However, we've seen in the last decade, that in fact, that narrative has shifted: bleached coral reefs, all these heatwaves, dead critters floating on the surface. As a result, the narrative has shifted from "the ocean is too big to be out of balance" to "the ocean is too big to recover".
〔Ghost Island Media〕Advocates for Sustainable Oceans
〔Ghost Island Media〕Advocates for Sustainable Oceans
Publish time： 2022-03-28
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Edit by Ru-Wei Chen, Qu-Fei Wu, Po-Yu Lin
"It used to be for most of human history that the ocean was seen as so immense, so bountiful, that it was endlessly resilient. It was simply too big to fail. The new narrative that is emerging is that the ocean is so big and so central to many of the things we care about, that it's too big to ignore," said Jane Lubchenco.
Let more people understand the language of science
The Honorable Dr. Jane Lubchenco was the appointed Administrator of NOAA (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration) from 2009 to 2013 under U.S. President Obama. She also served as President of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Sciences) and co-founded COMPASS to train scientists to be better communicators.
"When I was President of AAAS, I issued a challenge to scientists, that they need to reflect on and embrace more fully their social contract with society. Scientists love doing science, but it's not enough to just focus on solving problems and figuring things out. Scientists must think about how to share the scientific knowledge they learn and discuss more effectively. And the public is hungry for scientific information, but so too, are many elected officials, business people, heads of various religions around the world, and citizens and so there is a huge opportunity for scientific information to help people understand what's happening and what the likely consequences of different choices are. So individuals or institutions can make smarter decisions. Science information is often viewed as irrelevant or unhelpful for decision-making because of its incomprehensible content and is sometimes considered untrustworthy. Therefore, we must be proficient in ‘bilingualism’ and let more people understand science in a simple and easy-to-understand language, "Lubchenco explained the original intention of founding COMPASS.
Actively communicate to complete multiple important tasks
All the actions that NOAA propelled, covered everything oceanic and atmospheric, including climate change, weather forecasts, ocean conservation, and fishery management. It's all interrelated. "I began in 2009 and was there for four years, we had the most extreme weather in the four years in US history. The deep Horizon oil spill Disaster, delays in the program to build the next generation of weather satellites, and climate change deniers like ClimateGate are trying to discredit scientists and discredit their motivations. Nonetheless, we were able to achieve some really big wins in fisheries and U.S. federal waters," said Lubchenco.
"We have now ended overfishing and are rebuilding fisheries. So that now our fisheries are some of the best managed in the world. Another thing that we did, was the President issued an executive order to create the first-ever national ocean policy, which created an overarching mandate for the ocean, which didn't exist before we had a Clean Water Act and a Clean Air Act, we didn't have any overarching mandate for the ocean. The US has the largest exclusive economic zone in the world, the area over which we have jurisdiction is actually one and a half times the lower 48, about 3.4 million square miles, so it is a huge responsibility," Lubchenco said.
The overarching mandate was to achieve healthy, productive, and resilient ocean ecosystems, in addition to maintaining sustainable fishing, and must also address climate change. The goal requires the federal government, 26 different federal agencies, and offices, each having some role, to coordinate and talk together. There's now a National Ocean Council that provides cross-talk and coordination.
The executive order created a mechanism for the federal government to connect directly to the regions of the ocean states around the country: New England, Mid Atlantic, South Atlantic, Caribbean, Alaska, West Coast, and Pacific. Those regions were invited to create ocean plans to figure out how to think about the collective impact of all these different activities on the ocean's health so that we can protect and restore our ocean ecosystems, and deconflict all these conflicting uses between regions. Despite regime change, the regions are still implementing the plans and moving ahead.
Lubchenco spent a lot of time working with members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, and a few Independents to make sure that we are working together to achieve these goals. "When President Trump proposed very significant budget cuts and even eliminated very important programs at NOAA, Congress pushed back and said, No, we value these we don't want to defund them. What I really learned in spades when I was at NOAA is to realize that relationships matter, which means building bridges with all sorts of different kinds of people and relationships are what makes Washington work."
Face up to the ocean crisis and make joint efforts
Lubchenco focuses on sustainable oceans and climate change. She pointed out that so far, human understanding of the ocean has not changed much, especially in terms of the exploitation of the ocean. However, we've seen in the last decade, that in fact, that narrative has shifted: bleached coral reefs, all these heatwaves, dead critters floating on the surface. As a result, the narrative has shifted from "the ocean is too big to be out of balance" to "the ocean is too big to recover".
"But that's not the future I see. The future I see is a new narrative that says, if you look carefully at all these amazing things that are happening around the world, to recover oceans with marine protected areas, to recover fisheries by good fishery management, to protect blue carbon ecosystems. They're amazing things that are happening, just not at the scale that we need or the pace that we need."
Lubchenco pointed out, "In September of 2019, we had a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it was a special report on the ocean in the cryosphere, stating that the ocean has been a serious victim of climate change. There was another report that came out shortly thereafter that I was involved in. It was commissioned by the high-level panel for a sustainable ocean economy, 14 heads of state that are working together on ocean and climate issues. This reporter asked the question, what potential is there to mitigate climate change with ocean-based activities, of course, most people when they think about mitigation, they think about planting trees, making transportation greener, making buildings greener."
The IPCC report found in short, that ocean-based activities including renewable energy from the ocean, decarbonizing the shipping fleet, shifting seafood diets, shifting diets to include more seafood and less animal protein from land, protecting blue carbon ecosystems, mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrass beds, and storing carbon in the deep sea. "If you add all those together, you can get as much as 21% of the carbon emission reductions, we need to get to the 1.5-degree target by 2050. That's huge," said Lubchenco.
Lubchenco said that we need to find ways to accelerate, escalate, to replicate those models of success. The ocean is so big and so central to many of the things we care about, whether it's equity, addressing climate change, or providing food security. It's so central and too big to ignore. The ocean has so much potential and opportunities, but it won't happen unless we embrace and use science, and work with elected officials, CEOs, heads of religions, citizens, and NGOs around the world, to actually make that new narrative, a possible and hopeful one.
Waste Not Why Not〔Ghost Island Media〕
Ghost Island Media is a multilingual podcast network based in Taipei, Taiwan, with current affairs, shows in Mandarin, English, and French. Ghost Island Media won “Best Podcast Host” in 2021 at the KKBOX Awards in Taiwan and was nominated twice for “Best New Podcast” in 2022. (Facebook｜Instagram｜Twitter)
This episode was released on April 2020. It was originally recorded on February 15, 2020. [This recording was created at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Seattle, U.S. in February 2020. This trip to the U.S. was made possible by the sponsorship of Cypress River Advisors, a US-based technology and media strategic advisory firm. The podcast is available on the following platforms:Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Ghostisland URL〕 
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