Full Transcript for A Serendipitous Conversation with a Seabird Biologist

worth it for the carbon footprint it takes, and the disturbance to wildlife. Although Antarctic wildlife really don't seem to mind humans at all, it's kind of refreshing actually to see curiosity from animals rather than fear. So it was mostly the carbon footprint aspect, and people rationalize their behaviours, of course, and I was rationalizing mine thinking, well, maybe it's worth it for the educational aspect of it. And if that's the case, then I decided I'm going to prepare a talk on ocean plastics and what they're doing to the environment. And strategically, I have to admit, I added a section on impacts to human health. I figured if people aren't all that concerned about the ocean, they should certainly be concerned about their own health. (04:17): And I didn't know a lot about it. I'd been hearing bits and pieces, but when I delved into the research, I became extremely concerned, legitimately and authentically concerned about it. And so this talk that I prepared for ships, you have a captive audience on these expedition ships. Everybody shows up for everything. And I got some really great feedback. Some European soap maker said he was never going to use plastic for his products anymore. And I thought, well, maybe this can make a difference. Anyway, when I came home, then I had this talk prepared and I had written and said, on Facebook, on social media, I have a presentation on marine plastics. If any school groups or community groups would like me to present it, I'd be more than happy to do that. (05:13): And the editor from the literary review of Canada, who is a Facebook friend of mine, said, well, would you send that along to us? We might be interested in you writing an article for us. And so I wrote an article, but honestly, who reads the literary review of Canada except other literary types? And lucky for me, Margaret Atwood read it, and she's a very, very active environmentalist. So she tweeted it, and that basically was what brought the article to the attention of many people, including publishers. And so I was offered a book, and I'm almost 60. Writing a book was really never on my radar, but I firmly believe that people want to do the right thing, but most people aren't 600 nautical miles offshore. They aren't seeing the things I'm seeing. And I just feel like knowledge is power as we know. And so I wanted people to understand what's going on out there, how it works, what's happening, what it's doing to our bodies so that people can make informed decisions. And I have to say, seeing the plastic, as I was saying earlier, was disturbing. But it wasn't until I saw a direct interaction, which was on Valentine's Day off of the New York City. (06:44): We were cruising past the city, and the ocean was littered with these Mylar balloons. They were deflated on the ocean surface with their long ribbon trains. And for animals that feed on soft-bodied marine animals like jellyfish and squid and octopus, these things are a dead wringer for

jellyfish. And I had read that I knew that these animals were vulnerable to undulating plastic in the water. But as I was doing my survey, I caught a glimpse of something moving in the corner of my eye and I looked, and it was a loggerhead turtle that was lumbering toward these Mylar balloons, one in particular. And I knew that it was trying to catch up with it in order to eat it. And that would've just been a devastating consequence for the turtle, and not just because it would fill up the stomach and not allow any other food in, but turtles become really bloated when they're full of plastic. They become quite gassy. And for turtle, that's death right there because they can't dive to secure prey, and they also can't dive to get away from predators. So they're just floating turtles instead of sitting ducks to see it with my own eyes, it ratcheted up my concern quite a bit. (08:07): Absolutely. Yeah. I think, yeah, you're in a unique position that you're going to places that people don't often go to, right? And so you're able to witness that and to kind of bring back that information. (08:18): And so through the personal stories as well, like my time on seabird colonies and things I've seen at sea, I really wanted to bring the reader with me so that they could see what I was seeing and smell what I was smelling, and enjoy some of the endearing experiences to become invested, to know what is out there and what we have to lose and what we should do to protect it too. (08:46): And in the book, you also cover the ocean currents as well, right? That's kind of an important aspect of the plastic problem. Could you kind of maybe talk a little bit about that, about why you included details about the way that the ocean currents move and things like that in your book? (09:03): Yeah, I mean, ocean currents ended up being a really important part of the book. And I had Brad De Young, who was the head of the physics department here at Memorial University and is a professor emeritus now. I had him on speed dial because as you know, I'm sure oceanography and ocean currents is really quite complicated, but so crucial to life on earth. So understanding the importance of currents and that Arctic and Antarctic ice drive all the ocean currents, basically, they're sort of considered the, well, Brad DeYoung said, oceanographers are moving away from this. But in terms of a description, the conveyor belt, when Arctic and Antarctic waters ice sea ice melts, it forms this really heavy, very super chilled water that sinks to the bottom and travels along the ocean floor and rises in different places under different circumstances and causes all of these incredibly strong ocean currents. (10:16): So the reason I discussed ocean currents so much in the book is because they are what distribute nutrients, oxygen, and plastic around the globe, and why it shows up in such unusual places that you wouldn't expect, why, for example, ocean currents carry fibers from washing machines from Europe and northeastern North America all the way up into the Arctic Ocean and all the way across to the western Arctic, into the bearing sea. So your impacts are felt everywhere, and you are also receiving the impacts of places from far away. And this is why the Gray Pacific garbage patch exists. It is one of the five ocean gyres, and it just happens to be concentrating plastic from a very highly populated and polluted region of the world. (11:13): And you mentioned earlier that there are negative health implications to people