Climate Change Actions Using Sargassum and Black Fly Larvae

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Look, I get it. We're probably tired of hearing about

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all the doom and gloom surrounding climate change, all the consequences of

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climate change and all the money that's involved in

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climate change. Like I know Canadians, we as Canadians are sick of

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hearing about carbon taxes and all the money that we have to pay as

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out of pocket to help climate change. However, today

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we're going to switch it up a little bit. We're going to talk about climate solutions, no money

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from us, no carbon tax, no taxes at all. We're

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just going to focus on climate solutions. And today on

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the program, we have Dr. Annalisa Bracco, who is a professor and

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associate chair for research at Georgia Tech School of

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Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, specializing in

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ocean and climate dynamics, not only is she

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specializing in ocean climate dynamics. She also has experience

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working out in space and she talks about how familiar things

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are in space as they are into the ocean. We're going to hear all

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about that and her projects as she's been collaborating with a number of different engineers

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and scientists and business people on climate

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solutions on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's

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start the show. Hey

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I

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am your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with

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the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for

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a better ocean by taking action. On today's episode, we're

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going to be talking about climate solutions. And before we get

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to that, if you want to know more about what you can do to

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help protect the ocean, you find out more information from

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us, you can go to our website at speakupforblue.com. All

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you have to do is go to speakupforblue.com and then if you want information to

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your inbox to find out more about the episodes that we release, to

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find out more about the news that's being released on the ocean, and

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you can find out more about jobs that you can search for to follow a career in

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marine science and ocean conservation, just sign up for our newsletter. Go

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to speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter. That's

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speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter. Let's

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get into the episode with Dr. Annalisa Bracco, who is a professor and

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associate chair for research at Georgia Tech School of

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Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, specializing in ocean

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and climate dynamics. And as I mentioned before, she

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was like a physicist that looked at space and looked at the

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how galaxies were formed and how planets were formed and modeling

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all the stuff around there and how similar space is and modeling space is

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compared to the ocean. Very, very interesting. We talk a lot

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about climate solutions. We talk a lot about how she was told by

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her own father that you wouldn't do

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well in physics because you're a woman. And we'll see what happens with

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that. She became quite interested in looking after

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things about physics and pursuing all things surrounding physics,

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and she is here right now to talk about her career,

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to talk about climate solutions, and why she switched from just modeling

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climate change to climate solutions. We're going to talk about that today.

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Enjoy the interview with Dr. Annalisa Bracco, and

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I'll talk to you after. Hi, Annalisa. Welcome to

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the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about ocean

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climate solutions? Absolutely. Love

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it. I love it. I'm really excited about this episode because a

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lot of the times when we talk about climate change in the ocean, we really focus on

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the doom and gloom. We don't talk a lot about solutions. And today,

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we're going to be talking about some of those solutions. A lot of it is experimental. A

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lot of it is in the research phases. But it's really great to be

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able to look at hope down the way. And

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I think that's what we need a little bit in today's world. We need a lot of hope. So

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I'm looking forward to being able to discuss that with you, Annalisa. But before we do,

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Absolutely. So my name is Annalisa Bracco. I'm a professor

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at Georgia Tech in climate and oceanography. My

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background is in physics. So my degree, my

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bachelor degree, was in theoretical physics. And I

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got that in Italy at the University of Turin. And

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then I did a master

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thesis or research work looking at the formation of

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galaxies. And from that, I

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entered in a PhD to study the role of

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vortices in the formation of planets. And

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I do all of that using numerical models. And

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then after a couple of papers on the planets,

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and how they form after the star has

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exploded, has formed. So we have the sun, we have a proton nebula, we

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need to figure out how we aggregate stuff to

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get to the planet. After doing that, I

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was essentially asked by my advisor to get

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closer to our planet and work

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possibly in the ocean or in the atmosphere, because

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he was kind of switching research. The

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equations that describe the motion of the

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gas around the star or of the

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oceans are the same. You may make very different

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approximations, but at the end of the game, the

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players, the big players are exactly the same. Because when you

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have a star and you have a nebula around, what happens is that

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the nebula is rotating around the star. So

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you have rotation. And then you also have stratification. Because

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all the gas and the heavy, the gas it's all around, and

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instead the heavy stuff, so all the dust that forms after the

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star explosion, coalesce in the center. And

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so you have a thin layer of a dense object

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that is rotating. And that's really what the ocean is,

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is a relatively thin layer on a big object,

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which is rotating. And so really, the equations and

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the forces at play are very similar. So it was a relatively simple

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switch. I love to sail. I love the

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ocean. And so for my side, it was very easy

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to pick the ocean against the atmosphere. I ended up

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also working on the atmosphere. I have nothing against the atmosphere. But

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at the time I said ocean and that stick with me

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and I definitely do more research related to the ocean that

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Phenomenal. I love that because a lot of the times when you

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hear people talk about space, like say government talks

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about space or you hear like SpaceX or whatever and we're like we want

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to go to space, we want all these billionaires are wanting to go to space and stuff and explore

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space. A lot of times, like, well, let's

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forget about space. Let's focus on the ocean. It seems very divisive. It

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seems very like people are pitting one against the other. But why can't we

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do both? And I love the fact that you have the similarities in

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terms of the equation and modeling the ocean and

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out in space and formation of galaxies. And they're actually

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all similar. So we're here arguing, like, let's spend less money

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on space. Let's spend more money on the ocean, which I get. But

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in reality, maybe some of the models that were used for

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space can be used for the ocean and vice versa. It's just a matter of

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finding those similarities. So I love the fact that you've crossed over that. But I

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have to ask to go back a little bit and

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talk about your interest in in physics as

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a young woman, right? What got you into learning

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about physics? That's not something you hear every day. And to

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be honest, and this is a feat to you, is as

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a woman, you don't see a lot of physicists come out,

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right? You don't see a lot of women being known as being

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physicists. So how

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I was not very much encouraged for a while. That's

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a very different story. So my dad is

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Yes. My dad only managed to get through middle

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school. Wow. He

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was born just before World War II, so

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there was kind of no money. He had to go to work, and he actually managed

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to get through middle school just because some teacher really

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pushed him. push his father to let him do it,

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because the problem was really the family needed him. But

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then he got into the army, because

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that was a safe job and the job that pays you every month, when

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he was very young. And from there, he... Is this

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And essentially he got in the, what here will

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be the Corps of Engineering. Okay,

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yeah. And so they were building bridges, they

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were rebuilding the whole infrastructure for Italy and especially train

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bridges for the rail system. And

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he started studying on his own. And then in

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1969, there was the opportunity for people that didn't have a high school degree

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to take an exam and

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get through and if they pass and enroll at

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Wow. How old was he in

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Yeah. OK. So fairly late to think about university, but

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He was already married. My mom really pushed him to do that.

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He had this passion for physics. He had read and learned

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a lot on his own, just reading books and things. And

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so he entered. So he passed. But

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then decided to stay where he was and

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not go to university because that would have delay having a

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family and things like that. So I was born a

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couple of years later, in fact. But at the same

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time, that allowed him to advance in

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the career in the army as if he had a

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high school degree. And so he was

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able to get into the Military Academy for the Corps of

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Engineering and teach applied physics. So I

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grew up with a father that would teach us physics every

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single opportunity he had. So I do remember, not

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too fondly, those trips where he,

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you know, any kind of something

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that was moving in the car, and we would have to go through

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the centrifugal acceleration and always

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get to calculate, you know, what is the minimum

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What is the ideal distance for a satellite to be

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in a geostationary position? And

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I was six or seven, and my brother was younger. And

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so, you know, he always came to me to do all those

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calculations. And of course, I was doing them wrongly. I mean, I was six

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or seven. So he decided I was really not

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talented for physics. But

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it got me to think a lot about that. And it got me then

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later on, we start talking about general relativity. He was, he

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had read everything about that too. I mean, the original textbooks

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by Einstein. And so

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I got to be interested in that. And

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then one day he told me, but you are a woman and

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women are not logic. And so you cannot understand physics.

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I got so mad that I ended up

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saying, well, I'll show you. And that's pretty

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So it was more of like to prove your dad wrong to

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say hey, you know what you've been teaching me all these years I picked up

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a few things and I've got an interest in it. I'm gonna do it. I like that.

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I like that. That's really interesting And then so then from

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there the so that means, you know high school, you know You

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I know I took very little physics in high school I actually went for

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classic literature. I was very very talented in literature and

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writing so I did Greek and Latin for

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five years and just a tiny bit of physics, but I

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enjoyed that tiny bit. And then I really

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went, I mean, I really did physics as an undergraduate

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because I wanted to show him that I could do it. And

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in fact, I finished and before getting into

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a PhD, I took a year off and I went to do classic literature

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as a bachelor degree. and decided that

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I was getting bored because I was missing research. My

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last year as an undergraduate in Italy,

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it's essentially equivalent of a master, you have to work on a thesis and I

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really enjoyed the research part. So I

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went back and I tried to enter in

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a PhD, which is hard in Italy, just percent to advise because

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it's an exam that you have to pass nationally. So

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there are very few positions open. Things have changed, but

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when I did it, it was like that. And

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I remember calling my dad and saying that I

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was dropping a job offer that I had received because

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I wanted to first try to get into a PhD. And he told me,

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you are good, but not that good. I was like, well,

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Do you think he knew what he was doing? Because the first time

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he said no, and then you're like, no, I'm going to show him. And now

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he's telling you, no, you're good. You proved his point, but

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No, when I got in and I actually placed first

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of the five people that were admitted that year, I

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called him. He's the first person I called and I said, I'm

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in. And he told me, well, how many got in, like

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five, and how did you place first, and how many other

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women? None. It was completely by chance. At that

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point, like the following year, there were three women out of five, so

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Yeah, yeah, or the mix at that point. I mean, you know, the

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numbers are so small. You start with 70 people, you have to get down

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to five. Some years will be female, some years will be male.

