Sea adventures that can save the planet

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PHILIPPE COUSTEAU JR.: Everybody thinks of my grandfather as this tall, lanky Frenchman with a red hat and a rather pronounced nose, destined to explore the ocean. He was many of those things, but not the ocean explorer from birth. He wanted to be a pilot in the French Navy, and he broke his back in a car accident and was washed out of the naval aviation program. He actually couldn’t move the right side of his body for six months. He was told by his superior officer to start swimming to rebuild his strength. He was given a pair of homemade goggles and fins. And started freediving and became frustrated they couldn’t spend more time underwater. And so he met an engineer named Emile Gagnan, who had just created an industrial valve. They tinkered for a year or two, and said, “I wonder if we could miniaturize this thing and put it on a tank of air and breathe underwater and swim freely.” And so the idea to swim freely in the ocean like a fish was revolutionary and SCUBA diving was born. And so my grandfather was a problem solver. 

The ultimate problem that he sought to solve having witnessed the decline in the health of the environment from the 1940s, 1950s, and into the 60s… He said “this is no longer about exploration. We have to tell the world we need to protect these things that we are witnessing. Disappear before our very eyes.” And that ended up being the last and greatest problem that he sought to solve and one that he then passed on to my father, and then to us. 

BOB SAFIAN: That’s Philippe Cousteau Jr., grandson of the legendary ocean explorer and documentarian, Jacques Cousteau. Philippe has leaned into the family legacy, advocating for ocean conservation and addressing climate change. Recorded live at the Climatech conference in Boston, Philippe and I discuss why the ocean is central to addressing the global climate crisis, what he calls the missteps of the climate movement, plus lessons he learned from his grandfather. Philippe is a gifted storyteller, toeing the line between pragmatism and optimism in a way few can. So in true Cousteau fashion, let’s dive in. I’m Bob Safian. and this is Rapid Response. 

SAFIAN: I’m Bob Safian. I’m here with Philippe Cousteau at The ‘Quin in Boston. Philippe, thanks for joining us.

COUSTEAU: Bob, delighted to be here.

Copy LinkHow climate change impacts the ocean

SAFIAN: You’ve been involved in nature issues your whole life. What do you think is the current state of climate progress? Has there been climate progress?

COUSTEAU: You know, I think the current state in many cases certainly for people in the ocean space like myself is one of frustration. I’ll give you an example — about seven or eight months ago, my wife, Ashlyn, who is also my colleague and business partner and co-founder on various different ventures, we were giving an interview for a morning show about how climate change is an ocean problem, which is news to most people. We explained it’s an ocean problem because it is the ocean that drives our climate. So therefore, it’s changes in the ocean, the absorption of heat and carbon, and the changes in the dynamic of that heat distribution around the ocean that is affecting our climate. And the hosts were fascinated and they’re like, “Oh my God, we had no idea” and ‘oh my goodness.’” And here it is 2023 at the time. 

And not long after that, I remember I was going through some archives, and I was looking at an old interview that my grandfather did probably 40 years ago for a morning show explaining the same exact thing. So there continues to be certainly in good news is widespread appreciation and understanding, that this is a catastrophe unlike anything humanity has ever had to face. The problem is there continues to be a lack of appreciation of the critical role and the central role that the ocean plays as both a victim of climate, but also potentially our greatest ally in solving that problem. 

SAFIAN: You mentioned your grandfather, and just for those who are listening, who may not realize this, that your grandfather was Jacques Cousteau, the legendary, not oceanographer, but ocean explorer, really the proto oceanographer. You were explaining to me that he didn’t have an oceanography degree because they didn’t exist at that time, but an inventor, a documentarian… When you talk about him, having this discussion on TV, you know, 40 years earlier, did he appreciate what was happening to the planet overall from climate change?

COUSTEAU: He was certainly an early advocate for raising the alarm around how the climate was changing and would continue to change. He understood Intimately how the ocean drives our global system, and it’s the ocean that allows life to thrive on earth. Period. And so, he certainly was ringing the alarm bells a long time ago. People weren’t ready to listen.

Copy LinkLessons from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

SAFIAN: Your grandfather worked on a lot of different ventures. You mentioned you work on a lot of different ventures. I was thinking back to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill that was catastrophic, that you were spending a lot of time covering at that point. Are there lessons that you learned from that experience? Because you were already deep in this world at that point.  