with this plastic problem. What sort of concerns are there for human health? (11:22): Well, there are so many. For one thing, a number of plastics, I don't know if you remember BPA. When BPA was taken off the market, they were quite popular. So BPA was an additive to plastics that made them hard and clear and very much like glass. And so a lot of water bottles, the Nalgene bottles, a lot of things were made with BPA. And then it was accidentally discovered in a lab where the female mice were developing all of these reproductive abnormalities and were having deformed young. It turned out, the researcher, Patricia Hunt, started to investigate what's happening to these mice because it wasn't part of the experiment, but they were eating plastic off of their cages, and it was causing these deformities. So as it turns out, a lot of plastics are endocrine system disruptors, which means they either mimic hormones or interfere with normal hormone production. (12:25): So all of our systems from reproductive to breathing to growth behavior are all regulated by our endocrine system. So when you have endocrine system disruptors interfering with these normal pathways to the brain, there's a myriad of issues that arise. And there's also evidence of increased breast cancer, testicular cancer, and inflammatory disease, autoimmune disease, and now plastic is actually becoming part of our bodies. The plastics break down into microplastics and then into even smaller units called nanoplastics. And now they're in our bodies and such and so small that they can cross well, they can cross the blood-brain barrier, so they can basically be anywhere in our bodies wreaking havoc. Microplastics are a huge problem, but also off-gassing from plastics. So the chemicals that are found in plastics like benzene that is in expanded foam, that it's not technically styrofoam, kind of like Kleenex is a brand, and styrofoam is a very specific thing, but these expanded foam food containers, and they off gas benzene, which is a carcinogen. So you don't have to actually be consuming the styrofoam to be affected by the chemicals that are leaching out of it. And that's true of many plastics. (13:57): One thing I was thinking of, Holly, when I was thinking about our talk today, a lot of people know that plastic is a problem. They know that it's in the ocean. This is not a new kind of conversation. What sort of new things does your book bring to the

conversation? New ideas or perspectives that might be unique that people haven't heard before? (14:16): Well, one thing, and I haven't discussed it yet, that is a really important part of plastic, is that plastic is produced from, it's a petrochemical, so it's produced from fossil fuels oil. And that's something that a lot of people don't realize, but even if they know that, they don't realize how huge a component the plastic industry is to climate change. And so just to put that in perspective, if the plastic industry were a country, it would be the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world after China, India, Russia, and the us. So it is a major contributor. And the oil industry, as we are finding greener solutions to energy use, they are pivoting. They're pivoting their business plans to increase plastic production so that they can continue to produce oil and profit from it. So that's a really important aspect of plastic that most people don't realize. (15:21): Yeah, no, yeah, that's a very good point. And yeah, actually, it makes me think of actually one of the most impactful part of your books for me was the whale margarine kind of goes along with that, right? Yeah. Tell me a little about that. (15:32): Yeah, so he's a sociologist economist, Richard York, his name is, he's a researcher. And these are not the kinds of papers I normally read, but it had a catchy title. I was doing research on whales, and it was entitled, why Oil, or Why the Oil Industry or The Discovery of Oil Did Not Save the Whale. And so I thought, well, that's interesting, and I don't know the answer. So I read the paper and basically, so in the beginning, whales were hunted for their oil, for kerosene and for various fuel reasons. But then when oil was discovered, you would think, oh, well, that's much easier, cheaper, less dangerous, and so on. So you would think that the petroleum industry would have taken the pressure off of oil, but instead, as these things go, it actually, oil was used to fuel ships, and then factory freezers were produced, and harpoon guns were developed to be all because of oil. (16:40): So it made the hunting of whales faster and more efficient, and it made whales that were previously inaccessible because they moved too fast for slower ships, made them huntable. And so rather than using them for oil now or for fuel, they were making up reasons. And so this was one of them. It was, well, we don't need whale fat, but they homogenized it and turned it into butter. There was whale butter sold in England or Europe in general, I guess, when there were cows in the backyard. It sounds ridiculous, and it sounds idiotic that you would buy whale butter when you had real cow's butter within arm's reach when it's presented to you like that logically. But then I would say the same thing about buying bottled water. When many parts of the world, you cannot drink local water, but that's not the issue. In most parts of North America and other Western countries, you turn on the tap and you have your free source of water instead of buying bottled water that you're paying for, and you're actually eating a lot more plastics, and God knows what else. (17:57): And the plastic industry has created this illusion that we need it. I mean, plastic has some really great applications, particularly in research and medical applications, but under no circumstances should all those plastics be thrown away. This is where some solutions come into play. But also in terms of this driving the need for plastics, this is an interesting point, is that a couple of years ago that federal government added plastics to the toxic substance list of the Environmental Protection Act regulations, which in and of itself doesn't do anything, but it allows mechanisms for creating regulations. So it was added to this toxic substance list. And then the federal government had a tiered approach to banning a bunch of single use plastics that was supposed to come into force at the end of 2024. And I'm not sure where that stands now, because the oil industry, Imperial Oil sued the federal government for listing it as a toxic