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But he was very impressed by that. He was really impressed by

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the, you know, you put four guys

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Yeah. You're like, you're ahead of four guys. You're like, Hey, what? Remember

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That's fantastic. So you get into a PhD program and

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you're still doing, this is not the galaxy

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Yeah. I started looking on, I started working on, uh, of

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formation of planets. And then I switched to

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And again- You switched to oceanography while you're doing

237
00:15:15,924 --> 00:15:19,725
Okay, because you're a supervisor. Again, vortices

238
00:15:19,865 --> 00:15:23,226
in the ocean are fundamental for oceanography, so

239
00:15:27,323 --> 00:15:30,825
But I'm sure, and you say very easy, I

240
00:15:30,905 --> 00:15:34,086
say no way, because just what you're probably working with

241
00:15:34,226 --> 00:15:37,807
on the regular, I wouldn't be able to understand because you sound

242
00:15:37,867 --> 00:15:42,729
much more intelligent than I am in physics. But

243
00:15:42,849 --> 00:15:46,350
going from space to ocean, just from

244
00:15:46,410 --> 00:15:49,892
a mind perspective, one, you're exploring the

245
00:15:49,932 --> 00:15:53,755
vastness of space where you could probably make a

246
00:15:53,815 --> 00:15:57,477
number of different discoveries. You could probably do a lot of wonderful things.

247
00:15:57,837 --> 00:16:01,718
Now, obviously, you can still do discoveries because there's still a vastness to the ocean. But

248
00:16:01,758 --> 00:16:05,120
it seems like there's a little bit more limitation. And I say limitation by

249
00:16:05,140 --> 00:16:08,541
a squeeze, right? But in comparison, was

250
00:16:08,581 --> 00:16:11,742
there a shift being like, why am I going from space to ocean? Did

251
00:16:13,363 --> 00:16:17,245
No. I love the space part because

252
00:16:17,365 --> 00:16:20,566
I love just

253
00:16:20,606 --> 00:16:24,038
the idea. you

254
00:16:24,078 --> 00:16:27,600
are learning how everything formed and all of that. But

255
00:16:27,660 --> 00:16:30,881
I must say that because I

256
00:16:30,921 --> 00:16:34,663
was already working with models, the possibility of

257
00:16:34,743 --> 00:16:38,224
applying it to something where I could have observations or

258
00:16:38,244 --> 00:16:41,305
I could at least solve actual problem, it became a

259
00:16:41,365 --> 00:16:44,827
little bit less abstract. And we

260
00:16:44,847 --> 00:16:48,208
were also at the time where climate change was starting to become

261
00:16:48,248 --> 00:16:51,510
a problem. So no, I

262
00:16:51,550 --> 00:16:54,784
was very pleased to do

263
00:16:54,844 --> 00:16:59,025
that switch. The fact that I had something to

264
00:16:59,225 --> 00:17:02,546
anchor what I was doing and to see the

265
00:17:02,586 --> 00:17:06,667
application of what I was doing directly, it was

266
00:17:12,508 --> 00:17:15,729
So I finished my PhD in 2000. So I started in 1997. I finished in 2000. So I made

267
00:17:22,126 --> 00:17:25,467
Right. So I was, the reason why I asked was more because

268
00:17:25,487 --> 00:17:28,868
of the, you mentioned climate was, we were really starting to, we

269
00:17:28,888 --> 00:17:32,089
were starting to focus more on climate at that point. And that's true.

270
00:17:32,109 --> 00:17:35,531
I remember starting to learn, I went to university, I did my undergrad in

271
00:17:36,011 --> 00:17:39,212
97 to 2001. And that's when I started to really find out more

272
00:17:39,232 --> 00:17:42,733
and more about climate. And even though it wasn't necessarily being

273
00:17:43,153 --> 00:17:46,734
talked about in the public eye as much up maybe

274
00:17:46,774 --> 00:17:49,929
until the earlier 2000s, but It was in

275
00:17:50,469 --> 00:17:53,972
the academic sort of circles. It was being discussed quite

276
00:17:53,992 --> 00:17:57,355
a bit. We knew that there was going to be problems 10 to 20 years. And

277
00:17:57,715 --> 00:18:01,018
surprise, surprise, we have problems 10 to 20 years later and so

278
00:18:01,058 --> 00:18:04,508
forth, even 30 years later. At

279
00:18:04,548 --> 00:18:08,270
that point, though, did you see, focusing

280
00:18:08,310 --> 00:18:11,933
a little bit on climate, knowing where this is going, did you

281
00:18:12,873 --> 00:18:16,135
really understand how, one,

282
00:18:16,215 --> 00:18:20,398
good for your career this would be because you're working in climate, but also understand

283
00:18:20,858 --> 00:18:24,420
the depths of the destruction that climate change

284
00:18:26,902 --> 00:18:30,064
No, not at the time. Also because I was

285
00:18:30,144 --> 00:18:33,859
a student and I'm always being kind of optimistic, like

286
00:18:33,939 --> 00:18:37,540
I just, it's really curiosity what at the end drives me.

287
00:18:39,281 --> 00:18:42,522
And the other thing that I would say the ocean was bringing was the

288
00:18:43,023 --> 00:18:46,304
possibility to really work at the intersection of physics, but

289
00:18:46,364 --> 00:18:49,686
also chemistry and biology, which is something that I had in me

290
00:18:49,866 --> 00:18:53,748
already from the university, the undergraduate time.

291
00:18:53,808 --> 00:18:57,829
So I wanted to be able to do something that

292
00:18:57,869 --> 00:19:02,019
was more interdisciplinary. So I

293
00:19:02,079 --> 00:19:05,600
didn't see it coming as much.

294
00:19:06,521 --> 00:19:10,562
And also, I would say, we

295
00:19:10,582 --> 00:19:14,243
started having satellites and having really good information about

296
00:19:14,323 --> 00:19:17,805
climate only in the 80s. So we were just 15 years

297
00:19:18,365 --> 00:19:21,746
or less than 20 years in. The trends were not there yet.

298
00:19:22,106 --> 00:19:25,326
The record was just too short. But we were coming out of

299
00:19:25,466 --> 00:19:29,707
the biggest El Nino in the century, the 1996 event,

300
00:19:30,347 --> 00:19:33,548
and also what that meant for population all

301
00:19:33,648 --> 00:19:37,809
over, from India to Africa. So there

302
00:19:37,849 --> 00:19:41,590
was a lot of, you know, we can understand more,

303
00:19:42,050 --> 00:19:45,490
we need to understand more, and we can also be useful

304
00:19:45,530 --> 00:19:49,551
to society. That was interesting,

305
00:19:49,651 --> 00:19:53,372
and it was also what drove me into the field.

306
00:19:53,849 --> 00:19:58,792
Interesting. Okay, cool. Now, after which you finish

307
00:19:58,812 --> 00:20:02,194
up your PhD, what happened next? Where did

308
00:20:05,776 --> 00:20:08,958
I did a postdoc. I came to the US for the first time for

309
00:20:08,978 --> 00:20:12,160
a long period. I did a postdoc at the Woods

310
00:20:12,180 --> 00:20:15,842
Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. And

311
00:20:15,902 --> 00:20:19,384
then I went back to Italy and I worked at

312
00:20:19,544 --> 00:20:23,485
UNESCO for three and a half years. UNESCO

313
00:20:23,565 --> 00:20:26,646
has one research center, which is located in

314
00:20:26,726 --> 00:20:30,408
Italy, it's called the International Center for Theoretical Physics, and they were growing

315
00:20:38,793 --> 00:20:43,475
And then I came back to the United States, and in December

316
00:20:52,011 --> 00:20:55,492
Yeah, I had another year at WUTSOL in

317
00:20:58,733 --> 00:21:01,774
So I know a lot of it was research-based, but working for an

318
00:21:01,854 --> 00:21:05,336
organization like UNESCO, especially in Italy, where I feel like Italy

319
00:21:05,416 --> 00:21:08,617
is a bit of a headquarters for a lot of

320
00:21:08,877 --> 00:21:12,338
international organizations, UN, FAO

321
00:21:12,398 --> 00:21:15,779
is there as well, UNESCO obviously has an

322
00:21:15,839 --> 00:21:19,729
office there, it's a pretty big hub for international

323
00:21:19,829 --> 00:21:23,151
type of work and research. What

324
00:21:23,471 --> 00:21:26,873
made you decide to pursue one kind

325
00:21:26,913 --> 00:21:30,115
of a little bit, get away a little bit of that and not work directly for

326
00:21:30,175 --> 00:21:33,798
them, but also move into an academic position?

327
00:21:35,059 --> 00:21:38,441
Well, there were a number of

328
00:21:39,905 --> 00:21:44,826
work-related, personnel-related, a lot of things that got together. But

329
00:21:45,046 --> 00:21:48,867
I was happy to get to a faculty position because

330
00:21:48,927 --> 00:21:53,328
I wanted to work more directly with students. And

331
00:21:54,809 --> 00:21:58,089
I truly enjoy advising. So

332
00:21:58,149 --> 00:22:01,770
I wanted to have that opportunity and build

333
00:22:01,850 --> 00:22:05,962
a group and kind of give

334
00:22:06,042 --> 00:22:09,443
also back to the new generations, you know, the

335
00:22:09,463 --> 00:22:13,684
passion, the kind of curiosity that I have. And so

336
00:22:13,704 --> 00:22:17,125
that for me was important. I love it.

