S2E58: Oceans and climate, Waves and Beaches—w/ Kim McCoy, oceanographer and author - podcast episode cover

S2E58: Oceans and climate, Waves and Beaches—w/ Kim McCoy, oceanographer and author

Apr 06, 202144 minSeason 2Ep. 58
--:--
--:--
Download Metacast podcast app
Listen to this episode in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episode description

Few of us live at sea, so the ocean doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves in the climate conversation. But Kim McCoy contends that phytoplankton deserve just as much consideration as polar bears, and it’s time for us to understand how rising temperatures impact the water, the wind, the waves, and the weather. After all, we all live downstream of climate change.

Kim is the oceanographer who updated Willard Bascom’s Waves and Beaches: The Powerful Dynamics of Sea and Coast, adding new insights around the impact of climate change. On this episode of the podcast, Kim joins Ross to discuss the impact of changing the amount of energy in a given system (i.e.: adding energy in the form of heat) and explain the relationship between changes in the atmosphere and changes in the ocean.

Kim shares the scientific data around the increase in accumulated cyclone energy fueling Atlantic hurricanes and describes how private property is becoming public due to sea level rise. Listen in for Kim’s take on interventions like iron fertilization and solar radiation management and find out what we can do restore the health of the hydrologic cycle that connects us all!

Connect with Ross

Purchase Nori Carbon Removals

Join Nori's book club on Patreon

Nori's website

Nori on Facebook

Nori on Twitter

Nori on Medium

Nori on YouTube

Nori on GitHub

Nori Newsletter

Email podcast@nori.com

Nori White Paper

Subscribe on iTunes

Carbon Removal Newsroom

Resources

Waves and Beaches: The Powerful Dynamics of Sea and Coast by Willard Bascom and Kim McCoy

Books by John Kretschmer

John Kretschmer on Reversing Climate Change S2EP33

John Martin’s Iron Hypothesis

Running Tide

Brian Von Herzen on Reversing Climate Change EP034

Brian Von Herzen’s RCC Bonus Episode on the Documentary 2040

Transcript

You're listening to the reversing climate change, podcast by the team at Nori. The carbon removal Marketplace. This is a show about the innovators and entrepreneurs developing solutions to climate change. Hello and welcome to the reversing climate change podcast. I'm Ross Kenyon I am the creative editor at Nori's carbon removal Marketplace.

Today I have with me Kim makoi oceanographer who wrote The Third Edition, of waves and beaches the powerful dynamics of seeing Coast by Willard Bascom. Thank you for being here. Kim, thank you for having me Ross. This book is beautiful. I'm very glad to have you. It's illustrations and it's just a beautiful aesthetic experience, which is a wonderful thing to say about something that is either aspirationally a textbook or is a light textbook.

But my understanding is that this book is a classic and a listener, listening to the admittedly strange way. I introduce you. How could you write a third? Of a book by someone else. What is the story of waves and beaches and how did you come to be involved in it? Well, we've seen beaches went through two prior editions and I use the first edition when I was in graduate school and as many classic texts, they go through multiple editions and Willard had thought about doing a third edition.

He handed it to me one day and said here, read this and I was taken aback, much older than I am. I'm much more accomplished and so I give him my reviews after a couple of weeks and he liked it. So unfortunate. He was hit by a car and died shortly thereafter.

So intervening few years, the estate asked me if I wanted to do the Third Edition. So many years later we've succeeded with Patagonia and it's been completely updated for the 21st century, and it has a gold Threat of climate change through the entire Coastal world. There's a lot of climate change in the book. Sort of is a thread is, maybe a good way to think of it.

One other thread that I noticed that helped me anchor, all the discussions about oceans and World Systems is how important it is to think about the energy that is present in systems like this. And what it means in general to increase or decrease the amount of energy Within in a system, as a non-scientist, is this a theme that I should have picked up on as important as it may be is or is not Absolutely Ross. You hit it, hit the nail on the head.

So for instance, this just take something as simple as a damn, that dams a river. So let's go Downstream and I'll come back up to the dam. So Downstream the amount of sediment reaching the coast is diminished and you have Coastal erosion because you've reduced the sediments. Now, you can view the dam. Upstream is really, it's holding the potential energy of the water in reserve. Goes off and produces electricity or Gates.

