will, that is where it's at, it's about using renewable energy sources, whether it's Marine solar near the equator, wind energy at the higher latitudes or wave One we can to effectively provide the energy, we need to provide Deep Water, Irrigation to our kelp forest and our seaweed Farms 24 hours a day and that's what we're testing from the
Philippines to Tasmania. Yeah, you're on in Australia right now is you just got out of quarantine on arrival? Yeah, we're just getting out of quarantine.
We just, we had half a year and Singapore, we managed to get a visa from Australia. And we're going to set up our International headquarters for the climate foundation in Queensland, and we're going to be doing engineering test with our Our key Partners hash limited out of Toronto Canada, they've got 10,000 professionals working with deployments in 150
countries. And for the second year they've signed up for a major pro bono initiative to design the Marine permaculture at the 100 square meter scale. The thousand square meter scale, and the commercial ha, and we're thrilled to be working with Partners like that and Minter, Ellison, Law Firm out of Australia. Who's really helped us on permitting on IP development and ultimately on building the future that we need to see. Apply it across the Pacific, Ocean to enable regenerating
life in the ocean feeding. The billions of people that rely on the ocean for food and ultimately measuring that carbon export of these regenerative interventions to see how this is part of getting us back to a healthy climate, how much of your choice of Australia is you paying homage to Bill Mollison? Bill is huge, you know. I'm working with Bill and with Dave Holmgren to really lean into permaculture.
You know, Dave Holmgren told me me that bills original inspiration for permaculture was actually from the Tasmanian kelp forests on the east side of Tasmania it was that connection to the Sea and watching the sea birds and the Sea Life, the seals and the sea lions and the fish all interacting below, the water and above the water that was bills, original inspiration. And so, you know, I missed meeting bill by just a few
months before he passed away. But this idea that bill got Started with the whole idea of permaculture really from watching the Marine ecosystem and then taking it to the terrestrial Forest. But now we've gone full circle and say Marine permaculture is critically important to our survival as a species to regenerate life in the ocean. Make sure we've got enough food for billions of people and ultimately getting our carbon budget back into balance.
Someone listening, if you're not familiar with what permaculture is. We've done a couple episodes one of which is with Brian that you should definitely listen to to get up to speed. Speed. But Brian, how would you introduce someone to concept as broad as permaculture in a little bonus episode? Like this can you help someone get up to speed really quickly about how you're thinking about this?
Well, Dave Holmgren is written on the Dozen design principles of permaculture and it's really about living in equilibrium with the forest and sustainably harvesting from that Forest to sustain life. But furthermore to identify the gaps that may exist and to Address those gaps as needed to ensure a healthy and thriving ecosystem, that can support humans and other animals. I mean, it's really where we are part of Nature and we should not divorce ourselves from nature.
That's the root cause of most of the problems. And so, by being part of nature, we can live in equilibrium with nature. And what we are doing is taking those 12 permaculture design principles and applying those to the marine environment, so that we can have healthy Seas. And healthy soils that will result in a healthy Planet. I see, I usually introduce people by saying something, like creating systems that feed themselves such that there are not Reliant upon external inputs.
Especially synthetic ones. You have this sort of like closed loop or they call them guilds often in permaculture. But things that just work well together, such that you have what's the one straw Revolution? Line about lazy man's farming, it just sort of comes together without you having to actively manage, like steer inputs into it. Is that kind of how See it or am I missing something. There the fewer inputs the better.