substance. And that suit was supported by the Alberta government and the Saskatchewan governments both big oil producing provinces, and they were successful. So now countersuits are happening, but the whole thing is being held up because those premiers, governments know the relationship between plastic and oil. (19:36): Yeah. Now I feel in over my head, Holly, I'm thinking, (19:41): Oh, no, no, (19:42): I'm not feeling good now. (19:43): No, no. There's breathing room. There is. (19:48): And yeah, I guess it can feel like it's very doom and gloom, and it's like, yeah, there's a lot of money, interest, and maybe politics, and that can be very frustrating sometimes. But part of your book is also about a bit of hope and solutions, right? Yes. Yeah. Let's talk a little about that. (20:05): Yeah. So again, when I found out that there was this countersuit going on, I thought, I feel pretty hopeless here, but I can send some money towards Environmental Defense Fund, which supports these kinds of legal actions. So throwing a little money their way, but the important things that we can do on a larger scale is talk with our vote voting for parties that support environmental action, positive environmental action. Also talking with your dollar because business wants your money. And if you're not going to buy that are frivolously using or wasting plastic, they're going to stop using it. I'm starting to see that myself in the marketplace. I, for example, stopped shopping at Costco because everything was double and triple wrapped in plastic. So now sometimes I go out there for very specific things that are not plastic, have no plastic involved with them, and I'm seeing changes in packaging. And the reason I bring up Costco is because these are the kinds of places where the masses shop. Boutique shops are great, but

they're more expensive. And when you're trying to do things economically, especially with a family, you need to see those changes in the mainstream. Yeah, (21:32): I appreciate you sharing that. Absolutely. That's good to know you're doing that. I've stopped buying whale margarine. (21:36): Oh, yeah. It's bad for cholesterol too. Yeah, no, but there's so many things we can do in our own lives. And what I have done personally, I make crackers and I make yogurt and I make granola. Those are the three things that I eat in life mostly that are easy to make because I am not a good cook or I don't really delight in it either. But these are three really easy things to make, and that eliminates all kinds of plastic. But I just size things up and go, if something has plastic on it or around it, is there an alternative? Do I need it? And if the answer is no, which it is increasingly, then I just don't purchase it. But I'll tell you another thing that gives me a lot of hope is the response to the COVID-19, the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (22:34): We were in a global crisis and solutions. Once we took that crisis seriously, solutions came quickly. Countries worked together. They pooled resources and minds and research and technology, and came upwith vaccines, and things were turned around really quickly. And the other really cool thing about whenwe were all in lockdown is how wildlife was returning to places where it hadn't been because of human presence. And so it was just a glimpse into the fact that natural systems can recover if we just lay off the pressure. And actually, Antarctica is another really great example of that. We were talking about the whale hunt, and before the whales, the seals were almost completely eliminated from Antarctica and the islands in the southern ocean, and then they turned to whales, and almost all of those were decimated as well. But right now, when you go to old whaling stations in Antarctica and in the Southern ocean, the beaches are smothered with fur seals and sea lions, and they're using these old buildings as shelter. (23:53): So they're reclaiming the space and using the things that were used to render their fat as windbreaks andsafe places to have your pups. And so there's hope in lots of ways. And also reading about solutions, the fascinating and incredible research that is going on in so many different fields, ways of creating products that make them convenient but don't involve plastic. So I'll just give you an example of one. I saw these things for athletes that were water, that were encased in a seaweed dissolvable substance. So you could just pop it in your mouth. The seaweed would dissolve. I mean, seaweed, that's a very, very basic term. It was made from seaweed, but it dissolves in your mouth and you get several ounces of water that way. I just thought that was really cool and so simple, and also very hopeful for other solutions. (24:56): And the other one that really stuck out in my mind was a researcher that took plastics from all kinds of sources, plastic bread bags, things that are used all the time, and subjected it to a process that involved microwaves. And it was of the same energy level as your domestic microwave oven, and just applied an iron catalyst. So with the plastic. And the other end came these carbon nano tubes, which are solid carbon that can be used in producing steel and batteries and hydrogen, so in another source of energy. And so in this way, the carbon is sequestered into this solid, and you have the byproduct. So if plastics that have been recycled and reused and just get to a point where their usefulness, at least to this point is limited, maybe that could be the end result that it gets converted into something else through these chemical processes. And that's just one guy in one lab, in one place. And as I say in the book, just because I don't know about it doesn't mean it's not happening lots. I don't know. I'm learning every day about this and so many other things. So all of that gives me a lot of hope. (26:18): And yeah, it seems like reading the book, yeah, it's very complicated with whether it's policy, whether it's what you buy, things like that. But it seems like what I got from your book was just kind of a greater appreciation for these spaces and the wildlife in them and the importance of the ocean. And it seems like that would get people to care and to take action, right. (26:42): And to protect themselves and their children and grandchildren forever. (26:49): Yeah. Well, I really enjoyed the book message in a Bottle, ocean Dispatches from a Seabird biologist. Thanks for chatting with me, Holly. It was a good conversation. (26:57): Thank you for inviting me, Michael. It's been a real pleasure.