Crops it does something else other than moving sediments Downstream. So the humans have co-opted so to say the energy of the flowing water as you moves down the river bed, moving sediments and nourishes, the coastal zone. So it's a diversion of energy and that is happening everywhere. We look one other application.

I saw that really caught my imagination is that With climate change in the world heating up. Heat is another way of saying energy, perhaps, and there's more energy in the system and for lack of a better word, the system is more energetic, there is more weather events, there are more things happening. And when they do happen, the magnitudes or greater is that broadly, a correct understanding.

Yes. For instance, something that people online and can easily understand certainly in North America is we have the jet stream. Some people call it the polar vortex and it's a basically winds that Circle and the Northern Hemisphere and from left to right. If you will from west to east and these have changed in their behavior and I'll just give you a simple example, if you had an inclined plane. So piece of plywood and you pour a little water on it.

The steepness of that piece of wood is not very much water sort of trickles down with meanders left and right a little bit. It it doesn't know what to do, so there's not a large as we call it energy gradient, but you put that piece of wood really Steep and pour a little bit of water on it and it goes down that just straight as an arrow straight to the bottom. So those two examples are similar to what's occurring with

the jet stream. It's Meandering larger because the difference, the temperature difference between the lower latitudes and the Northern latitudes is less that potential energy if you will is less. So it meanders more and that's over simplification in many ways to express that interview it. But that's a simple view of what's happening. So when we get a period in Texas where it's 85 degrees one day and the next day, it's below zero, like, would they just had

a terrible cold spell? It's because The path of the jet stream has been allowed to be altered and those sorts of phenomena are going on. Everywhere, is it right to attribute weather events. Like what just happened in Texas as being the result in energy changes overall in the Earth's system as a whole. Well, it's always been that way.

Yeah, you know the meanders of a river the meanders of the jet stream or a function of Flow of energy and turbulence in the atmosphere and low over small and large pieces of sedimentation. So the paths in the frequency that those pads may be reached is intimately connected with the difference in temperature in the atmosphere. So fluid dynamics in the atmosphere is driven by temperature barometric pressure and relative humidity.

When any of those three parameters change in the atmosphere, the path of winds and hence the path of weather will change. That's no secret. Yeah. Actually, as I'm asking this question, I'm second-guessing myself because once you're at that zoomed out level the questions you ask or something like do changes in the earth's systems result in changes on Earth and feel like that's sort of a tautology or fast a

questionnaire. Even my asking so that we live above a solid earth in below of fluid Sky, that's where we are in the ocean and any change to anything above or below will change the ocean. And likewise, if you change the ocean, it will change the atmosphere. So it's a dynamic that has periods that are some very short and I outline that in waves and beaches. Some so short in occurrence that you can barely see them with an.

I notice some in a second and others so long and so large, you cannot see him during the human lifetime. Wow wait sorry. I feel like I feel like I missed the beginning of the. Are you saying that there's waves that are so big that you couldn't detect them over the course of a human lifetime? Or did I misunderstand you, you have you understood? Absolutely right. No figure. Forget the figure, but it's like

17 or something. That in waves and beaches has a graph of the different types of waves. And one wave that we are experiencing is the wave of climate change. Now, when the earth becomes colder than prior more, liquid water will turn to solid water. And what we're going through right now is the opposite so during a period of climate warming as we have now more solid Waters turning to liquid water.

That causes a rise in sea level. That's a very, very slow period wave that wave currently has about a six-inch magnitude over the last 150 years. 100 years actually. So that's 15. Cm 6 inches in 100 years, that's a slowly Rising wave. A wave of climate change. Now, how large that's going to get and whether or not we can predict it is yet to be seen. But it's a slow moving wave, you can view it as a wave of solid ice turning to liquid and moving

towards the equator. That's what's happening is that a case of an oceanographer taking poetic license or deal actually speak like that. And do you climate change as a way? That is perhaps one of the original thoughts in waves and beaches. Interesting. Chapter 5 is the Winds and waves of climate change in waves and beaches cam. What other ideas would you say? Our original? And here because the book feels like a reference manual or a

textbook almost. But surely, there are ideas that are perhaps new or you're presenting a new ways. What else is in here? That is in that same theme or in that same form, I could say what a very small length scale and time scale. So the very creation Of waves, waves, ocean waves are created by the wind blowing on the surface of the ocean and small. Ripples actually they're called capillary waves, very short period waves. The wavelength is a width of your thumbnail, very small short