The beauty about kelp for us is that they don't need any fertilizer, they don't need any fresh water and they don't need any land area. And we realize that there's this little sliver of life on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. That was actually the most productive ecosystem on the planet. You look at a tropical rainforest, like the Brazilian Rainforest can fix maybe two thousand two hundred grams of carbon per square meter per
year. But did you know that the kelp forest just offshore Seattle or just Offshore California, could do 15 percent more than that per square meter per year, in terms of carbon fixation, it is the highest productive ecosystem on the planet. And if we can identify what's needed in terms of substrate and irrigation to enable that kelp forest, ecosystem to thrive further offshore u.s. eez goes out 300 km. And if we can effectively enable that entire exclusive economic zone, Opened up to doing
sustainable Marine permaculture. We can in fact, rescue the life on the planet. When we've got Marine heat waves. When you have El Nino, when the upwelling shuts down and we lose Shoreline kelp forests, these Marine permaculture is offshore can keep the sardines alive. They can keep the sea lions alive. They can keep the sea birds alive. Regenerate, those ecosystem Services offshore even during
times of climate disruption. And that's what it's all about is having that equilibrium and the amazing thing is Is with sunlight and some deep water. You've got a thriving kelp forest, that's all it takes. What's been the hurdle for getting this mainstream? It seems like you're doing a lot of the research saying. This works at 100 M2. Let's try it at 1,000, and it seems like a big part of your research. In this trailblazing is about the commercial viability of these systems.
Is that what you're working on? Basically? Yeah, it's about Crossing, from the science in the basic science, we know through to the commercialization and we call that Passing the valley of death and quite frankly, it takes like 10 million dollars to get from the R&D to a successful and growing industry. And that's what we're doing right now. And so we've had some help from
foundations. We've done a crowdfunder down in Australia, with Intrepid foundation, and we've raised two thirds of a million dollars for a kelp forest deployment off of Australia that will demonstrate this at maybe 100 M2 scale. We're fundraising right now in the US with a climate foundation.org website and R t to do crowdfunder centered on the US. And the idea is that in the Pacific Ocean. We're going to raise a million dollars to deploy a thousand square meters.
In the Pacific Ocean that will demonstrate that that's critical scale at 1000 square meters, which is our funding Gap right now. And then we're looking to develop the commercial scale. Ha, that will be the basis for the family kelp forest farmer stretching from Australia, to the states. And in fact, the subsistence seaweed farmer in Pins, there's a quarter million subsistence seaweed farmers, who are each allowed to farm, one hectare of tropical Red, Sea weeds and enable those to grow.
And that we've developed a cash-flow positive economic model for that one. Ha and you know, each member of those families can can do a ha. And then once we get that working in the Philippines, there are two million subsistence seaweed farmers in Indonesia that need this technology. Because those folks, they're living on the front lines of climate disruption. The waters too warm. The Nutrient levels are too low.
We are having to deal with this and fill those nutrient value chain gaps so that we can regenerate the productivity of the kelp forest and the seaweed farms and make sure that nature has what she needs to enable us to get back on track with our carbon balance. I believe this is the same technology. You brought up last time you're on the show but it involves taking cooler water. That's deeper down and pumping it up to where the Farms actually are growing seaweed is that right?
Yes. That's right. We'll use in the tropics Marine. Or energy in the higher latitudes. Like temperate zones, there's plenty of wave energy off the coast of the West Coast of the US and across, you know, around the world in temperate latitudes. And I was just on the phone today to some of our colleagues and University of Tasmania who are looking at wave energy to enable the upwelling of water to actually provide the irrigation that the kelp forest need.
And that's exactly the kind of Technology we can use because it's local, use of energy, it's easy to harvest energy there. There's copious amounts of it and this is exactly what we need in order to make those kelp forest Thrive off shore. So in this future where there is family's farming, like I ha out in the Pacific right off the coast of California or whatever, if that's a future lifestyle as possible, are they imitating
permaculture? In the sense that there is multiple income streams that are interacting, are they farming oysters and scallops at the bottom of these kelp forests? What is happening in between all these various creatures in there? Well, near shore in The Harbours and Bay's. It's eutrophic enough. It has enough nutrients that the kelp forest can have a sustainable Harvest and you can have shellfish as well and they're eating the microalgae and some of the macroalgae.
It turns out as you go further offshore, we're very enthusiastic about having a sustainable seaweed Harvest and a sustainable fish Harvest. You know, each morning, I love to eat celery and sardines because that's a great combination of one of my favorites, but we plan to grow a trillion. Instead of going to regenerate the base of the food web for the entire oceans and getting those sardines back, it's all about build it and they will come.