COUSTEAU: Well, growing up with my grandfather, he obviously had a big influence on me. You know, a legend, co-inventor of scuba diving, the first through films like The Silent World and World Without Sun to open the world’s eyes to the wonders of the ocean. I do a lot of work with young people, and I’m always reminding them that, for in their case, perhaps great grandparents grew up without any real knowledge about what existed in the ocean. And so my grandfather always taught me that the responsibility we have is not just to explore and appreciate and understand, but to share that knowledge and inspiration with others — and the power of media and storytelling to do that. 

And so as a storyteller myself, when the Deepwater Horizon disaster happened, when the rig exploded and the wellhead started to leak, I remember distinctly that I was watching the news probably about six weeks after the initial reports of the spill, and that is around the time that the EPA approved BP to apply dispersant to the oil at surface. It was accumulated at the surface of the gulf and a dispersant is a solvent and surfactant and the whole point of it is to break up the oil and have it sink. And I remember all the news networks, Fox, MSNBC, CNN, they were all saying the same thing, “Oh, they’re applying the dispersant, and it’s making the oil go away.” And that phrase stuck with me, ‘go away,’ because I know very well, there’s no such thing as a way. It goes elsewhere. But there’s not some magical mystical alternative universe… 

SAFIAN: That makes it disappear, right?

COUSTEAU: Our trash doesn’t go away. It goes somewhere. And so I was incensed and confirmed with some of the scientific colleagues that I knew. I was on the board of a great organization, Ocean Conservancy, at the time, and they confirmed indeed that first of all the surfactant and solvent and the dispersant is a neurotoxin and is highly toxic and that what ends up happening, which is essentially what the officials and BP wanted to happen. It makes the oil not go away. It makes it go out of sight.

And so I called a friend of mine, Sam Champion, who was a Good Morning America at the time. And I said, “you know, Sam, no one’s ever been diving into an oil spill before. And the world needs to know that this oil isn’t going away, and what’s really happening.” He took a couple weeks to get it through ABC Disney, which owned GMA, they’re legal. Finally, Sam was like, “we got a green light.”

So we flew down to Louisiana. We went out on a commercial diving vessel, hard helmets and dry suits. Mine actually ended up leaking — so getting that toxic stuff into my suit, which was suboptimal. And we went down, and we did a segment underwater, and you could see the descent of these little blobs of red oil, just sinking down, covered in dispersant. Fish and seaweed and jelly, all sorts of things, just covered in these blobs of oil. And it changed the conversation about the oil spill and what was happening there, and really put a spotlight on this cover-up they were trying to do. And it reminded me of what my grandfather always told me — just the power of storytelling and the importance of shedding a light on the ocean in the world.

Copy LinkChange starts with education

SAFIAN: I mean, you started by saying you’re frustrated that things haven’t moved maybe a little bit faster. And I’m curious, as you’re telling the story about how BP and the government approved certain ways of trying to deal with the spill, do you get frustrated with the way businesses in general take the environment for granted? How do you get people to change that perspective? 

COUSTEAU: Well, I think there’s a bigger challenge going on when we think about the environment. And frankly, I blame in many respects as much the environmental movement as I blame industry or government. We as a movement tend to be pretty poor storytellers. And I believe that one of the problems that we face today is that we have underinvested in story and education in particular. We have underinvested in building a society that understands these issues and cares about them, and can then drive the political and social changes and economic changes that need to happen. 

Listen, companies respond to demand, and politics is the same. And over the last few decades, it’s still underinvested in a small group of us that are focused on education. You’re really starting to see the impacts of that in society. You’re starting to see a greater appreciation of the crisis around plastic waste, for example. You’re starting to see a greater appreciation politically about the importance of climate and the environment. A recent Pew study showed that a majority of young Republicans believe in climate change and believe climate change is a serious issue that the government needs to do more to tackle. So I do think that the good news is we are seeing a sea change, if you will, in society. But that doesn’t just happen. It is part of a concerted effort of a motley crew of us that have on education. 

But still, most of the big NGOs out there are very tactically focused. They want to protect land or want to pass a law, but they’re not strategically thinking about how we build a society that actually drives that kind of change.

SAFIAN: I feel like more recently the storytelling around climate has not necessarily, the wind has not necessarily been behind you, that there’s more pushing back, that some of the storytelling for more conservative or more skeptical or industry-focused places is landing.

Copy LinkEvolving the climate discourse

COUSTEAU: Well, but it’s a sliding scale that the debate maybe a decade ago was, “listen, climate change doesn’t even exist,” “nothing’s happening,” “the planet is fine.” Now is a subtle shift in conversation where the deniers are not denying whether it’s happening. Largely they’re saying, “Oh, but people aren’t responsible.” So there is a shift. The scale is moving. The perspective is moving. 