period waves. The very formation of these ways is based upon surface tension. So surface tension and to a lesser degree the viscosity which is Tendency of a fluid to resist Shear. So with surface tension, that is dependent upon temperature. So the very transfer of the Winds energy into wave energy is being Modified by the viscosity of the Water. By the surface tension of the water, both of which are changing. The surface tension is the most significant but both are

changing to my knowledge. No one's written. About this honor climate length scale. What does this do to the general formation of waves? We do know from satellite data that wind speeds have been increasing. We do know that in certain portions of the world's oceans, the size of ocean waves, these large, many meters. So, tens of feet tall waves. They're changing their getting a little bit larger. These storms are getting more intense and they're very short

periods of extreme. Dreamily intense winds. We see that in Hurricane Seasons. So there are some things that are happening in very short length, scales that people have not really researched and they're also these longer period things such as climate change the winds and waves of climate change that many people dream about this relates to a question. I had with a former guest. Have you ever read John kretzmann do you know him by chance?

No. Unfortunately, I do I don't mean to put you on the spot that we had. John kretschmer on the show. He's a sailor and other done a number of transoceanic sales, and rounded the cape and things like that. And we were talking about how climate change is changing his business and how he thinks about

sailing. And he was talking about how the window for Crossing, from the Northeast to Bermuda is shrinking because of hurricane season lengthening or Worried about changes in the trade winds and how predictable they are in their sort of a the comment or setting of the trade winds that they're incredibly dependable. And he has at least anecdotal experience of them. No longer being nearly so dependable. Have you seen much of that?

Is that is he on to something or is that relatively anecdotal? It's anecdotal from him. However, it's statistically substantiated by scientific data, that the Grandma wants their. Yeah. And in waves and beaches talk about the cumulated cyclonic, energy a c e. And that's basically if you add up the number of cyclones in the amount of energy in each Cyclone, so you have you have a whirring Cyclone at 200 miles an

hour for two days. It's a little different than if you have a cyclone that with 100 mile an hour for one day because of the difference in. The speeds, it's not linear would speed the energy and so there's more energy going into

the Atlantic hurricanes. That's well documented and, you know, we don't have an infinitely, long historical record but we do have a record going back about 100 years and many of the hurricane seasons have been extended in the last two decades, and the number of storms, I think Don't forget me go, they ran out of alphabet letters in the alphabet for the number of hurricanes in the season, so it's not just anecdotal from Sailors. It's also from data, from

scientific measurements. I've seen people try to counter this argument by saying not we experience more extreme weather events these days because of better monitoring that more people live in these areas more people are live on the ghosts in that there actually is not an increase in extreme weather events. I find this to be a questionable assertion, you see it made sometimes, but my you saying response. What my own opinion. It is rather questionable assertion, please help out.

However, I mean, if you look at the storm in Galveston is referred to, as Galveston storm of 1900. So, 121 years ago, deaths, take Galveston, there weren't that many people in Galveston but the 2004 Hurricane, Katrina devastated, New Orleans, and we have indeed more people living by the coastal zone. In the coastal zone and low levels, I think there's something like 500 million people live below. You know, 30 feet of elevation, that's a large number. So there's really two ways to

view. This one is the amount of Devastation is just linear with the number of people living on the coast line and and is independent of any data that you may or may not have just one more people in the Libyan Coast Line. You're going to have more damage. Okay. That's one. One aspect.

The other one is let's do it. straight straight at the, look at the data and let's not look at how many people are living there and you look at the episodic events things that we call for 10 years storms or 100 Year storms or Thousand Years storms, what used to be a five hundred year storm in some areas is now 100 Year storm because the statistics are changing and it's not because we don't have more data, it's the data, we Have is now being massively skewed by ongoing events, almost

by today's weather. And if you look at for instance, simple thing the Mekong Delta or the Mississippi Delta, they formed of the last 5,000 years generically you look what's happened in Mississippi Delta, it's absolute ecological disaster. Now, you might have an overlay of really nice. Good sound bites of people that are interested in doing business in the Mississippi River.

Delta But it's polluted, it's sinking and the people in the coastal region are losing their land and their mineral rights as our land subsides below the legal point of federal versus private land ownership, and this is not imaginary. So, what has been stable for 5000 years is now unstable.