337
00:22:17,325 --> 00:22:20,946
And in Trieste, you can do a little bit of that. And you do a lot of that with

338
00:22:22,146 --> 00:22:26,107
students from developing countries, but are usually shorter interactions,

339
00:22:26,247 --> 00:22:29,393
like they come for a few months, and they go. So it's a little bit

340
00:22:29,833 --> 00:22:32,934
It's not like a three to five year, depending on what they're doing, whether a

341
00:22:32,954 --> 00:22:36,415
master's or PhD, or even a postdoc, where you can, you really get

342
00:22:36,475 --> 00:22:39,916
into a mentorship role with that

343
00:22:39,996 --> 00:22:43,017
student. And I think that really, yeah, I agree. I think that's a

344
00:22:43,057 --> 00:22:46,218
really great feature for academia. And now you've

345
00:22:46,258 --> 00:22:49,559
been doing that since, at Georgia Tech, since then. That's

346
00:22:52,755 --> 00:22:56,138
Yeah, no, another thing that really brought me to Georgia

347
00:22:56,178 --> 00:22:59,521
Tech that I enjoyed very much was the fact that there was a lot of go

348
00:22:59,561 --> 00:23:03,524
and a lot of attention for interdisciplinary

349
00:23:03,564 --> 00:23:06,667
projects. So there was a lot of support for that. And

350
00:23:06,727 --> 00:23:09,930
so I enjoyed that from the beginning because I

351
00:23:09,970 --> 00:23:13,132
started working in collaboration with people in biology, School of

352
00:23:13,192 --> 00:23:16,495
Physics, and College of Computing, and now

353
00:23:21,111 --> 00:23:24,252
brought me here and kept me

354
00:23:24,352 --> 00:23:28,513
here. Georgia Tech is a great school. It's a big school. It's

355
00:23:28,553 --> 00:23:31,793
got a lot to go by. It's very popular. Now, how

356
00:23:31,813 --> 00:23:35,754
did you feel about coming from Italy, where you have European football,

357
00:23:35,794 --> 00:23:39,055
and you come to Georgia Tech, where you have American football, which is pretty big

358
00:23:42,096 --> 00:23:45,376
I don't watch American football. I don't understand it.

359
00:23:48,297 --> 00:23:52,464
I used to. Okay, I still watch the

360
00:23:53,645 --> 00:23:56,847
Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, I

361
00:23:57,207 --> 00:24:00,689
had to push that in there because I feel like that was a big change

362
00:24:02,070 --> 00:24:06,252
Now, is there a lot of difference between doing

363
00:24:06,372 --> 00:24:09,714
a PhD in Italy and

364
00:24:09,734 --> 00:24:13,217
then mentoring PhD students and graduate students

365
00:24:16,994 --> 00:24:20,957
Yes and no, in the sense that the Italian PhD

366
00:24:21,017 --> 00:24:24,439
comes after an undergraduate, and

367
00:24:24,519 --> 00:24:27,781
now it's different, but anyways, it's three plus two

368
00:24:27,841 --> 00:24:31,023
years even now. So it's five years and essentially you

369
00:24:31,043 --> 00:24:34,666
already do the equivalent of a master. So

370
00:24:34,846 --> 00:24:38,888
when you start your PhD, it's shorter, it's three years, and

371
00:24:39,009 --> 00:24:43,471
it's really focused on research. There are almost no classes. While

372
00:24:43,591 --> 00:24:46,947
here, it's longer and is essentially what

373
00:24:46,967 --> 00:24:50,869
in Europe or what in Italy would be the master plus a PhD. With

374
00:24:50,929 --> 00:24:54,871
five years and the first couple of years, there is a substantial

375
00:24:54,911 --> 00:24:58,633
amount of coursework that you have to take. So

376
00:24:58,693 --> 00:25:02,695
in that sense, it's just putting together the two things. So it's different,

377
00:25:02,855 --> 00:25:06,256
but at the end, it's- Same amount of time, just different way

378
00:25:07,617 --> 00:25:11,299
Yeah. It's interesting because I live in Canada and the research thesis

379
00:25:11,877 --> 00:25:15,358
for a PhD is very much research-based. You do some courses

380
00:25:15,398 --> 00:25:18,799
if you need it, but there are students who don't.

381
00:25:18,879 --> 00:25:22,119
They may do one or two courses if they need it, but it's very different there.

382
00:25:22,159 --> 00:25:25,600
So it's interesting to hear the European versus North

383
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:28,941
American and the differences and similarities from there.

384
00:25:29,641 --> 00:25:33,042
Now, since you've been at Georgia Tech, it's been almost 20 years,

385
00:25:33,202 --> 00:25:36,562
I guess, since you've been there, your

386
00:25:36,822 --> 00:25:40,697
work has stayed on oceans and climate. How

387
00:25:40,737 --> 00:25:43,819
has that evolved over the last 20 years for you and just sort of

388
00:25:44,199 --> 00:25:47,540
how we've been involving as a society as well?

389
00:25:47,981 --> 00:25:51,402
I think we definitely shift from just

390
00:25:51,682 --> 00:25:55,184
understanding the climate system and

391
00:25:55,524 --> 00:25:59,466
trying to attribute the changes in the climate system to

392
00:26:00,286 --> 00:26:03,548
greenhouse gas concentrations increasing to

393
00:26:04,188 --> 00:26:07,350
aerosol increasing initially and now decreasing and so on

394
00:26:07,470 --> 00:26:11,471
to really trying to find solutions to the problems and

395
00:26:12,151 --> 00:26:15,335
to working much more towards adaptation and

396
00:26:15,375 --> 00:26:20,020
mitigation strategies versus just we want to understand. Yeah.

397
00:26:23,204 --> 00:26:26,593
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And now you are focusing a

398
00:26:26,713 --> 00:26:30,034
lot now on, I guess, less

399
00:26:30,254 --> 00:26:33,496
theoretical sort of applications and

400
00:26:33,596 --> 00:26:37,337
more, I guess, practical applications,

401
00:26:37,397 --> 00:26:40,619
especially when it comes to climate. Why

402
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,921
Well, again, I think that if you just

403
00:26:46,981 --> 00:26:50,443
identify the problem and you don't work on the solutions, it's a lot.

404
00:26:51,343 --> 00:26:54,544
Obviously, it's important to identify the problem and understand the problem. You

405
00:26:54,584 --> 00:26:58,144
cannot solve it otherwise. But there

406
00:26:58,184 --> 00:27:01,405
is a lot to be said for also trying to figure it out what is the best

407
00:27:01,525 --> 00:27:05,525
way to address it. And I

408
00:27:05,565 --> 00:27:09,006
think Georgia Tech in that regard, it's a fantastic place to be because

409
00:27:09,046 --> 00:27:12,447
you have so many opportunities of collaborating with people

410
00:27:12,647 --> 00:27:16,347
that can bring also the solution side, the engineers, for

411
00:27:16,407 --> 00:27:19,928
example. And so it's kind

412
00:27:19,968 --> 00:27:23,359
of an automatic thing to do, at least for me because,

413
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:28,283
again, I do like to work collaboratively and

414
00:27:28,823 --> 00:27:32,026
I really appreciate to be able to have that

415
00:27:32,086 --> 00:27:35,328
engagement and do new things all the time. Of

416
00:27:35,488 --> 00:27:38,691
course. You learn if you are working with someone that

417
00:27:41,273 --> 00:27:44,555
Absolutely. Can you talk about maybe one of the first projects that you worked

418
00:27:44,615 --> 00:27:48,332
on where it was more solution-focused and where that collaborative

419
00:27:48,412 --> 00:27:52,053
effort happen and how that collaborative, like how that networking

420
00:27:55,794 --> 00:27:59,114
Sure, I have several at this point. There is

421
00:27:59,355 --> 00:28:03,135
one that I find extremely interesting which

422
00:28:03,215 --> 00:28:07,936
is about sargassum in the tropical Atlantic. We

423
00:28:07,956 --> 00:28:11,717
have had since 2011 blooms of

424
00:28:11,777 --> 00:28:15,258
sargassum in a region of the tropical Atlantic

425
00:28:15,298 --> 00:28:18,539
around 10 north where we never used

426
00:28:18,579 --> 00:28:22,122
to. Right. And those blooms are growing, are

427
00:28:22,162 --> 00:28:26,506
growing over time. They're becoming bigger and bigger, essentially. And

428
00:28:26,726 --> 00:28:30,109
they are really impacting the Caribbeans and

429
00:28:30,129 --> 00:28:33,852
the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Florida because all

430
00:28:33,912 --> 00:28:37,495
this amount of the sargassum at some point gets to the beaches and

431
00:28:37,535 --> 00:28:41,714
it needs to be cleaned up or it rottens. It's

432
00:28:41,794 --> 00:28:45,176
absorbing a very large amount of carbon

433
00:28:45,196 --> 00:28:48,719
dioxide from the atmosphere to grow, but then it's releasing

434
00:28:48,819 --> 00:28:52,241
it once it gets to the beaches. And so we have to figure out why it's

435
00:28:54,563 --> 00:28:58,065
Yeah. And just to interrupt a little bit, I just wanted to give the

436
00:28:58,105 --> 00:29:01,848
audience a perspective on how much actually

437
00:29:01,948 --> 00:29:05,491
comes to the coast. I went to Mexico one

438
00:29:05,531 --> 00:29:09,173
year, and along the beach, it would

439
00:29:09,333 --> 00:29:13,108
go up to my knees. in in sargasm like i was really

440
00:29:13,168 --> 00:29:16,450
up to my knees in it and it was all along the beach to the point

441
00:29:16,490 --> 00:29:20,685
where there are now this was a resort there were garbage

442
00:29:20,705 --> 00:29:25,086
truck, or not garbage truck, sorry, dump trucks that

443
00:29:25,106 --> 00:29:28,287
were just there constantly, just being filled up with

444
00:29:28,367 --> 00:29:31,607
diggers and being filled up with sargassum, and

445
00:29:31,647 --> 00:29:34,808
then they would go and dump it somewhere, and then they would come back, and they would do that

446
00:29:35,228 --> 00:29:38,689
all day. So that tranquility that you expected on

447
00:29:38,729 --> 00:29:42,029
a beach wasn't very tranquil with trucks

448
00:29:42,089 --> 00:29:45,390
working 24 hours a day just trying to get all

449
00:29:45,430 --> 00:29:48,832
that sarcasm off. So I just wanted to kind of put that in perspective to people, like how

450
00:29:48,892 --> 00:29:52,053
much is coming along the beach? And that wasn't just Mexico. That was

451
00:29:52,093 --> 00:29:55,435
a lot of beaches in the Caribbean, as you mentioned, in

452
00:29:56,596 --> 00:30:00,237
Yeah. Florida and Caribbean, I think together, they're spending

453
00:30:00,477 --> 00:30:04,159
the order of $300 million per year now, just for cleanup purposes,

454
00:30:04,359 --> 00:30:08,061
because you cannot leave it on the beach. Otherwise, you kill the tourists. Yeah.

