 Thank you for an opportunity to be here and talk about Well, most of the world the blue part Our lives would not be possible, but for the existence of the ocean Well, that's true of all of life on earth All life requires water and this planet this little Spec in the universe is blessed with a lot of liquid water plenty of water elsewhere in the universe But we don't know about the existence of life anywhere else So it's water plus life that is underpinnings of everything that we've been hearing about this morning from toilets to toys the opportunities that we have at this unique point in history of course every point in history is Unique but nothing like the present time This is Sweet spot in history as engineers might call it because never before have things been Just right for us to anticipate the future in ways that we couldn't Even ten years ago let alone 50 or 500 or 5,000 This is the first time in human history that we've been able to see ourselves in Context to see this little blue speck in the universe and realize this is it Every other living creature on the planet uses the world around it. We're no exception. We consume the natural world Even when we breathe we take in oxygen. We expel carbon dioxide We we don't photosynthesize so we have to eat other things that have lives of their own For all the history of our species it has worked. It has worked really very well in our favor This little chart goes back a hundred thousand years and there have been a lot of ups and downs during the past hundred thousand years when humans have been around in one Place or another one form of society and another scattered for the most part only in the last ten thousand years have we Enjoyed a period of relative stability stability with respect to a Climate that's favorable to us With circumstances that really have enabled our societies to grow to prosper and now I have personally witnessed growth from Two billion people in the 1930s eight billion people. I mean in the 1980s There are four billion and now seven billion and climbing so I've personally witnessed and some of you may have as well a tripling plus of humankind on a planet that doesn't get any larger We have burned through assets during this time that are unprecedented for any species on the planet It's a sign of our prosperity But it also is cause for reflection to think we cannot keep Doing what we've been doing and still have the level of prosperity that we currently take for granted. I Have some friends Lots you may too who really love the idea of going to Mars to look at the red planet to set up housekeeping there at least for a few of us not seven billion or 10 But Terraforming Mars is a dream. Maybe we'll Get there in one way or another to turn the red planet more like the blue one But meanwhile, we're doing a pretty good job of Turning the blue one to be more like the red one. We're Mars a forming earth with our activities mostly in the last 200 years Mostly in the last hundred years in the last 50 years the pace is picking up We have the capacity to turn the natural world to support our growing populations But curiously Why is this the sweet spot? Because now we know there are limits to what we can Do to the natural world and still have that prosperity that we cherish Interesting this year this year alone at Davos the world economic forum Really began to focus on the blue. I gave five presentations about the ocean and others put the oceans on the balance sheet Almost for the first time at these major economic forums the economist had a forum in Singapore Really directed at the ocean the blue part of the planet With the recognition that's where most of the water is maybe you could say Going forward that's where most of the opportunities really are think of it Only in our time the last half century or so have nations claimed their Exclusive economic zones out 200 miles every nation has a coast has a blue backyard the United States has more Territory if you will underwater than above so the country Effectively is more than twice as big as what we think of this country as and it's true with Australia Australia, there's a blue Australia. There's a blue Bermuda the island nations of the Pacific are realizing they may be small Land nations, but they're big ocean nations and they're exerting their power Exerting the opportunities they have and the responsibilities that go along with it realizing hear this It's like Looking at the world with new eyes Go back a hundred years And where we were with policies for what do we do with this country with any country with the land with the water The fresh water what have we done in the last century that if we could go back to 1900 or 1800 or 1700 armed with what we now know what might we do differently about the use of The assets the natural assets the trees the water the wild creatures that share space with us. I Was challenged to think that at a conference or I gave a keynote talk in Hamburg about shipping if we just just go back 50 years what might we do about energy consumption to be more efficient in the use of it as we power our way across the ocean So many things if we just knew then what we now know But think 50 years in the future. What are the opportunities that we have now? that We will either capitalize on use to our advantage or Through ignorance or not seizing this moment wish in 50 years that we had taken this unique opportunity to look at the ocean and Think about what we now know that we didn't know Even 50 years ago or 10 years ago things such as ocean acidification the ability that we have exercised not wittingly but through the burning of fossil fuels initiated Climate change global warming sea level rise a lot of things that people are worried about but in addition a new newly recognized Phenomenon of CO2 in the atmosphere now entering the ocean in such a level that That CO2 is becoming carbonic acid changing the chemistry of the ocean and therefore the chemistry of the planet probably Think of things that if you want to have something