The Mekong Delta is now unstable because Of Dykes, lots of Dykes in Mississippi River, delta 2. So the dikes change, the flow of water, they cause a flood to discharge lots of water, all of a sudden, it flushes sediments out. And hence, the Delta is not nourished with new settlements and also, you have to buy more fertilizer to perform the agricultural activities. So removing the humans from the equation and just looking at the land.

Yeah, it's changing big. Time. And there's lots of data, and we've got a call it geological and geochemical data from Delta areas through sedimentology. And other methods, that show that these things have been relatively stable for the better part of five thousand years and gee what a coincidence. Well, we've had relatively stable, sea level for the last 4,000 years. So hmm. All right. Forget the people is just the Deltas are disappearing, and a whole bunch of other things are changing.

Ross, you make up your mind. Yeah. Well fair enough. Thanks for digging into that. For me. You mentioned something that I found very interesting in this book and there's a lot more to say about it but the relationship between Shoreline and property. And when private property goes to public property as a result of changing sea level man, that just sounds like a lawyers are going to get very rich off of that. It sounds like is what I'm trying to say. How exactly is that going to

work? What do you foresee? Can you explain it to our audience? Yeah. Property rights are defined in different areas with different datums, but let's just use for general purpose. The low low water line. So, that's if you look at, well, it's just called low water line. So if you average the low tides, that's generically under some jurisdictions, where the property rights of the individual and, and the federal government begin.

So imagine a slope of land One and 100 and you say it's one foot vertical versus 100 feet out. That means our be 1 meter versus 100 meters. Doesn't matter. And you have a sea level rise of 6 inches on on that one and 100 slope. Well, that means you're going to lose half of that distance. That's 50 feet of coastal land. You can lose so that.

Piece of that demarcation were in a private landowners land ended in the federal government took over, just moved back towards the new Shoreline in favor of the federal government and to the detriment of the private landowner and also the mineral rights below. So, if you've got gas and oil rights or you've been sand mining, or you got a shrimp farm or whatever, sorry dude you just lost those. I think you mentioned there to that some of some of these

seizures. Others by the government have already happened in places, is it sort of pretty open-and-shut legally? Does that just happen rather easily relative to some prolonged suit, but depends on who's on the land side. For sure of it, if it's, you know gas and oil company that has some mineral rights granted by an individual, they might fight for it if it's less expensive than the federal government granting that Or vice

or conversely. So depends on which side of the argument, your honor and how much money's on, which side and they also stuck between States, you know, for instance, Georgia and Florida and in legal battle, and California. Arizona, New Mexico, they're all with water rights and discharges

on to beaches. And so, you know, somebody builds a dam up stream, the sediments, don't reach the coastal zone and then you get erosion and then your nice little Beach. I've been there for five thousand years in there anymore so there's all sorts of litigation going on and I'm not in that field but it's easy to research those if listeners interested, it's very much of interest to me and I'll let you off the hook him up.

Make you socks, you much more about if it's not something that you're actively researching this way. But I hardly ever hear anyone speaking about this, I think in general the ocean gets less attention than it. Should for climate reasons, think ocean acidification is really scary. I think some of these feedback loops given the lags in the system, the interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean, not being immediately visible.

In all the kinds of ways that I don't know, like some of those Cycles take longer than maybe human brains are evolved to notice how it feels counterintuitive to us. So we end up looking at polar bears rather than the ocean in some cases. Do you feel a bit neglected in that way or my projecting onto you? All right, my mother never neglected me Community overall well as an oceanographer my focus has been the ocean, you know, aquatic world's worked in lakes.

Also so we've been biased this you know, the Earth Sciences have been biased towards liquid Earth. So to say and 70% of the surface of the Earth is liquid and not. 70% of the world's population lives. It see, that's quite the inverse. It's very, very few people, live at Sea. I've been lucky to have spent over five years of my life at Sea. I've done nine, polar

Expeditions, your of my life. So I'm biased towards the Aquatic world and the Earth. Some people refer to it as a cry arose fear, you know, the atmosphere and and polar caps. And The river system, the hydrological cycle, it's all connected. Well, that is where most of the photosynthesis takes place, somewhere between 50 and 80. Percent of all photosynthesis taking place in the ocean and large lakes. So you know we look at.