455
00:30:08,081 --> 00:30:11,684
Yeah. huge nuisance

456
00:30:11,784 --> 00:30:14,985
on top of being, you know, bad for the environment if

457
00:30:16,065 --> 00:30:19,927
Yeah, exactly. Even just the smell of a degrading sargassum is

458
00:30:22,908 --> 00:30:26,329
Yeah, so, you know, I'm working with colleagues in the

459
00:30:26,349 --> 00:30:30,191
School of Biology, I'm working with colleagues in chemical and

460
00:30:30,671 --> 00:30:34,893
biogeochemical engineering, and in mechanical engineering, to

461
00:30:34,953 --> 00:30:38,214
try to figure it out why we have

462
00:30:38,354 --> 00:30:41,710
this excess of sargassum now. what is promoting those

463
00:30:41,750 --> 00:30:44,811
blooms and are they going to continue in the future. It

464
00:30:45,991 --> 00:30:49,572
doesn't look that we ever had them before. Also

465
00:30:49,612 --> 00:30:52,833
from historical records, so written records, we

466
00:30:52,933 --> 00:30:56,154
don't have records of blooms this large in that

467
00:30:56,214 --> 00:31:00,115
area. But they appear in

468
00:31:00,195 --> 00:31:03,496
2011. We kind of know why they appeared, why they

469
00:31:03,516 --> 00:31:07,117
are growing. Not yet, not that clear. So

470
00:31:07,317 --> 00:31:10,666
I'm working on that. But we're also

471
00:31:10,706 --> 00:31:15,189
working on trying to figure out what to do with all this sargassum. There

472
00:31:15,209 --> 00:31:18,312
are several groups both in the US and in Europe that are

473
00:31:18,352 --> 00:31:21,714
considering essentially pulling

474
00:31:21,754 --> 00:31:25,257
it together when it's possible out at sea and sinking

475
00:31:25,317 --> 00:31:28,440
it. And we need to figure it

476
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:33,263
out how much that costs also from an energetic perspective, and

477
00:31:33,283 --> 00:31:36,765
what could be the damage, if any, that

478
00:31:36,785 --> 00:31:40,547
we do to the ecosystem in the deep ocean if

479
00:31:40,588 --> 00:31:44,230
we dump those large amount of sargassum. And

480
00:31:44,290 --> 00:31:47,592
of course, anything that you do in the ocean, if it's

481
00:31:47,672 --> 00:31:51,934
within the 200 miles from the coastlines, also

482
00:31:51,994 --> 00:31:55,776
need a policy and the legislation and

483
00:31:55,976 --> 00:32:00,988
permits, and so it gets complicated. Yeah. The

484
00:32:01,188 --> 00:32:04,551
other solution we are thinking is to

485
00:32:04,611 --> 00:32:07,973
collect it and then transform it into

486
00:32:08,033 --> 00:32:11,535
biofuels. And that's

487
00:32:11,796 --> 00:32:16,219
the colleague in chemistry

488
00:32:16,419 --> 00:32:19,841
and chemical and biogeochemical engineering and

489
00:32:19,861 --> 00:32:24,065
the colleague in mechanical engineering that are looking into that. And

490
00:32:24,665 --> 00:32:27,886
the problem of converting sargassum into biofuel is

491
00:32:27,926 --> 00:32:32,248
that the amount of lipid

492
00:32:32,528 --> 00:32:36,069
in the sargassum is quite limited. And so you

493
00:32:36,209 --> 00:32:39,610
would need to spend a lot of energy to increase that

494
00:32:39,670 --> 00:32:43,032
concentration. So we are looking for ways of doing

495
00:32:43,092 --> 00:32:47,913
that in a natural, with

496
00:32:47,993 --> 00:32:51,615
some kind of natural system

497
00:32:51,675 --> 00:32:55,138
that can help us in that. And so

498
00:32:55,178 --> 00:32:58,879
a colleague of mine, Jeff Davis, is

499
00:32:58,939 --> 00:33:02,861
looking into using black fly larvae, which

500
00:33:02,921 --> 00:33:06,301
is a fly that lives in the tropics. And it's

501
00:33:06,462 --> 00:33:10,623
very good at eating up a lot of sargassum

502
00:33:10,683 --> 00:33:14,744
or other material. And it's

503
00:33:15,244 --> 00:33:19,258
very good at accumulating lipids. And

504
00:33:19,298 --> 00:33:22,862
therefore, then you could extract the biofuel from

505
00:33:26,365 --> 00:33:29,668
Which is crazy to think about. If you think about this larvae, there's probably about maybe

506
00:33:29,708 --> 00:33:33,371
this big to extract all those lipids and how much you have to extract

507
00:33:36,754 --> 00:33:39,817
Exactly. I think a lot of people would cringe at just the fact of

508
00:33:42,787 --> 00:33:46,708
But it's a very efficient way of

509
00:33:46,768 --> 00:33:49,949
doing it, and it's not very expensive at all,

510
00:33:50,149 --> 00:33:55,311
also from an energetic perspective. And those flies

511
00:33:55,431 --> 00:33:58,832
have no side effects to

512
00:34:03,434 --> 00:34:06,795
I don't think they bite, the black... Because the black flies up here in

513
00:34:10,042 --> 00:34:13,203
Exactly. Keep them constrained. Keep them all in one spot.

514
00:34:13,223 --> 00:34:18,224
Keep them all together. There

515
00:34:18,284 --> 00:34:21,645
is another that I read recently, an

516
00:34:21,705 --> 00:34:25,106
article of someone that in the Caribbean is using the

517
00:34:25,166 --> 00:34:28,486
leftovers from a brewery that make rum,

518
00:34:29,446 --> 00:34:33,546
essentially, increase, to

519
00:34:33,586 --> 00:34:37,188
make a mix of that plus sargassum that can be converted

520
00:34:37,749 --> 00:34:41,191
So the byproduct of making rum used to mix with

521
00:34:41,231 --> 00:34:44,393
the sargassum to create the biofuel, or

522
00:34:46,694 --> 00:34:49,857
Yeah, and another one of

523
00:34:50,097 --> 00:34:54,840
just using sargassum that has been shown to be possibly

524
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:58,242
a good idea, this has come from Mexico and is essentially a

525
00:34:58,402 --> 00:35:01,540
one-person business. or one family or a

526
00:35:01,580 --> 00:35:04,961
family business, and they are making bricks

527
00:35:05,561 --> 00:35:09,142
out of sargassum. So they are drying the sargassum and compressing them

528
00:35:09,222 --> 00:35:12,884
and making bricks. And one

529
00:35:13,444 --> 00:35:16,785
good thing about that is that those bricks seem to be

530
00:35:19,046 --> 00:35:22,147
better. So if you make a house out of

531
00:35:22,187 --> 00:35:25,869
those bricks, it will resist

532
00:35:26,309 --> 00:35:30,189
or it will be resilient. towards

533
00:35:34,192 --> 00:35:37,735
So far you've identified two to three things that Sargassum, like

534
00:35:37,775 --> 00:35:41,418
the byproduct of using Sargassum, would actually

535
00:35:41,638 --> 00:35:44,960
help sort

536
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:48,141
of people adapt to climate change. So, you know, we have the

537
00:35:48,201 --> 00:35:51,882
bricks, which are stronger than regular concrete cinder

538
00:35:51,902 --> 00:35:55,463
blocks that are used, I guess, in Caribbean houses

539
00:35:55,523 --> 00:35:58,704
and homes that will make them even more resistant to the

540
00:35:58,764 --> 00:36:02,125
higher winds that you would see in hurricanes, like

541
00:36:02,145 --> 00:36:06,066
in more intense storms. We also have using a biofuel, which

542
00:36:06,086 --> 00:36:09,407
would probably be better than using regular fossil fuels to

543
00:36:10,230 --> 00:36:14,232
provide energy for us, which is great. Did

544
00:36:19,134 --> 00:36:22,316
And you can sink it, yeah, because it is absorbing carbon, right? So

545
00:36:22,336 --> 00:36:26,098
the idea is to allow it to absorb carbon, but

546
00:36:26,198 --> 00:36:29,579
not allow it to release the carbon back into the atmosphere, which

547
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:33,160
would be... Not only does it absorb carbon, but you can even make

548
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:37,063
it better by creating a biofuel and a more

549
00:36:37,123 --> 00:36:40,425
resistant brick that could help in building houses in the Caribbean

550
00:36:40,465 --> 00:36:43,747
and this thing. So there's a lot of benefits here, not just

551
00:36:43,907 --> 00:36:47,269
one benefit, but there's a lot of solutions for this climate solution. And