to worry about worry about Changing the chemistry of the planet. We know it in the atmosphere, but now the waters of the world are being affected with consequences that Literally trickle down to influence everything we care about There it is a little blue speck in the universe Only in the last century has it looked like this illuminated by the consumption of Fossil fuel, you know sunlight energy fixed that millions of years ago that we're now just burning through on Our watch in a few decades to our advantage because now we know Now we understand what we couldn't see 50 years ago or in some cases even a decade ago We are the luckiest people ever to appear on the planet and I think in this company those of you who think about how do you solve the problems and Really do well by doing the right thing to use Market-based solutions to use good business brains to look at the earth as an asset base To see what the problems are but to realize their opportunities out there That are good for your bottom line, but they're also good for the planet's bottom line Now we understand Scientists around the world are teaming up with economists around the world teaming up with business leaders with leaders of Countries as well as corporations Leaders in science in conservation across the board How do we look at the world with new eyes and recognize that you know There there are tipping points and we're approaching them on a number of fronts There's an envelope of circumstances that makes our lives possible on this little blue speck in the universe I didn't think about that when I was a kid a lot of people today still don't think of this as The opportunity of all of the lifetimes that have ever been on earth because we're the first ones to understand We have a real problem We can't continue burning through the assets literally and still expect prosperity to continue as we have hoped that it would be going on infinitely there are limits Recognizing those and saying let's turn that to our advantage Let's understand that there are limits to water limits to how much fossil fuel we can burn I mean the so-called cheap energy has really given us as perhaps the most important thing it's given us knowledge Maybe even a little smidgen of wisdom to be able to take what we have To learn from the past and apply it to a prosperous future and we have that power That's the good news and it comes from knowing we couldn't know what we know They but for the burning of fossil fuels that have given us rockets that can go up in the sky And made it possible for many of you to gather here traveling from the other side of the world Given us the power to power computer technologies to feed people on a level that is unprecedented on the planet I mean we couldn't go to the moon with whale oil We have given up the idea of human slavery as a source of power of energy for the most part at least and Here we are facing new insights The problems with fossil fuels are not what we tend to think of them oil spills. It is bad news But the real bad news is the consumption of fossil fuels now We know now we have the ability to think about alternatives to turn the problems to advantage Bad news right now for the burning of fossil fuels over the past couple of centuries Getting us to this point where we can tangibly see the consequences in the Arctic in the Antarctic the bad news for polar bears The bad news for people who love beaches everywhere as sea level rises But the good news always the good news is Now we know There were not conversations when I was a kid about Grabbing carbon sequestering carbon the need to do this to have carbon markets to think about going carbon neutral or carbon negative This is all new language all born of an understanding that we live at a time of unprecedented opportunity Driven by knowledge and the ability to communicate is never before in ways Never before possible So on many beaches around the world We understand that what's under our feet is sand silicon dioxide the substance that it really makes glass possible But on other beaches around the world the tropical bands in particular its calcium carbonate Little fragments of shells are the bodies of organisms that do the heavy lifting in terms of generating oxygen and taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere We're just beginning to appreciate The big cycles the oceans roll in carbon cycling carbon sequestration oxygen production You know two out of three breaths you take are generated by organisms in the sea more than half the oxygen in the atmosphere Really generated by microbes that you'll never see unless you have powerful New technologies to enable you to to sneak up on them and see these minute organisms that their existence We didn't even appreciate when I was a child these small creatures these cocalithophoreids It'll appear on a t-shirt near you I'm sure cocalithophoreids these calcium carbonate grabbing microbes that generate oxygen their shells form the substance of sand seafloor around the world in the tropics at least are Filled with these the bodies of these and other calcium carbonate grabbing creatures that most of you will never see Now we're beginning to understand the role of certain trees not just trees in forests, but The mangroves that it is now thought may take as much as 50 times as much carbon out of the atmosphere and sequester it then trees that live in Terrestrial forests because they live in the water they contribute to the sediments they hold the carbon We're gaining new appreciation for little creatures again that you probably have never heard of these calcium carbonate grabbing algae Halamita Halamita chips form the basis of beaches and sediments in the tropics around the world parrotfish loved munch on halamita and on coral Seagrass meadows just beginning to appreciate the blue carbon value of the seagrass meadows around the miss especially in the tropics But even in temperate zones Generating oxygen grabbing carbon holding it in place those Great floating golden forests