SAFIAN: You’re optimistic about this.

COUSTEAU: You know, I have to be optimistic because otherwise my God, it’s so depressing. I think we have to be. I think that again, we have to do a better job as a movement and mature our message. We made a big mistake by making polar bears the poster child of climate change, because frankly, Bob, no one cares about polar bears. They don’t, certainly not enough to change any of their behavior. Yes. It’s nice to say, ‘I love polar bears. I think they’re pretty, and they’re amazing.’ The person struggling to pay their bills or find a job doesn’t care about polar bears. We need to do a much better job as a movement of relating how we solve these problems as a way to create jobs and opportunity for people, we help people take care of their families? What are the impacts on our health? What are the impacts on our children? Making it more relevant to human beings and less about the animals and Arctic sea ice, which again is just to remove from people. 

Something my grandfather was really good at: We need to give people a vision for what the world could be like when we make these changes. Because right now it’s all doom and gloom. I’ll tell you, Bob, when you hear doom and gloom, you change the channel. And we need to get out of that mindset about talking about the problems, and focusing more on the opportunity and the solutions and the innovation that exists because there’s a lot and it’s very cool.

SAFIAN: Yeah. And I think one of the challenges that climate change has had is to keep the conversation moving, like people get engaged on something for a little while and then they move on, you know?

COUSTEAU: There’s a short attention span. 

Copy LinkFrom ‘doom and gloom’ to solutions

SAFIAN: Yeah, because it’s such a long term situation too, right? You’re not going to have a quick resolution either.

COUSTEAU: Well, that’s true. And so, how do we break this down into tangible bites for people to understand? And so, for example, as opposed to talking about how coral reefs are declining and are — we’ve lost half the world’s coral reefs in my lifetime, in 44 years. Okay. That’s a fact that’s depressing and probably going to make you change the channel. Instead, what we’ve been doing for the last few decades is pioneering technology where we can rebuild and actually build entire core reef ecosystems. So that’s a different conversation. And then you can incorporate that in a natural value capital evaluation into carbon credits, into economic models, and financial markets. And then you start getting into really interesting places that can capture people’s imagination about how we can come together to solve problems, use technology and innovation and build a better future as opposed to resign ourselves to the way things are, as we just slowly spiral down the drain.

When we look at a wellness brand that we’re launching later this year called Savoir, it’s about krill alternatives — the krill is a tiny crustacean about the size of your thumb. And it is part of a biochemical system in our ocean where krill eat phytoplankton, and their waste from eating that phytoplankton sequestered in the deep ocean. And then whales and other animals eat the krill and put an estimated 13 billion tons of carbon sequestered into the ocean every year for free. The linchpin of this is this tiny creature called krill. 

And right now, there’s a growing industry driven largely by Norway, but also to a smaller extent by Russia and China to capture krill for aquaculture feed for things like salmon people eat. But predominantly, 70 percent of the market value of krill is for omega 3 supplements in North America. So we are undermining the most important food web in the world, the biggest carbon sink in the world. And by the way, that phytoplankton system produces half the world’s oxygen for supplements. People don’t know. By the way, krill and fish get their omega 3s by eating algae. And we can now extract omega 3s directly from algae. It’s just that people don’t know. So we’re launching a brand and doing a future film to expose this whole crisis. 

Those are the kinds of things that I think are really exciting opportunities where you can reach consumers. You can create products, financial instruments, things on shelves. These are actionable things. We need to get off this sense of doom and gloom, devastation and destruction, and start talking about how we solve these problems. 

SAFIAN: And I can see your excitement about all this and all the potential that’s there. What’s in the way of that? 

COUSTEAU: When I look at the coral issue, for example, there’s a recognition that we need to put somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 4 trillion a year, trillion with a T, into the emerging and restorative blue economy in order to get a handle on some of these issues.

SAFIAN: That’s a lot of money. 

COUSTEAU: It’s a lot of money. I think we’re around 1.5 trillion a year now. So big upside and big opportunity for investors to say, “Oh, you can make a lot of money.” Right?

SAFIAN: Right. Put those market dynamics behind that change. 

COUSTEAU: Wow. So those are the kinds of things that we need to unleash in order to unleash the kind of capital that needs to flow into the ocean and the blue economy in order to help solve these big problems. Again, in a way that builds economies, builds jobs and builds opportunity. 