552
00:36:48,029 --> 00:36:51,611
so where are they at in terms, like obviously the person in Mexico,

553
00:36:52,051 --> 00:36:55,353
small business, family owned business, is slowly starting this

554
00:36:55,654 --> 00:36:59,131
up. Is that scalable? Do

555
00:36:59,531 --> 00:37:03,553
Yeah, I don't know. Honestly, I've not looked into the

556
00:37:03,573 --> 00:37:06,815
scalability of the problem, so I cannot answer

557
00:37:07,595 --> 00:37:10,817
That's for economists and business people to worry about. You worry about more

558
00:37:14,138 --> 00:37:17,640
We are looking into the scalability of sinking it

559
00:37:17,700 --> 00:37:21,582
and the scalability of making biofuel using the

560
00:37:22,902 --> 00:37:26,164
Gotcha. Now, let's talk about the sinking of it, because I've heard a lot

561
00:37:26,424 --> 00:37:31,129
of different things when we hear about sinking

562
00:37:31,229 --> 00:37:34,470
these carbon sources. If you sink carbon sources, they

563
00:37:34,510 --> 00:37:38,171
go to the bottom. I guess the idea, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is that it

564
00:37:39,091 --> 00:37:43,173
becomes basically like hydrocarbons again, eventually going

565
00:37:43,233 --> 00:37:46,414
into the seafloor and then kind of burying them in the seafloor. And

566
00:37:46,434 --> 00:37:49,655
they don't get released. They just stay there, just kind of like how we see oil and

567
00:37:49,695 --> 00:37:52,996
gas pockets that we get now. They're just in the

568
00:37:53,036 --> 00:37:56,337
seafloor. The problem with that,

569
00:37:56,397 --> 00:38:00,203
though, is like you mentioned before, we just don't know the

570
00:38:00,243 --> 00:38:03,666
potential, if there are, consequences of sinking that

571
00:38:03,806 --> 00:38:07,388
much into the deep sea. We just don't know the ramifications of

572
00:38:08,890 --> 00:38:12,512
Correct. The deep sea is full of bacteria and

573
00:38:12,812 --> 00:38:16,215
viruses and other little animals, and

574
00:38:16,255 --> 00:38:20,058
so the impact of having those big chunks of

575
00:38:20,979 --> 00:38:24,501
sargassum, it's not obvious.

576
00:38:25,542 --> 00:38:29,348
I would say probably is not huge if

577
00:38:29,388 --> 00:38:32,469
you can do it far enough from any kind of

578
00:38:32,529 --> 00:38:36,010
coastline. Because you can imagine that when a whale dies and

579
00:38:36,090 --> 00:38:40,332
sinks, it's not releasing less. It's

580
00:38:40,432 --> 00:38:44,174
not being a smaller perturbation than a whole patch

581
00:38:44,214 --> 00:38:47,535
of sargassum. The problem with the sargassum is that it's going to happen

582
00:38:47,555 --> 00:38:51,285
more or less in the same place every year, right? And

583
00:38:51,606 --> 00:38:55,027
it's very, very hard to put forward these kind

584
00:38:55,067 --> 00:38:58,409
of solutions without having the data to prove that you're not

585
00:38:58,649 --> 00:39:02,912
damaging the system. And unfortunately, those

586
00:39:02,992 --> 00:39:06,514
data are very expensive to collect, because

587
00:39:06,554 --> 00:39:09,735
you essentially have to send, you have to sync and you have to

588
00:39:09,795 --> 00:39:13,697
send down cameras and you have to go back, you

589
00:39:13,737 --> 00:39:16,879
know, after six months or after a year and try to figure it

590
00:39:16,999 --> 00:39:21,735
out what is happening. And so it's

591
00:39:23,936 --> 00:39:27,136
And expensive. Yes, absolutely. To do even those

592
00:39:27,196 --> 00:39:30,577
pilot studies where it becomes expensive. It's similar in

593
00:39:30,617 --> 00:39:33,998
a way to what people are worried about

594
00:39:34,018 --> 00:39:38,558
with deep sea mining. That's more of an extractive exercise

595
00:39:38,598 --> 00:39:42,119
and an extractive opportunity, whereas this one is more of an addition,

596
00:39:42,519 --> 00:39:45,980
where we're actually adding more stuff. But like you said, it could

597
00:39:46,020 --> 00:39:49,249
happen in the same place And unfortunately, we

598
00:39:49,289 --> 00:39:52,412
just don't, if it's done to scale all at once, we don't

599
00:39:52,452 --> 00:39:55,915
know the ramifications of that. If it's done in spots

600
00:39:56,135 --> 00:39:59,358
and it's done properly where it's allocated in different regions and we can

601
00:39:59,398 --> 00:40:03,461
see the breakdown happen, if the breakdown does happen down

602
00:40:04,682 --> 00:40:07,925
in the deep, then maybe it'd be a little bit better. I

603
00:40:07,965 --> 00:40:11,708
think the problem is just people just don't know, right?

604
00:40:11,748 --> 00:40:15,091
When we talk about carbon capture like that, is we just don't know

605
00:40:15,251 --> 00:40:18,527
and we see that there could be a lot of bad things that could happen, which is

606
00:40:18,587 --> 00:40:22,149
probably giving that resistance enough to try

607
00:40:25,091 --> 00:40:28,514
Yeah. It's also that, I mean, right now, in order to put those solutions

608
00:40:28,574 --> 00:40:31,896
forward, we have to be able to verify what the

609
00:40:32,577 --> 00:40:36,179
outcome will be, how much they will take, how much carbon they

610
00:40:36,199 --> 00:40:39,362
will take down, how much they will cost, because there is

611
00:40:39,422 --> 00:40:42,984
also a cost associated with going and collecting it. And

612
00:40:43,024 --> 00:40:47,260
you have to make sure that the CO2 you use by running

613
00:40:47,420 --> 00:40:51,123
your vessel that needs to go out and collect is

614
00:40:51,223 --> 00:40:55,205
not offsetting all the advantage

615
00:40:59,028 --> 00:41:02,190
I mean, you can hope to use solar panels and all

616
00:41:02,230 --> 00:41:05,532
of that, but you have to do a calculation and you have to make sure that you can do

617
00:41:05,613 --> 00:41:08,658
it that way. And so there are still a

618
00:41:08,698 --> 00:41:12,299
lot of questions that, unfortunately, we don't have answer

619
00:41:12,339 --> 00:41:16,260
to. But I can see the

620
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:21,261
sinking, the conversion into biofuel to be absolutely potential

621
00:41:21,341 --> 00:41:25,143
good solutions to the problem. And,

622
00:41:31,625 --> 00:41:34,737
Yeah, exactly. The toolbox will have to

623
00:41:38,558 --> 00:41:42,000
How close, for both of those sort

624
00:41:42,260 --> 00:41:45,582
of solutions, how close are we to getting

625
00:41:45,662 --> 00:41:48,923
some of those answers? For the

626
00:41:48,963 --> 00:41:52,805
syncing, have there been any experiments of syncing Sargassum?

627
00:41:53,185 --> 00:41:56,527
Yes. Okay. And if I'm

628
00:41:56,607 --> 00:42:00,413
not mistaken, group

629
00:42:00,473 --> 00:42:03,657
from Great Britain has done most of that

630
00:42:03,717 --> 00:42:07,662
work, because they managed to link with

631
00:42:08,042 --> 00:42:12,007
a company that would like to do it and get credit for

632
00:42:12,087 --> 00:42:15,851
it. And so they, they

633
00:42:15,891 --> 00:42:19,475
were sinking Sargassum, I think, this

634
00:42:19,615 --> 00:42:23,212
past summer. and they will go back and

635
00:42:23,372 --> 00:42:27,575
they put cameras and they instrument the

636
00:42:27,796 --> 00:42:31,098
regions where they put it down. And I have not heard from them. I

637
00:42:33,861 --> 00:42:36,923
It's the summer, so it's still early in terms of it. Even with one years of

638
00:42:36,983 --> 00:42:40,186
data, you're still going to need multiple years of data to really find out

639
00:42:40,726 --> 00:42:44,610
the true difference, if there are any, in

640
00:42:48,697 --> 00:42:52,178
Yes, but I think that if we can show that clearly

641
00:42:52,218 --> 00:42:55,778
there is no major change of any kind, and

642
00:42:55,878 --> 00:42:59,319
it's just, you know, being chewed up

643
00:42:59,379 --> 00:43:03,279
by bacteria slowly, that would be... Yeah,

644
00:43:03,319 --> 00:43:07,320
as long as you show that there's a decomposition. Yeah, yeah. And

645
00:43:08,060 --> 00:43:11,461
for the blackfly larvae, my colleague here

646
00:43:11,861 --> 00:43:16,002
is working in the lab and doing some experiments. And

647
00:43:16,202 --> 00:43:19,941
my other colleague is advising PhD student

648
00:43:20,121 --> 00:43:23,504
that is looking at how that would scale in terms of

649
00:43:25,125 --> 00:43:28,508
cost and in terms of how many larvae

650
00:43:28,528 --> 00:43:32,531
we need and how big needs to be the implementation

651
00:43:34,512 --> 00:43:38,335
Let me ask you this. How many larvae does he have in his experiments? I'm

652
00:43:38,896 --> 00:43:42,098
Oh, right now he is in the lab. It's

653
00:43:44,550 --> 00:43:48,691
I feel like that's a lab I would not want to go and visit because there's

654
00:43:50,632 --> 00:43:54,713
No, he's looking at optimizing the

655
00:43:54,793 --> 00:43:58,495
mixture of sargassum. If you just give them sargassum,

656
00:43:58,535 --> 00:44:01,636
they don't grow all that much. So you have to add a little bit of

657
00:44:01,696 --> 00:44:05,317
something else that they really like, especially at the beginning. And

658
00:44:05,357 --> 00:44:08,879
then once they pick up and they start growing, then they will eat all the sargassum

659
00:44:08,899 --> 00:44:12,300
you give them. So they are trying to optimize that.