Because if we build the kelp forest we create enough fish habitat that those sardines will live in the kelp forest be protected by the habitat of the kelp forest and then we'll grow to such populations that. They'll start spilling out of the kelp forest and the game Fish, and the apex, predators will get involved, and we'll have this thriving kelp forest protection. Around which the sardines will grow and grow. And so this is really the key is the sardines. Anchovies, the small, salmon
heads. These are the forage fish that will regenerate life in the ocean. I love it. And I also love eating sardines and I have to try it with celery. It's a very I can imagine that tastes combo seems very good to me. Is the problem here, Finance or property rights or is it something more biological in the sense that it's temperature or biochemical? I should say? What is the reason? This doesn't already exist. What's blocking it today?
Well, they're two gaps. We have to address, we have to address nutrient, value chain gaps in the ocean. When the appalling fails, when we get the big warm blob coming down from Alaska. When we get the next El Nino, these increasingly frequent climate disruptions disrupt. The nutrient value chain that the kelp forest needs in order to thrive the nitrate. The phosphate the micronutrients, that's all from upwelling water. We've got to ensure that we can keep that up.
Well and going now, Now the second Gap is capital formation Gap, right now. It costs a million bucks to do, you know a fraction of a hectare and probably, our first ha will be two or three million but the benefits are we could be looking at a million dollar Revenue stream when we get this right and get it cost reduced. So that's really the chance that the opportunity is to cover that initial development funding
develop the technology license. It broadly through our marine permaculture Alliance and really build a Global Network of folks that want to go and build. Those ha sighs farms and make them Work. We're developing food feed, and fertilizer markets that are going to enable this industry to thrive and that'll fill the economic value chain Gap. That will help people do good while doing well, and I think it's building an entire Army of these.
That really is a key. Now, on the regulatory side today, if you tried to do an acre, a kelp on the coast of California, you'd be dealing with 17, state and federal local agencies, and against federal agencies to try to get a permit, and it could take decades, which is really a long time.
But ultimately, Ultimately we're looking at developing a new model and that is we register with the US Coast Guard Armory in permaculture vessel which is a barge, it's a ship that's allowed 500 years of admiralty law and that precedent of 500 years of admiralty law is an incredible. President to say this is a ship, it's allowed safe passage and the safe passage means that we register with the Coast Guard
and we're allowed to sail. The seven seas were allowed to it, has some biofouling on it, it's got a bit more biofouling, the next ship. Qualitatively, it is exactly identical to the ships that sail, the seven seas and these Marine permaculture vessels, vastly simplify the permission
that's needed. Basically a coast guard registration of a marine Vessel to operate a c and so those are the Regulatory and capital barriers that ultimately can address the nutrient value chain gaps that are happening due to climate disruption. All of those are interesting to me. Do you have to fly a flag? I know, plenty of vessels register in Liberia, and fly Liberian flag. I'm sure there's other jurisdictions that are friendly for things like this.
Are you having to fly an American flag or register here or some other combination? How does that work? Well, we're in favor of working locally and thinking globally. And so I think whenever possible use a local jurisdiction, the intent of marine permaculture is to enable local and Regional thriving seaweed for us and Industry and Fin fish as well as
occasionally the shellfish. So I think whenever we can work locally we do, we have Many countries like the Philippines, we were able to get a permit to do the upwelling Marine permaculture system in eight weeks, you know? So it's just, we go to the right countries and it works really, really well as the industry grows, we'll see, increasing pressure to enable these regenerative Technologies to be accelerated because this is the change that the earth needs.
And this is what we need to do, to restore overturning circulation. You know, the Permian mass extinction happened, because the ocean stratified and there's More and more peer-reviewed literature coming out on this. And so what we're doing with Marine permaculture is really staving off the Permian mass extinction, one kelp forest at a time and we're doing it in an economically sustainable way. This is our chance to do good while doing well.
And this is the change of the earth needs on a time scale that the earth needs and that's why we're working so hard on it. Wow. Well you're talking about doing good while doing well, are you also working with a non-profit mentality to it? Seems like there are grants being issued and In crowdfunding, but it seems like maybe the intention longer term is to license and be a for-profit entity. What's the relationship between these different Financial models?