SAFIAN: For someone who has dedicated so much of his life to nature and conservation, it’s admirable to hear Philippe riffing on how we need to re-frame climate change strategy in a way that emphasizes market dynamics. It may be frustrating to some that the plight of polar bears isn’t enough, but it’s realistic. And that’s what you need to build impact.

After the break, Philippe and I discuss investing in oceans versus space exploration, and what lessons he learned from the untimely passing of his father, Philippe Sr. Stay with us. 

[AD BREAK]

Before the break, we heard Philippe Cousteau Jr, grandson of legendary ocean explorer Jacque Cousteau, talk about the need to shift climate messaging, from what he calls “doom and gloom” to more optimistic and actionable. Now he talks about putting value on coral reefs, our fear of the dark, and how his two young daughters have impacted his approach. Plus, his own personal Indiana Jones moment. Let’s jump back in.

Copy LinkWhy space captures society’s imagination more than the ocean

SAFIAN: There’s so much that we do understand about how these ecosystems work, but we don’t really appreciate it, right? 

COUSTEAU:  Yeah, Bob. There’s so much we still don’t understand. When you look at the amount of money that we invest in sending probes into space to explore distant galaxies versus the amount of money that we spend to explore and understand these complex systems on this planet, it’s a rounding error that we invest here on earth versus what we spend on space.

SAFIAN: In the marketplace right now, there’s a lot more money going into space. You need your Star Wars, you know?

COUSTEAU: We had talked about this. I’m friends with Rod Roddenberry, Gene Roddenberry from Star Trek, his son. And we talk about this, and I do believe one of the biggest problems is we’re a visual species. And I think oftentimes actually about the challenges of the deep ocean, which is a majority of our planet, a majority of the livable space on our planet is deep ocean. It’s dark. It’s dark. You can’t see anything. That hurts us. It’s hard to capture people’s imagination when it’s a big black void. Even the most powerful lights that we have maybe extend 15 feet. When you’re talking about something that’s many times larger than the Grand Canyon, the Marianas Trench, many times deeper, many times wider, many times larger. And if you could actually see it, it would be the most extraordinary feature of geology on the planet. You just can’t see it.

SAFIAN: Well, and most of the storytelling that comes out of Hollywood around the deep ocean is, you know, “it’s dangerous. There’s some creature down there,” right?

COUSTEAU: They had to make aliens coming into the— 

SAFIAN: —deep ocean to do something.

COUSTEAU: Yeah, it’s the fear of the dark, right? There is one undeniable fact that I want everybody to walk away with, which is: we cannot solve the climate crisis without restoring and protecting the ocean. Full stop. That’s the headline. 

Everybody talks about the Amazon, the 20 percent of the world’s oxygen, the ocean is 50%. It’s a fraction of the amount of global carbon that’s absorbed, predominantly absorbed by the ocean. The heat absorbed by the ocean. And so if we don’t protect these systems, we don’t build robustness around these systems. We don’t restore and rebuild these systems. We don’t have a prayer. 

SAFIAN: So people should be talking about krill the same way they’re talking about the Amazon?

COUSTEAU: Krill is far more critical, in my opinion. They should be talking about coral reefs. The reason we invest so much in space is people want to mine asteroids. There’s money there in them hills. There’s a lot of security issues around space and the space race and Space Force and Russia and China and all these concerns. So hence capital flowing into those places. You don’t have that scale of economic, I think, stakes, perceived economic stakes in the ocean. We need to change that because we need to recognize that if we don’t solve some of these problems, then all that other stuff doesn’t matter.

Copy LinkAssigning financial value to the ocean

SAFIAN: And that’s one of the reasons why quantifying what the value of those resources really is. 

COUSTEAU: Yeah. One great example, we’re working, if you can quantify the natural capital of a square meter coral reef and float it on a secondary market, as an investable asset, then you have legal recourse when that reef is destroyed. Say an island in the Caribbean, up until now you have an oil spill or a ship grounding that destroys that reef. You don’t have a way to calculate that loss. So if you can go in and say, “Oh, by the way, now someone has paid for this square meter of reef,” the value of that reef has been established and agreed upon. Then you have legal recourse to actually sue and recoup the value of that reef. That will change everything. Then countries can look at their balance sheets and say, “I have all these coral reefs. That’s an asset that is now valued on the market. I can put that on my balance sheet that can then have an impact on my credit score.”