660
00:44:12,911 --> 00:44:16,195
and really looking at having curves and

661
00:44:16,435 --> 00:44:20,039
all the data required to then eventually move

662
00:44:20,079 --> 00:44:23,303
forward and put actual data into how

663
00:44:24,631 --> 00:44:27,813
Gotcha. So again, still fairly early stages, but the

664
00:44:27,913 --> 00:44:31,435
experiment's going on to give us those results and to continue those

665
00:44:31,495 --> 00:44:34,717
results going. That's phenomenal. That's

666
00:44:34,757 --> 00:44:38,020
really cool. Are there other projects that you've been working on,

667
00:44:38,500 --> 00:44:42,062
doesn't have to be recent or could be a little further or even recent, that you

668
00:44:44,984 --> 00:44:48,586
Yeah, we are working on several projects related to

669
00:44:48,726 --> 00:44:52,292
coral reefs. Okay. We have developed

670
00:44:52,332 --> 00:44:55,734
in my group, again, I'm a modeler. So we use

671
00:44:55,814 --> 00:44:59,376
models all the time. And we have developed a machine learning system.

672
00:44:59,456 --> 00:45:02,738
So using a little bit of artificial intelligence to

673
00:45:02,858 --> 00:45:07,261
figure it out what is the connectivity among

674
00:45:07,461 --> 00:45:10,683
reefs. So essentially, if you have a reef or an

675
00:45:10,783 --> 00:45:14,585
area in the oceans where you have a very healthy ecosystem, or

676
00:45:14,665 --> 00:45:18,207
anyway, a very important ecosystem that

677
00:45:18,567 --> 00:45:22,273
you want to observe and preserve, possibly.

678
00:45:23,753 --> 00:45:27,454
You know that because of the oceans, there are currents, it's

679
00:45:27,534 --> 00:45:31,095
probably connected to someone else or to something else,

680
00:45:31,335 --> 00:45:35,116
because it's probably exchanging genetic material to

681
00:45:35,156 --> 00:45:38,957
larvae and fries, which are the baby fish, with

682
00:45:39,197 --> 00:45:42,778
another region outside this localized area

683
00:45:42,818 --> 00:45:46,270
that you're looking at. And because

684
00:45:46,350 --> 00:45:49,712
currents are pretty powerful, those regions can be pretty large.

685
00:45:49,953 --> 00:45:53,875
So essentially I can be in Fiji

686
00:45:54,115 --> 00:45:57,458
and I may be getting larvae from a place that

687
00:45:57,558 --> 00:46:00,720
is 300 kilometers far away. And

688
00:46:00,820 --> 00:46:03,902
so I want to figure it out if that's really the

689
00:46:03,942 --> 00:46:08,045
case and how far I can go depending

690
00:46:08,165 --> 00:46:11,908
on the kind of fish or the coral species that I'm considering.

691
00:46:13,005 --> 00:46:16,626
Depending on that, I will know more or less how long a larva can survive

692
00:46:16,766 --> 00:46:20,427
in the water. Right. You

693
00:46:20,447 --> 00:46:24,368
know, be able to then attach and spawn. Yeah. And

694
00:46:24,388 --> 00:46:28,129
so we are doing that using artificial intelligence and machine learning and

695
00:46:28,189 --> 00:46:31,870
essentially using satellite data of sea surface temperature anomalies

696
00:46:31,990 --> 00:46:35,691
because they are linked to currents and building

697
00:46:35,771 --> 00:46:39,512
networks where we can see that. And we have done it in the Pacific. We

698
00:46:39,532 --> 00:46:43,198
have done it in the Atlantic. and we've done it in the Mediterranean

699
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:46,881
Sea. So that has been really interesting

700
00:46:46,901 --> 00:46:50,404
because in the Mediterranean Sea we don't have much in terms of corals

701
00:46:50,564 --> 00:46:53,766
but we have been able to follow the invasions of the

702
00:46:53,826 --> 00:46:57,889
species that comes from the Red Sea to the Suez Canal and

703
00:46:58,390 --> 00:47:02,393
in the last 10 years or so have been really damaging

704
00:47:02,513 --> 00:47:06,663
the Mediterranean ecosystem because they We

705
00:47:06,703 --> 00:47:10,505
have essentially imported tons of lionfish,

706
00:47:10,945 --> 00:47:14,127
and lionfish, nobody can eat it, and they

707
00:47:14,167 --> 00:47:18,009
destroy everything. So

708
00:47:18,089 --> 00:47:22,592
we have been following essentially how the lionfish

709
00:47:22,652 --> 00:47:26,253
are spread, most likely through eggs, brought to

710
00:47:26,273 --> 00:47:30,347
the Suez Canal. In

711
00:47:30,427 --> 00:47:34,049
the Pacific, we have been able to look at why

712
00:47:34,129 --> 00:47:38,072
certain area in the Coral Triangle is doing

713
00:47:39,292 --> 00:47:42,794
pretty well overall. So it's sometimes it glitches

714
00:47:42,954 --> 00:47:46,476
because temperatures are going up and we had very strong El

715
00:47:46,516 --> 00:47:50,078
Niños and La Niñas and usually when those events

716
00:47:50,118 --> 00:47:53,760
happen, temperature there really change

717
00:47:53,860 --> 00:47:57,329
drastically. But nonetheless, they are recovering. and

718
00:47:57,389 --> 00:48:00,832
they continue to be quite biodiverse and relatively healthy. So

719
00:48:00,852 --> 00:48:04,755
we have checked, we figured that and usually,

720
00:48:05,135 --> 00:48:08,718
so what we found is that the system is incredibly dynamic. And

721
00:48:08,798 --> 00:48:12,501
so in the Pacific, there isn't a single place that,

722
00:48:13,062 --> 00:48:16,584
or at least there are areas where no

723
00:48:16,624 --> 00:48:19,887
matter what happens, some other area will bring new

724
00:48:19,927 --> 00:48:23,309
larvae in within a year time. And

725
00:48:23,329 --> 00:48:26,726
the usually they don't bleach at the same time.

726
00:48:26,746 --> 00:48:29,967
Right. You know, one is maybe very sensitive to La

727
00:48:30,007 --> 00:48:33,568
Niñas, the other is very sensitive to El Niños. But

728
00:48:33,608 --> 00:48:37,250
what happened is that when I have an El Niño, the one that bleaches get

729
00:48:37,730 --> 00:48:41,191
larvae from a different place, and whenever I have La Niña,

730
00:48:41,231 --> 00:48:44,552
the one that was giving the larvae may receive it from another one.

731
00:48:50,442 --> 00:48:54,545
So year to year, the variability of the connectivity among

732
00:48:54,905 --> 00:48:58,348
reefs is very different. It's very, very dynamic. And

733
00:48:58,388 --> 00:49:01,931
that has helped the system in certain areas,

734
00:49:01,991 --> 00:49:05,193
not everywhere, to really stand out

735
00:49:05,753 --> 00:49:09,576
as it's still doing well despite everything. The

736
00:49:09,616 --> 00:49:13,059
same is not true in the Atlantic. And in fact, in the Atlantic, we are not seeing

737
00:49:13,159 --> 00:49:16,481
corals recovering as much as certain areas

738
00:49:16,541 --> 00:49:19,836
of the Pacific. Now, is that because the sources are not

739
00:49:19,896 --> 00:49:23,538
changing or is it because... That dynamics is

740
00:49:23,598 --> 00:49:27,581
not there, the variability is not there. Essentially, the current system

741
00:49:27,941 --> 00:49:32,203
goes from Brazil, Belize, north.

742
00:49:32,964 --> 00:49:36,686
And so if you cut and if you kind of bleach and really damage

743
00:49:36,966 --> 00:49:40,248
any point or any big chunk in that

744
00:49:40,268 --> 00:49:44,070
trajectory, because the trajectory is pretty much always the same, you

745
00:49:44,090 --> 00:49:47,958
are going to essentially cut the supply of fresh larvae. healthy

746
00:49:47,998 --> 00:49:52,300
larvae to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbeans. And

747
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:56,102
so Florida, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbeans have been seeing strong

748
00:49:59,943 --> 00:50:03,645
It's kind of interesting because we see the output from the Amazon River

749
00:50:04,125 --> 00:50:08,387
in Brazil. I don't think we understand how

750
00:50:08,447 --> 00:50:11,808
damaging that could be and how powerful that mouth is

751
00:50:11,909 --> 00:50:15,176
in terms of that current and then going up into the

752
00:50:15,236 --> 00:50:18,278
Caribbean, into the Gulf of Mexico. Is that correct? Like a lot of

753
00:50:20,540 --> 00:50:24,162
No, it's really more that temperatures have

754
00:50:26,444 --> 00:50:30,066
And we are really bleaching systems just

755
00:50:30,086 --> 00:50:33,329
because of temperature. Just because of temperature. And other

756
00:50:33,349 --> 00:50:37,692
stressors, the Florida and the Gulf of Mexico have, you

757
00:50:37,712 --> 00:50:41,354
know, one thing to be very clear, it's not

758
00:50:41,474 --> 00:50:45,027
just that is getting warmer. It's also

759
00:50:45,087 --> 00:50:48,391
that we are dumping much more stuff in the ocean than

760
00:50:48,411 --> 00:50:51,875
we used to. And so the Pacific has

761
00:50:51,895 --> 00:50:55,899
the advantage of still being more pristine, just

762
00:50:56,099 --> 00:50:59,443
fewer people live on those islands. Some of the islands are

763
00:50:59,483 --> 00:51:06,208
completely inhabited, have no people living there. The