Well it's really a hybrid, I mean the research that we're doing now enables tax deductible contributions in year, zero to The Climate foundation in the u.s. our counterparts in Australia, Canada and the UK. So most of the Commonwealth Nations these days we can enable this tax deductible Rd to occur. Now, hybrid is needed and so weird.
In the process of developing a marine permaculture alliance with our for-profit partners, see commentator who are based in San Francisco and are working to valorize excess seaweed in the Caribbean area and ultimately build the capital that will need to go beyond a hectare of marine permaculture towards dozens of ha and even 100 hectares that can be done very far offshore.
So there's a real opportunity to build an industry here, and our vision for the Marine permaculture Alliance is a broad licensing program, where we've got reason All the non-discriminatory licensing and the improvements in the technology are copyleft back into the Marine permaculture Alliance. So we can accelerate the dissemination of improvements and intellectual property across the industry and enable rapid adoption that the earth needs to
really scale this on a global scale and literally we have Marine permaculture architecture. That works from the equator to the Arctic. So any open ocean area can be amenable to this kind of seaweed development and kelp forest. Generation and it's really the time is right to demonstrate this at scale to build the capacity to show it works cost reduce it and build the Marine permaculture industry on a broad basis.
So it's really a hybrid that starts with the nonprofit development and moves into launching an industry that can generate jobs. Ensure sustainable livelihoods and enable us to measure the carbon drawdown that we're going to need in the years ahead to really balance our civilization. Wow. That is really, really exciting. Amazing. We're so happy to have volunteers around the world helping us to build capacity.
And I think there's a huge opportunity that we can vote with our feet in terms of the work that we're doing the projects were working on. And furthermore, you know, when we can't vote with our feet to vote with our dollars, we're
doing a regular fundraiser. We hope to raise a million dollars to do the thousand square meters and whether it's time or money or other resources that's really a chance to spread the word to get this out and really I helped launch these critical Grassroots industries that are going to be the change that the earth needs in order to regenerate life in the ocean and ensure we've got an earth worth saving. And the years ahead, that's got a biodiversity in the Seas.
Biodiversity in the soils. And that's the key to keeping our own civilization productive and alive and well fed. Yeah. Well said, what is your current thinking on the I know you call it carbon export or carbon removal or however you want to frame it. What do you think the potential is for marine permaculture?
It's huge. You know, we just got this great coverage last week in an op-ed in the Washington Post, and it's it was done by Sir David King who really helped launch the and, and seal the deal on the Paris agreement years ago into 2015. And so the opportunity now.
And so David wrote, very eloquently about how the director of capture technologies will get us to a certain point in terms of cost performance, it raises attention and awareness and then sir, David went on to talk about Brent constants and the blue planet initiative to actually build aggregate. That's made out of calcium carbonate and effectively turns
grains of sand into gravel. That you can put into roadways and two airports into every concrete building you can imagine and effectively freeze out and sequester the carbon for a long time and that's a very sustainable industry at several Giga tons. And it's one that I just did a lecture on a sovereign yesterday on our Stanford. Or and Leslie Fields course on engineering and climate change. And I think that's a great opportunity as well.
Then sir, David King went on in this op-ed to talk about the potential for Technologies like Marine permaculture to effectively you know Feed the World regenerate life in the oceans and draw down carbon and amazingly effective prices. We're talking about, we like to say the first Giga tons on us because as we grow food feed and fertilizer, we're going to be fixing Carbon and measuring that carbon export. And effectively, we can do it at a negative cost of carbon on the
first gigaton. Once we're past that, even if we need to fix more to restore a healthy climate will be able to do. So at really amazing cost points, you know, hopefully, well below a hundred dollars per ton and that means at a cost of $80 per ton or less that we've got a very sustainable approach to enabling the Earth to be
healthy to ensure. We've got the food security to ensure Have political stability around the world for years to come and and that we can actually draw down potentially gigatons of carbon as we develop this sustainable industry around the world in a distributed way. Well, if someone's listening and they want to keep up with, what you're doing in your progress, where might you direct them? I would direct them to our client Foundation website. We've got updates that occur
regularly with our newsletters. We have an ongoing crowdfunder there, we're really interested in building capacity and building a network with a marine permaculture. Ants that will enable the whole world to benefit from ring permaculture technology and ensure we've got the food security to ensure that we can have our civilization continued in a healthy way even during times of marine heat waves and
climate disruption. So we're really looking forward to that, we've got an info Channel there, they can email us at info at climate foundation.org. And we're looking forward to really building capacity to ensure that the ocean has what she needs to regenerate life to staying healthy and to ultimately help. Humans balance their carbon budget. Great. And also you should watch 2040 and you can see Brian being a sailor man. Living that Life. Aquatic us just being jealous.