Yeah. The polar bear is in, do the sea otters and you know, the dugongs and there. Oh, terrible, terrible things. You know, the panda. Has don't have any more bamboo but out at sea or species, we've never heard of that are near the brink. But that's it's not the chordata, not animals, with

spinal cords, it's the issue. You know, the as I mentioned, the phytoplankton is really important and there's between 50, and 80% of the world's photosynthesis takes place at Sea and one little dude, he's it's the smallest photosynthetic organism on Earth prochlorococcus, I think has pronounced the smallest organism that photosynthesizes. Produces 20% of all oxygen, it's phenomenal. It's it's microscopic we can't even see it.

And so below the Earth's surface, Internal waves, mixed the oxygen-rich portions of the oceans with the upper ocean. It causes this primary productivity to go on. So when we starve, the oceans of river discharge the nutrients that would go normally into the ocean. Well, we're actually cutting off the necessary nutrients for these phytoplankton. So, nobody's going out there and saying hey, save the phytoplankton.

You can't even see these dudes, you know, but it's extremely significant, I think 20% Percent of all Co to take up, is rather significant for something in the ocean, but you can't see it. What do you think of efforts that are typically called sea salt like iron fertilization or ocean?

Fertilization of dropping iron shavings into the ocean, to stimulate the growth of various types of Plankton that will die float to the bottom of the sea floor and be a form of captured carbon that I missed characterize it. Not at all. You have mischaracterizing. Luckily I knew John Martin, John Martin was the marine biologist to I think originally recognized that iron was a limiting factor and they call it ocean fertilization and they've been

several experiments been done. I think when somebody off the Northwest no permits or anything, he's got a barge full of iron, tailings and threw it in the ocean and measured primary productivity and so well it went up so there's a lot. You know, yes it's been not only theorized John Martin your original guy but it some Wildcat people have actually even done these experiments. I was involved with Japanese group that did a very small-scale test of iron

fertilization and yes it works. And you mentioned the removal of the carbon from the upper ocean. That's called sequestering. So You know, somebody wants to grow a tree on earth, that's great. Wonderful. However, when that tree dies, it then decomposes in then once again produces CO2 in that process. So the marine organisms on the other hand when they die, they go below the photic zone. That go beyond that. Hi mixing Zone in the upper ocean.

They go beyond that. And they form the ocean sediments like to have for millions of years. It's who's that? You'll find all over the Deep. Mmm, and that is a very valid way of sequestering carbon dioxide. Now, if you can get something to photosynthesize like kelp believe you mentioned something about gulp, I know some people involved in that effort.

There are several efforts and that is a valid way if you allow the organisms to die off into the deep ocean, that's a valid way of getting rid of the carbon dioxide in the upper ocean. For a few million years. That's a significant we can figure it out in other ways and in the longer term.

Yeah, I think the iron fertilization stuff is potentially riskier or Spooks people more than something like growing kelp and dropping it into a deep enough part of the ocean where it's really not mixing with the ocean enough to come back. There's a group called Running tide that is has been doing this.

I know Brian bomb hurts in who's been on the show a number of times to talk about his Marine permaculture efforts super Interesting. So stuff like that is going on though, and I think it's getting more and more attention. These days is that your experience to. It's getting a lot more attention, unfortunately, I, you know, you might call this a form of terraforming, you know, like some size inside Phi is Bring It On terraforming, you know.

So they're people that are trying to spray aerosols in the atmosphere to change the Albedo of the Earth, the Albedo is basically Be the ratio of the incoming solar radiation versus the reflected radiation, and if you increase the Albedo, that means it more is being reflected out and that means that there's less heat being retained in the greenhouse effect, but that doesn't change the acidification of the oceans. So sort of like the Sorcerer's. Apprentice You changed a little

something over here before. Oh, there's too many, if you remember that Disney Fantasia kind of thing, you know, where there's a fellow, trying to stop the flow of water, and the inundation is just too great for the Innovative methods. And I'm constantly reminded of that little cartoon in my head, that we're like the Little Dutch boy, with the finger.

In the diet, you know, we're trying to stop something in a very honest and concerted manner, but the complexity of it is Way Beyond human comprehension and comprehension and certainly Beyond political means the politics of this is everybody's blaming everybody for everything.