764
00:51:06,228 --> 00:51:09,949
stressor in the Atlantic are heat, for sure, but

765
00:51:10,009 --> 00:51:13,530
also pollution, big time. And

766
00:51:13,890 --> 00:51:17,691
overfishing and having just

767
00:51:18,632 --> 00:51:22,353
weaker ecosystems on

768
00:51:23,133 --> 00:51:26,674
That's why it's so important to have marine protected areas

769
00:51:26,974 --> 00:51:30,196
and quotas and stressors, or

770
00:51:30,236 --> 00:51:33,657
not stressors, sorry, regulations to decrease water

771
00:51:33,677 --> 00:51:37,074
pollution. all to help these animals

772
00:51:37,154 --> 00:51:40,377
adapt to the higher temperatures. So if we take away all the human stressors, or

773
00:51:40,857 --> 00:51:44,200
most of those human stressors, then perhaps the corals and

774
00:51:44,240 --> 00:51:48,084
other animals have the ability to adapt to the higher sea

775
00:51:50,466 --> 00:51:54,037
Yes, absolutely. So I have a colleague actually, just my

776
00:51:54,117 --> 00:51:58,381
office on the side, who has worked on sea

777
00:51:58,421 --> 00:52:01,944
cucumbers. And he has found that,

778
00:52:02,324 --> 00:52:05,607
for example, in Moorea, where there is a big

779
00:52:05,667 --> 00:52:09,451
effort that has been going on for more than 20 years, funded

780
00:52:09,471 --> 00:52:12,954
by the National Science Foundation to do a long-term monitoring of

781
00:52:13,014 --> 00:52:16,476
the coral reefs there. Some reefs have

782
00:52:16,596 --> 00:52:20,618
been doing much better because sea

783
00:52:20,658 --> 00:52:24,359
cucumbers have not been eradicated. Sea

784
00:52:24,379 --> 00:52:27,921
cucumbers have become a delicacy in certain Asian countries, and

785
00:52:27,961 --> 00:52:31,923
so there have been fish, and really overfish, and

786
00:52:32,403 --> 00:52:35,564
sea cucumbers, they discovered, they

787
00:52:35,584 --> 00:52:39,466
just published last year, are really the

788
00:52:39,506 --> 00:52:44,686
cleaners of the bottom of the ocean. They

789
00:52:44,786 --> 00:52:48,588
really remove any kind of virus, bacteria, stuff that you have. And

790
00:52:48,668 --> 00:52:53,931
so they help corals to thrive immensely. And

791
00:52:53,951 --> 00:52:57,493
so I postdoc here at Georgia Tech, working with my colleague Markay, was

792
00:52:58,234 --> 00:53:01,696
trying to plant corals. You can break

793
00:53:01,856 --> 00:53:05,458
coral and make little corals and plant them, essentially,

794
00:53:05,538 --> 00:53:08,780
in order to establish a population that has

795
00:53:08,820 --> 00:53:12,170
been damaged. And there were a bunch of sea cucumbers where

796
00:53:12,210 --> 00:53:15,652
he tried to do it and he removed the sea cucumbers. And for the first time,

797
00:53:16,492 --> 00:53:19,874
all his corals, little corals died. And

798
00:53:19,954 --> 00:53:24,277
so he made the connection that, you know, usually his

799
00:53:24,377 --> 00:53:27,859
efforts have been successful in the past. And so why this time

800
00:53:27,959 --> 00:53:31,220
that happened? And he remembered he has removed, he removed the

801
00:53:31,260 --> 00:53:34,522
sea cucumbers. And so they went back and they started studying it

802
00:53:34,602 --> 00:53:38,164
and found that they are essential. So that's another stressor

803
00:53:38,204 --> 00:53:41,847
that we add just for They're not particularly

804
00:53:41,927 --> 00:53:45,269
tasty. There is no reason, you know, it's more

805
00:53:46,790 --> 00:53:50,012
Yeah. As many times it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's

806
00:53:50,092 --> 00:53:54,179
very, very similar to like shark fin soup in a way. Except

807
00:53:54,299 --> 00:53:57,840
sea cucumbers are probably not as iconic as a shark, you know, when

808
00:53:57,860 --> 00:54:01,241
we think about it. Exactly. This is, you

809
00:54:01,261 --> 00:54:04,522
know, fantastic. This has all been quite interesting. You're working

810
00:54:04,582 --> 00:54:07,923
on a number of projects. Is there anything upcoming that you're

811
00:54:07,963 --> 00:54:11,164
starting to work on or you just started to work on that you're looking forward to

812
00:54:15,365 --> 00:54:19,326
Yeah, we are working on a large project across

813
00:54:19,366 --> 00:54:22,771
different universities to figured out

814
00:54:22,931 --> 00:54:26,913
how much alkalinity enhancement we could do in

815
00:54:26,953 --> 00:54:30,594
the Gulf of Mexico and through the Mississippi River Basin to

816
00:54:31,174 --> 00:54:34,476
what is called weathering. This consists in

817
00:54:34,736 --> 00:54:38,777
adding essentially

818
00:54:38,837 --> 00:54:43,619
pulverized rock to agricultural

819
00:54:43,719 --> 00:54:48,587
fields or directly in the ocean. to

820
00:54:48,887 --> 00:54:52,768
reduce the CO2 by forming carbonates.

821
00:54:55,289 --> 00:54:58,450
So the CO2 that is in the air will react with the

822
00:54:58,470 --> 00:55:01,671
dust and form carbonates and

823
00:55:01,691 --> 00:55:05,012
then those carbonates will eventually sink if

824
00:55:05,032 --> 00:55:08,793
they are in the ocean or if it's done over agricultural land

825
00:55:08,873 --> 00:55:13,095
will end up in the waterways. at

826
00:55:13,135 --> 00:55:16,696
the end if it's the Mississippi River basin in the Mississippi and

827
00:55:16,716 --> 00:55:22,318
therefore in the Gulf of Mexico. So we are doing high-resolution simulations

828
00:55:22,418 --> 00:55:26,940
or simulations down to one kilometer essentially of

829
00:55:27,140 --> 00:55:30,381
what it may happen in the Gulf of Mexico if this is

830
00:55:30,441 --> 00:55:34,023
scaled up. And as part of this project there

831
00:55:34,063 --> 00:55:38,044
are also farmers that

832
00:55:38,284 --> 00:55:41,967
are trying to see the impact of

833
00:55:43,628 --> 00:55:47,251
using fertilizers that contain a little

834
00:55:47,291 --> 00:55:50,834
bit of the dust and so really trying to see also

835
00:55:50,974 --> 00:55:54,357
at the land level what the impact could be, how fast

836
00:55:54,397 --> 00:55:57,680
they will get in the water system, in the waterways and so on. So this

837
00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:02,223
is incredibly interesting because it goes from really land

838
00:56:02,263 --> 00:56:07,585
to ocean to the region, linking

839
00:56:08,485 --> 00:56:12,869
Absolutely. Showing that watershed effect on

840
00:56:12,889 --> 00:56:16,293
the ocean and how important it is to manage not only

841
00:56:16,493 --> 00:56:19,616
water and oceans, but also land. I think we

842
00:56:19,656 --> 00:56:23,019
see it a lot and you probably see it a lot, especially where you are in Georgia Tech in

843
00:56:23,079 --> 00:56:26,550
terms of the Mississippi plume. We've known

844
00:56:26,610 --> 00:56:30,171
for a long time that that plume has a huge effect on the Gulf of Mexico and

845
00:56:30,551 --> 00:56:33,732
everything that comes down, all the fertilizers and all that that come down and

846
00:56:33,752 --> 00:56:37,294
cause that big bloom in the spring and

847
00:56:37,334 --> 00:56:40,515
then the bloom goes down into the

848
00:56:40,555 --> 00:56:43,776
bottom as the phytoplankton die and then you get

849
00:56:43,816 --> 00:56:47,578
that bacteria that uses up the oxygen to decompose that and you get basically

850
00:56:47,618 --> 00:56:51,019
hypoxic zones along the Gulf of Mexico. However, if

851
00:56:51,059 --> 00:56:54,169
you start to turn that around, and start to

852
00:56:54,209 --> 00:56:57,451
look at what you can do in terms, like you mentioned, putting in the

853
00:56:57,531 --> 00:57:01,372
rock dust onto the fields, getting into the Mississippi

854
00:57:01,392 --> 00:57:04,954
or getting into the waterways, getting into the ocean. You can reverse

855
00:57:05,514 --> 00:57:08,756
the shift from alkaline to acidic and really

856
00:57:08,796 --> 00:57:12,617
help out not only corals, but a lot of mollusks like

857
00:57:12,798 --> 00:57:16,019
oysters and mussels and clams and

858
00:57:16,607 --> 00:57:20,569
scallops that can help build their shells and snails and crustaceans

859
00:57:20,589 --> 00:57:24,312
like lobsters and shrimp and everything that use calcium, that

860
00:57:24,352 --> 00:57:27,553
need calcium in their bodies, right? So I think

861
00:57:27,593 --> 00:57:30,935
that's, this is all fantastic. I mean, this must

862
00:57:31,035 --> 00:57:34,297
make your work such like a lot better than just

863
00:57:34,818 --> 00:57:38,300
identifying the consequences that climate

864
00:57:38,320 --> 00:57:41,634
change, you know, can cause. How

865
00:57:41,674 --> 00:57:45,537
has this changed your outlook, like switching from modeling

866
00:57:45,577 --> 00:57:49,280
the effects of climate change to looking at solutions?