out in the Atlantic Ocean in the Sergassos sea newly appreciated as a way of Sustaining circumstances that we heretofore have always taken for granted You may be aware of the headlines just last week in Australia that half the coral reefs in Australia Are gone in the since the middle of the 20th century Gone because of climate change the global warming gone because of pollution gone Because of the extraction of the creatures that make coral reefs healthy the sharks The things that we like to eat that we take out of coral reefs lobsters and the like Whatever combination of reasons, but we are seeing on our watch globally a decline of coral reefs by about half For one reason or a combination of reasons or another so the Phenomenon known as coral bleaching largely driven by temperature changes a sign of bad news They lose the little algae that live in the tissues and Ultimately result in a dead reef Fish are carbon-based units all living things are carbon-based units We're now beginning to appreciate other values for fish other than just swimming with lemon slices and butter Their value swimming out there in the ocean as a part of the systems that keep us alive new ways of valuing Things we have heretofore taken for granted the diversity of life We've come to really begin to appreciate and protect for one reason or another Diversity of life on the land with national parks about 14% of the land has some form of protection For that reason to protect watersheds to protect the diversity of life But in the ocean we're just getting around to the recognition that we need to protect the ocean Need to protect the creatures that are there that may not have an obvious direct economic value But like songbirds They keep the system running We understand that tuna have a value on our plates There was a great value for one tuna last December that sold for three quarters of a million dollars at the Tokyo fish market one fish 600 pounds Not feeding a lot of starving people, but feeding the growing luxury taste for ocean wildlife Now we're beginning to understand the importance of ocean wildlife For reasons such as carbon sequestration driving the system that keeps us alive This is the first time we've been able to pull back and see these these global systems and their interactions right down to the fine points of individual choices that we make at the restaurant in markets and individual ways that we Incorporate that thinking into our lives Only in the last half century have we had access commercially to Antarctic waters Now it's kind of big business for a few countries Taking from waters that if they belong to anyone they belong to you to everyone the global commons the high seas We haven't thought about this in terms of the blue economy of the world economy that half of the world is blue High seas beyond national jurisdiction It has ownership if it has ownership by anybody it has ownership by everyone a few nations a few industries are disproportionately extracting large Quantities of carbon-based units disrupting the carbon cycle in Antarctica Something that we need to think about On a global scale, what does it mean to the Antarctic ecosystems that drive climate and weather? What does it mean to extract wildlife from the sea at an end on an industrial scale? Taking these tiny little fish that may live to be 200 years old That little piece of orange ruffy on your plate if you've ever tried orange ruffy eat it with great respect But better yet choose not to eat them at all They're much more important out there in the ocean driving the the polar Ocean ecosystems and seamounts around the world as a part of the carbon cycle Much more important holding it in place. This is the first time in all of human history We've had access to the deep sea just last March James Cameron Solo dive to the deepest place in the ocean. What an entrepreneur. He's a filmmaker. He's an explorer He's a scientist. He's a star. He's a storyteller giving us a story of the limits of what we can get away with While making a prosperous future for ourselves to remember we have to take care of the assets and many of them are Deep in the sea if we haven't even put them on the balance sheet yet We know how to destroy them With deep sea fishing techniques But we're only now beginning to realize the carbon value Carbon sequestration in the deep sea. We really don't want to disturb it Got to stop two minutes Maybe less just to appreciate that many of you are concerned about predatory behavior perhaps of some of your colleagues and pals but our role as predators on the planet is Unprecedented but now we know we have a chance to turn the problems to Advantage to realize the real value of sharks alive of whales alive The biggest brains on the planet are not ours. They belong to certain whales We can think differently about them now that we know their value more important Alive than his pounds of meat Turn the problems that we now face With putting plastics and other trash into the sea into solutions There are opportunities to use our power of knowing to say some things We just have to stop but turn our advantage turn our wisdom into new ways of thinking Thumbs up This is the time as never before When we know what we could not know when any of us were children The technology we now have that gives us the potential for shaping a future armed with knowledge That has come about on your watch The next 10 years for sure and certainly the next 50 will be the most important time in all of human history To exercise that power that we have To make the right choices Invite you to come this afternoon at 245 over to a place called the firehouse That is on this property where Neil Duffy will chair a panel a blue panel To talk about the blue economy about the blue ocean impact fund about how whatever it is that you do whatever your Talents are whatever your hopes and dreams are for prosperity going forward There are opportunities out there in the ocean For the future the motto might well be Onward and downward. Thank you