So there’s all sorts of implications to start thinking about financial markets, and you start thinking about how we’d be more sophisticated. Let’s not protect coral reefs because coral reefs are important. I get that, but not enough people care that— 

SAFIAN: Right. The financial metrics that’s right now is like how much oil you have underneath that seabed.

COUSTEAU: Or how much value is that ship coming, bringing oil, destroying that reef, bringing to the local economy? You’re absolutely right, Bob. We need to change that conversation and say, “Oh wait, but there’s also a huge amount of natural capital here.” And that can then unleash an enormous amount of investable opportunities for impact markets. And say, “Oh wow, like these are assets that you could trade.” And all of a sudden then people will value them.

Copy LinkHow becoming a father has inspired Philippe

SAFIAN: Listening to you, I’m reminded that you have done a lot of travel around the world to a lot of different places. How important is seeing all these different places yourself personally? How valuable, meaningful is that in appreciating what needs to be done?

COUSTEAU: Seeing certainly is believing. When you see the faces of people who are excited about the opportunities that a new technology might bring or an investment in their local community might bring to transform their lives and the lives of their children. That’s really exciting. On the flip side, when you see the faces of people whose lives have been devastated because the environment has collapsed, that hits home as well. It took on a new degree of urgency for me when my first daughter was born just five years ago. And now with two little girls, I look at the world that we’re building, and I’m embarrassed, actually, that we should have the selfish audacity as a species to continually pass on a more degraded planet than the one we inherited to our children. And I think that is a stain on the moral conscience of us as collective parents, frankly, and failure. 

So as a parent, I am doubly driven, though traveling a little bit less because I really want to be home for my littles. I mean, you know, my father died six months before I was born, Philippe senior, and so I’m acutely aware of the privilege that I have of being present for them.

Copy LinkHow Philippe Coursteau Jr. was hooked to join the family business

SAFIAN: Your grandfather inspired your father, both of them inspired you to sort of take on these issues and make it your life. Do you think about that for your daughters? Like, are they going to be in the same business that you’re in?

COUSTEAU: Bob, it’s possible. My mom did a great job. So, single mom, my hero, she never pressured us to necessarily follow this line of work. Her message was always, ‘find purpose, and find a way to make the world better. However, that manifests itself with your passion.’

It just so happens that I was 16. She had organized a trip for me to go to Papua New Guinea with one of the pioneering female oceanographers, a woman named Dr. Eugenie Clark. And we were in a very remote, southeastern region of Papua New Guinea on a boat for two weeks doing research. And we were trading rice and sugar for fresh vegetables with people in these remote villages, coming out and digging out canoes. This is a 16 year old, and I’d grown up with the stories of my grandfather. We traveled a lot, but not to this kind of a super remote place. Which in the late 1990s was very untouched.

I remember on the days off from diving, we would go hiking up into the mountains and had been told by one of the locals that there is a cave full of human skulls somewhere up there. So we went looking for it. And indeed, there was a cave with human skulls. No one knows the religion or the culture that left those anymore. The skulls are centuries old, and they just go off into the darkness. And I was like, “this is Indiana Jones.” Like, Oh my goodness. Yes. The research and all really cool stuff, but holy crap. I’m living Indiana Jones, so I thought to myself, ‘yeah, of course, why wouldn’t I want to do this? This is the coolest job ever.’ So I was hooked.

SAFIAN: Some people with the background that you have — father died when you were young, you’ve been around other tragedies — I know when Steve Irwin died, you were there. You could have more of a down view on the world. You just don’t let yourself do that.

COUSTEAU: My father was 39 when he passed. I was there with Steve, who was such an extraordinary guy. And he was, I believe, 41, 42 when he died. And we were filming together, and he literally died in my arms. If anything, those experiences have reminded me of just how little time we have and how unpredictable it is. And so let’s lean in as much as possible in every moment, and let’s try and build a world where, whenever we leave, we can be proud of the small role that we played in trying to make it better for our children.

SAFIAN: Well, Philippe, this has been great. Thank you so much for doing it.

COUSTEAU: Bob, thanks for having me.

SAFIAN: Since my conversation with Philippe, a few of his stories have really stuck with me. I think that’s what Philippe understands so well about climate action. For any business leader, Philippe is a great case study in impactful, mission-led storytelling. He understands that to sell his vision, his stories need to include human emotion at the core, clearly defined stakes, and an incentive to the listener to join him on his quest. 

I hope people in positions of power take note of Philippe’s insights about the role of oceans in addressing climate crises, and the potential solutions hiding under the surface. I’m Bob Safian, thanks for listening.