867
00:57:49,460 --> 00:57:53,043
Personally for you, how has that changed your

868
00:57:53,143 --> 00:57:56,445
outlook on sort of what climate change can do

869
00:57:57,746 --> 00:58:01,008
Well, it gives me hope that, you know, we are at the point of

870
00:58:01,068 --> 00:58:04,451
really thinking about how to solve the problem or at least

871
00:58:04,651 --> 00:58:08,093
how to find solutions that make sense and

872
00:58:08,133 --> 00:58:11,424
that can help. Again, it's not

873
00:58:11,464 --> 00:58:15,426
a done deal in any way and the portfolio

874
00:58:15,466 --> 00:58:18,647
of solutions that we will need is really large because the problem is

875
00:58:18,707 --> 00:58:22,229
big. But I also see, you

876
00:58:22,249 --> 00:58:25,350
know, the Gulf of Mexico has also a lot of, we do a

877
00:58:25,390 --> 00:58:28,852
lot of work with NOAA, so the National

878
00:58:28,912 --> 00:58:32,574
Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, looking at both corals and

879
00:58:32,674 --> 00:58:36,588
fisheries and how to best manage them. And

880
00:58:37,529 --> 00:58:41,190
there is really a lot of attention in trying to

881
00:58:41,970 --> 00:58:46,911
preserve what is left and help

882
00:58:47,071 --> 00:58:51,672
with the resiliency of those systems. So it

883
00:58:56,214 --> 00:59:00,035
And I think that also looking at communities

884
00:59:00,175 --> 00:59:03,753
and fishing communities, fishermen's

885
00:59:03,773 --> 00:59:07,774
communities, they do understand. So

886
00:59:08,254 --> 00:59:11,816
it's much easier today to work with

887
00:59:11,876 --> 00:59:15,697
those communities and they have

888
00:59:15,777 --> 00:59:19,038
seen the changes. They have seen the decrease in fish, for

889
00:59:19,118 --> 00:59:22,640
example, in the population, so in the ecosystems, the

890
00:59:22,680 --> 00:59:27,702
damage, et cetera, and they want to help. And there is

891
00:59:27,742 --> 00:59:30,863
a discourse that it's much better than

892
00:59:30,963 --> 00:59:34,107
used to be. And what is

893
00:59:34,187 --> 00:59:38,254
great is that the science ivory tower

894
00:59:43,585 --> 00:59:46,867
Yeah. Yeah. That silo has come down and you're getting more

895
00:59:46,927 --> 00:59:50,629
into the community. And I think it's a benefit for not only for you as

896
00:59:50,690 --> 00:59:54,012
a researcher, but also for your students who get to interact with

897
00:59:54,032 --> 00:59:57,254
the community and be able to work on projects very

898
00:59:57,334 --> 01:00:00,476
similar to those, or maybe building on the

899
01:00:00,516 --> 01:00:03,778
projects that you're already working or even expanding those projects where we're seeing more

900
01:00:03,798 --> 01:00:07,040
and more solutions and increasing that hope. Because look, we know

901
01:00:07,280 --> 01:00:10,622
one solution is not going to solve this. It's going to take a lot. It's going to take a lot of people.

902
01:00:11,115 --> 01:00:15,076
and to be able to collaborate, which is a huge part of science, as

903
01:00:15,156 --> 01:00:18,798
well as conservation, and to be able to find these solutions that,

904
01:00:19,098 --> 01:00:22,979
you know, whether it's one or two or three or all of them that work out, then

905
01:00:25,340 --> 01:00:28,861
And I think... Tomorrow I have

906
01:00:29,001 --> 01:00:32,502
a phone call, a Zoom call with

907
01:00:32,782 --> 01:00:36,564
program managers and a student of

908
01:00:36,624 --> 01:00:39,805
mine and a colleague of mine in mechanical engineering, because we would

909
01:00:39,845 --> 01:00:43,953
like to learn how coral listen,

910
01:00:44,013 --> 01:00:48,137
how coral larvae respond to sound. Right.

911
01:00:48,377 --> 01:00:51,620
Because we think that that will really help restoring some of those

912
01:00:51,700 --> 01:00:54,804
coral reefs. And it's just unbelievable. Like, you

913
01:01:00,177 --> 01:01:03,379
And, you know, we have a problem and there are a bunch of people trying to

914
01:01:03,439 --> 01:01:07,160
solve it. And so we can also think of using sound

915
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:10,582
or chemical cues and trying to figure it out how they...

916
01:01:13,693 --> 01:01:17,377
And what I love, it's combining that research of discovering these amazing

917
01:01:17,417 --> 01:01:21,380
things and then putting it towards a solution that can help rebuild

918
01:01:21,541 --> 01:01:24,663
these very important habitats and hopefully find ways just like we

919
01:01:24,703 --> 01:01:27,967
did, just like you did in the Southeast Pacific, like

920
01:01:28,027 --> 01:01:31,190
in near Indonesia, where the coral triangle, where there are some corals who

921
01:01:31,250 --> 01:01:34,653
are doing really well. Why are they doing really well? Because then you do the research and

922
01:01:34,673 --> 01:01:38,518
you figure that out and maybe that can be duplicated somewhere else, or we

923
01:01:38,538 --> 01:01:41,660
can find similar patterns and trends, because that's what

924
01:01:41,700 --> 01:01:45,422
science does. And I love what you're doing, Annalisa. I think it's fantastic.

925
01:01:45,462 --> 01:01:48,723
And I want to thank you so much for coming on here and sharing your

926
01:01:48,763 --> 01:01:52,025
research with us, as well as your collaborators. I think this

927
01:01:52,085 --> 01:01:55,147
is something that we need to see and hear more of. So I

928
01:01:55,207 --> 01:01:58,448
really do appreciate you coming on the podcast and sharing that. And I would love

929
01:01:58,508 --> 01:02:01,570
to extend another invitation on to discuss more of

930
01:02:01,590 --> 01:02:04,731
the projects that you've done at a later date, to be able to get updates on the

931
01:02:04,751 --> 01:02:07,954
projects that we discussed here. and learn more about some of the other projects that you

932
01:02:16,523 --> 01:02:19,725
Thank you, Annalisa, for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean

933
01:02:19,745 --> 01:02:23,506
podcast. It was great to be able to hear about your career, your determination, your

934
01:02:23,586 --> 01:02:26,728
motivation to prove people wrong, including your own father, which

935
01:02:26,748 --> 01:02:30,109
I think is really great, and to show how well you can do

936
01:02:30,229 --> 01:02:33,630
with that motivation and where you're at in your career is

937
01:02:33,891 --> 01:02:37,472
unbelievable. The stuff that you've accomplished and the stuff that you're helping

938
01:02:37,552 --> 01:02:40,893
to accomplish by looking for solutions on climate change.

939
01:02:40,953 --> 01:02:44,196
I just think it was really cool. talk about how we can use a

940
01:02:44,296 --> 01:02:47,599
problem, like a pesky problem like sargassum just

941
01:02:47,719 --> 01:02:50,802
accruing on the beaches and accumulating in the amount that it

942
01:02:50,862 --> 01:02:53,944
is on the beaches. As I mentioned, like I went to Mexico and there was

943
01:02:54,065 --> 01:02:57,528
knee deep in sargassum and people don't like it. Sargassum doesn't really feel good

944
01:02:57,688 --> 01:03:01,231
on the feet or on your skin. It's a little rough and

945
01:03:01,671 --> 01:03:04,874
people just don't like it. They think it's gross and nobody wants to swim on

946
01:03:04,914 --> 01:03:08,197
a beach like that. So imagine taking that sargassum and doing something

947
01:03:08,297 --> 01:03:12,023
good with it. to either sink it or make biofuels

948
01:03:12,163 --> 01:03:15,488
out of it. I just think it's absolutely amazing to look

949
01:03:15,548 --> 01:03:19,193
at the different things like to use actual black fly larvae

950
01:03:19,774 --> 01:03:23,279
to be able to accomplish what you need to make biofuels out of sargassum.

951
01:03:24,320 --> 01:03:27,721
these are the types of solutions that we need to find out. We need to do everything we

952
01:03:27,801 --> 01:03:31,102
can to get to solutions, and not only just one

953
01:03:31,142 --> 01:03:34,423
solution, we need to find many solutions. Because it's not just going to be one and done.

954
01:03:34,543 --> 01:03:38,084
We're not going to find one solution that's going to fix everything. It's not going to be fixed right

955
01:03:38,104 --> 01:03:41,385
away. It's going to take a long time to do so, but we need to do everything

956
01:03:41,425 --> 01:03:44,606
we can to do that. So I think Annalisa is on

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the right track. I think she's really showing by leading as usual, and

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that motivation to say, hey, you know what? You can't do it. She can

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01:03:51,648 --> 01:03:54,789
do it. And then she will show you and more. So I just thought it was

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01:03:54,849 --> 01:03:58,031
wonderful. I'm going to link to all of Annalisa's links so you can

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connect with her and you can follow her. And also if you want to

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01:04:01,412 --> 01:04:04,533
get a hold of me and DM me on what you

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01:04:04,553 --> 01:04:07,794
thought about this episode and what you think about Annalisa, I would love

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01:04:07,834 --> 01:04:10,995
to hear your thoughts. Just hit me up on Instagram DM me

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01:04:11,235 --> 01:04:14,896
at HowToProtectTheOcean. That's at HowToProtectTheOcean. And

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01:04:14,936 --> 01:04:18,637
of course, if you want to follow for more, you can do so by

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01:04:19,037 --> 01:04:22,758
subscribing, following on YouTube, on Spotify, on

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01:04:22,959 --> 01:04:26,299
Apple, and in your favorite podcast apps, and you'll be able to learn

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01:04:26,359 --> 01:04:29,500
more about how you can protect the ocean. So thank you so much for listening to

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01:04:29,540 --> 01:04:32,901
this episode of the HowToProtectTheOcean podcast. I am your host, Andrew Lewin.