But what really needs to be done is we need to make started sort of city council level and have The codification really of climate change implemented, which means that instead of having city state federal, even super National entities responding to disasters, it's better to address the root problems than internally, combat the symptoms so that if you make it legal for this, just take a city council.

To act. When you give some Metric, you know, when a storm surge is above a certain level or when a sea wall is breached at a certain height, some Metric. And you codify that instead, he went into these things happens. The city council is already empowered to do something. Now, the Dutch of done that for a good part, better part of two decades, they've got it right? They built this 400 million-dollar Rotterdam barrier and it's worked. A couple of times, it's been around for 20 years.

Well, Hurricane Katrina was 50 or 100 billion dollars in damage. Building with Abby, whereas the Rotterdam barrier that they've used twice it, cost 400 million Euros. So throw a dart say, 500 million dollars. That's oh, that's a half a percent. Well, that's good.

That's money. Good. Well spent so if you haven't, if you take a short-term solution to a long-term problem, you're continually spending and you know, you can lease a car for a day and not worry about paying long-term insurance cost, but then you still got at least at the next day. So sometimes it's better to own rather than lease and it seems almost like we're leasing our environment rather than trading long-term solutions to these problems. Okay.

Yeah, certainly feels. That way, sometimes, it feels more like a payday loan kind of scenario. Well, I did what I had asked, maybe, maybe it's good to clarify because I'm not sure someone listening.

My fully gracht, your intention or are you saying that things like solar radiation management are a form of leasing our environment and are therefore bad or do you find that in Iron fertilization to be risky climate Actions that we shouldn't pursue or you in a research phase, how do you feel about that should make sure it's clear.

My opinion, is that nature has certainly figured out how it interacts with itself for, you know, life on Earth is generically three and a half billion years old and it's always changing. And it's got this Dynamic that comes and goes and species arise and then they become extinct. Things happen all the time. The environment will In you were will prevail however what we're trying to do, you know, very smart beings. However, our solution seemed

more short-term. So you know, Iron fertilization is certainly a method, but we need to change our introduction of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That's a first order correction, but they're all sorts of other things. I mean, we have wonderful Seashore environments, Coastal regimes with fantastic opportunities. Duties, for aquaculture for recreation, for many other things yet, we find short-term solutions that destroy the environment.

So they destroy the gold. We are eating our own Golden Goose. So yes, we should try these things but we should iterate fast enough to realize that what we are currently doing. Does have long-term repercussions, and those long-term repercussions. Russians are in the multi decades not in just for your election Cycles or two-year election Cycles. What are some good Trends happening? That people might not be aware of with regard to the

hydrological cycle. Oceans lakes, what are some things that we might not be aware of? Well you mentioned about fertilization efforts and kelp kelp is a very nutritious entity. It's it's the Asian cultures utilize kelp all the time. So dealing with how we produce things that we consume and how we treat our Watershed not polluting it, you know, fracking introduces, millions of tons of very toxic stuff unfit for humans into the aquifers so having Coastal.

So I look at it more from a coastal management. Having Coastal efforts to maintain the health of the sediment loads, the health of the quality of the water, those things will pay back in time. You'll have more lobsters in the coastal regions, more crabs, more fish. But if you kill off the good things going into the The into the coastal zone, you'll end up with a Mississippi River, delta

with dead zone. So the good things that we can do is change it so that we don't do those things Upstream, you know, one might ask, you know, what town? Do you live in? Oh, I live in Houston or I live in Miami. It's really not which town you live. It's what watersheds you live in. When you start looking at a, you live in a watershed since the hydrological cycle.

Saul the sooner we realize that we're all connected within the hydrological cycle, the better we can treat our environment and our environment will treat us. Well, it's a big look, you know, from high altitude on a low level. What we can do is what happens Upstream of fix everybody Downstream. Do things that have eat things that produce fewer agricultural, wastes, don't support, groundwater extractions, Rather than for absolutely necessary

things hydraulic fracking. As I mentioned earlier, puts all sorts of stuff into the aquifers and unfit for human consumption. Don't try and decrease fossil fueled dependencies reduce CO2 emissions. And you know, these and our nature will reward us. You know, we live in a very fruitful Planet, if we disregard, what's Downstream eventually, everything is polluted and And unfortunately, regardless where you live, we all live Downstream of climate

change. Can I have a few questions from our patrons on patreon and these are listener submitted and if you're less than and you'd like to do this, you can join no worries patreon where we do a book club, it's a lot of fun and occasionally questions will come out ahead of time that I'll write down. And yeah, so okay the first question here, a little bit door but I'm hoping you can give us a positive answer which is about my Microplastics what is

happening with them? And how can we get them out of the ocean? A microplastics is a global problem as we we'll know and as before you know, stream be careful what you do. Try not to utilize things that are in plastic packages and the weights and beaches has about