Watching you out there Brian seems like you're having a lot of well we're looking forward to having you come out. Ross. You know, there's nothing I love better than snorkeling on a marine permaculture. Their millions of fish is beautiful kelp forest moving around and they're just, I've got to tell you Nature has voted with her fins. You know, we've got on our marine permaculture. In Philippines, there are
millions of sardines. There's these tuna fish, I just got off our phone with our team this morning and there's like hundreds of tuna fish, cruising around enjoying the abundance. That is on the, on the Marine permaculture, we've had a family of dolphins, spend more than a month with us hanging out. We've got some videos of these Dolphins frolicking and jumping into the air, and even this whale shark swam, 200 kilometers to hang out with us for three days and eat some of the bounty
thats coming. An author Marine permaculture. So nature is voting with her fins, that's got to be the greatest validation and being able to see that up close, if you actually go snorkeling and check this wonderful island of life, living in the deep ocean. It's just so heartwarming
experience. I look forward to sharing that with so many of your listeners and with you because you know it's really a chance to witness upfront and close and personal the the way that we're able to regenerate life in the ocean What kind of potential you think there is for ocean entrepreneurship, for lack of a better term?
I'm sure there's people listening who are looking for their next step and a lot of people are looking at climate Tech right now but I don't see the ocean getting a lot of love. Where should they be looking? Well, it's early days, but I think having that Marine engineering experience, getting in the ocean, going snorkeling or swimming or surfing, that's the kind of hands and feet in the water that are really important. And so I think building that comfort with the oceans is great.
And as people see Seems like 2040. Inevitably, you know, we fall in love with the ocean, with the kelp forest with charismatic megafauna that lived there like the Leafy Sea Dragon. And the, you know, the wonderful lobsters and there was this octopus film that we just saw my octopus teacher at it just like, okay, I'm just going to fall in
love with this ecosystem. That's what drives people to, to be the change that the earth needs, and that's the kind of fulfilling Doing good while doing well that I think makes such a huge difference. And so I think it's that connection to the ocean, that's really critical. And as we build our capacity and basically grow, this industry will have exponential opportunities.
I think to, you know, to really enable these Marine careers to take off Peter teal invested a bunch in in seasteading some years ago. And we'd like to say Marine permaculture is the reason for seasteading to exist. In other words, this is the irrigated farming that Oils. The communities on the sea to thrive and ultimately, it's all
about building. The tribe of abundance and moving from the economics of scarcity, towards the tribe of abundance, the where we have enough to share with ourselves and our neighbors, and that's a completely different mindset. It's a completely different world and it's really moving from Fear to love and that's what we'd love to see happen.
One kelp forest at a time. That's a lovely sense of Well, thanks for being here, Brian. My pleasure, Ross is great to talk with you and catch up again is so great to be back on the Nori show and podcast and we're looking forward to working together towards building that regenerative future that we all need absolutely definitely on the same team here and would be happy to have you back on when there's more progress. It sounds like you have a lot of irons in the fire so maybe won't
be nearly so long. Next time, we're looking forward to bringing in regular reports on the Western Pacific hanging out here during the pandemic. Gemma canned bringing that technology across the Pacific as soon as it's safe to do so. Terrific. Well let's do it again. And thanks again. Brian, I'll thank you Roz. Take Care. Thank you so much for listening.
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