150 references of all sorts. And some of those refer to Plastics and microplastics Six, there are some International efforts, I think one of them out of the Netherlands where there are large vessels in booms, if you will that collect from the

oceans garbage, patches. This large gyres of floating Plastics and debris and we need to reduce our dependency on the hydrocarbon /. Plastic production because remember that Plastics are made primarily from hydrocarbons and the sooner we can wean ourselves off of that cycle.

The more reduction will be in the plastic detritus and that's a big cycle that people need to look at once again, in the end notes and references for raising beaches, there's all sorts of stuff referring to that's Well, thank you. I'm sure they'll appreciate that. And we have a second one that I like, it made me laugh. Here goes, I'm going to read her words. She says lately, my two-year-old daughter has been asking to see quote, mommy whales and baby wails unquote.

So I'll search on Instagram and there's some footage shot by drones and even on a little phone screen, it gives both she and I such a sense of awe at these gorgeous beings, as much as I would love to see them in real life. I don't want to be Person in their habitat but do video drones bother Wildlife a lot. What do oceanographers say about that? So speak for the oceanographers Kim. Okay I've got my oceanographer had on here groans. Do not substantially influence.

Any behavior of any whale in the ocean? What does influence them? Is shipping. Shipping noise has increased over 100 fold in the last 50 years. So You know container ships, their propellers turn they go around, they make a lot of noise, those certainly disrupt the feeding patterns in migratory patterns of Wales. So little drones and small boats aren't going to harm a whale in its normal behavior. In many cases, whale swim up to boats to smaller boats but large

fifty thousand. Ton hundred thousand ton freighters. Container cargo ships. Those discharge lot of energy, so sound into the ocean and whale navigate and communicate using sound. So it's as if you've got a jet plane going by, you know, every two minutes, it disrupts your conversational patterns and it eventually just move on to another room. So don't worry about the drones. Enjoy it there. Wonderful. Animals. I've been lucky to swim with whale.

I've been very close to well many, many times in and out of the water and their magnificent animals to observe close and afar. All right, it says she and her daughter have your blessing to enjoy those YouTube videos. Oh, absolutely. Just as long as you're not film from a hundred thousand ton container vessels, all right, that's good. Good for them then. Well, if people want to learn more, where can they get your book, how can they support it? What can they do?

The Third Edition of waves, and beaches is being published by Patagonia? You can find it at Patagonia.com and you can also find The book, waves, and beaches Amazon, and wherever books are sold. I really suggest if you're interested in going a little bit deeper, you can look at the references in waves and beaches that refers to not only two books and peer-reviewed papers, but also to Coastal management plans. Things that people have already done. So cities and countries.

They've already implemented Coastal management plans. There's about 10 or 15 of those plans in the references in the appendices of waves and Beach is. So if you want to dig deeper, there's plenty of stuff in waves and beaches for every level of reader, the over 150 photographs are heavily annotated, and captioned. So that you don't have to dive into the intricacies of wave, Celerity in order to enjoy the book. It's Everyone can enjoy great links to all of those things are

in the show notes. Thanks so much for being here. Kim, great, and thank you for having me, Ross. It's been my pleasure and if you like the show, please tell a friend rate and review us on Apple podcasts or iTunes. Helps us. Get the show out to more people than thank you so much for all of your support and for

listening. But thank you so much for listening if You like the show, please rate and review it in apple podcast and or Stitcher. It really helps us a lot to get this content to a wider audience. If you think what we're doing is useful, interesting fun. Hopefully, all three, we certainly appreciate your rating and review. You can keep up with Nori at nor e.com where there is a newsletter that's Nori

.com/srobiyt. There's podcast, there's a whole bunch else or you can send us an email at podcast at nor e.com. We are also now on patreon at patreon.com slash Nori podcasts, if you'd like more content engagement and community. And thank you so much for your support.

Transcript source: Provided by creator in RSS feed: download file
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android