 Welcome to Think Tech on OC-16, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech and to Hawaii. I'm Jay Fiedel. And I'm Christine Linders. In our show last time, we covered the first part of a talk by retired Coast Guard admiral Paul Zakumf at the Paul Chung Memorial Lecture. His talk presented an apolitical view of climate change, national security and world order. Our show this time is part two of that talk. Paul Zakumf was the commandant of the Coast Guard from 2014 until 2018. During his time as commandant, the Coast Guard was able to get its highest appropriation ever to modernize its fleet. Over his 41 years of active duty, the Coast Guard set new standards in maritime safety and security. In 2010, he served as on-scene coordinator in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, where he directed 47,000 first responders, 6,700 vessels and 120 aircraft. He's a 1977 graduate of the Coast Guard Academy and took master's degrees from Webster University and the Naval War College. He's also a graduate of the programs at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, APCSS here in Hawaii, and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. The attendees at the talk included members of the Hawaii business community, including senior executives of Hawaiian Electric Company, several legislators and a number of students and faculty from the Engineering, Ocean Science, Tropical Agriculture, Law and Business schools at UH Minoa. The first part of Admiral Zakumf's talk was thoughtful and instructive for the people who were there. Here's the second part. Well, this is Houston, and I had the pleasure of doing multiple codels down to Houston, Texas. 40 inches of rain, 7 million people impacted, and just to add insult to injury, their 9-1-1 call center went out. So now you have people living in flooded neighborhoods, they can't call 9-1-1, and I had this discussion with Ann earlier, and I had a very enterprising lieutenant in the Coast Guard. And he was up in the Disaster Response Center up in Austin, Texas, and Texas had this app. I would compare it to Uber. Using an app phone, you'd better say, I am here, and that way they can direct emergency response resources to your location. I needed to get that on the dot mill domain, which is where the Coast Guard lives, and so I had to get approval from NSA to bring this new app into the military domain so we could do rescues. Admiral Mike Rogers, a good friend of mine, he said, okay, if this is life and death, and it looks like it is to me, go ahead and do that. And so we did it. And so in real time, we had people on a roof saying, I am here. But instead of an Uber or a Lyft vehicle, it would either be a helicopter or a rescue boat. As you can see, we have boats running down. That is I-10 to rescue these folks. So how do you do IT on the fly, if you will? To me, when I would sit behind my desk, I said the smartest person in the Coast Guard does not sit behind my desk. But the stupidest person in the Coast Guard sits behind my desk if they don't take the time to listen, which is an art form to the best ideas of others. And great ideas don't come with rank. This was a fairly young lieutenant in the Coast Guard, great idea, great initiative, and the worst thing you can say is, well, we've always done it that way. Don't suffer from the status quo. If you do, that is a recipe for abject failure. And these aren't just flooding events. These are political events. You can't look at this in isolation as it's a response. It is really more an event as well. This was President Trump's first litmus test in dealing with a natural disaster. And so the last thing you want is his administration is going to swing on how we responded to this event. Now the good news is the president tweeted Coast Guard stock up, way up. I didn't know that my stock was tanking, but I will take that as a positive tweet. And anytime you get a positive, even though I'm not political, I say that's probably a good thing. I'm going to take that to OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, and ask for more money in next year's budget. And it worked. Well, then we have the flip side of this. We start getting wet winters followed by severe drought. That's the campfire in California. We had a number of Coast Guard personnel lose everything in that fire. Unfortunately, we did not lose any of our Coast Guard personnel among the many that were killed in this horrific fire. But we're seeing even more severe and more frequent fire such as this. Right now there are hundreds of thousands of acres of blaze in Siberia. In Alaska. Places that never caught fire before. It's adding to the carbon footprint. That soot is now landing on what ice remains. And when that soot lands, it's dark. It absorbs more heat. So there's another feedback loop that goes with that as well. Now people say, well, why is the common of the Coast Guard? First of all, how can you even pronounce Ogallala Aquifer? Well, I can. This too is related to climate change. It's about 175,000 square miles. It's the largest aquifer in the world right now. And this is what drives the bread basket of the United States in the Midwest. And right now we're depleting it at a much faster rate than it's being replenished. Some farmers are already going to what's called dry farming and not growing corn and other products that require a lot of water. But it's going away. And as that goes away, crop yields go down. And the reason I'm interested is that those crops all move by sea. And I own the whole maritime transportation system when I was the common on the Coast Guard. 90% of our goods are moved by sea. And for those of you who have been here for some time, the first indication I would have is that there's a disturbance on the waterfront. Is when you see cars going over the poly highway, you can't see the driver from all the rolls of toilet paper. They're hoarding because that's the first thing that's going to go off the shelf if there's a disruption in our supply chain. But we are a world feeder. And we are really coming to a point where we're going to face a scarcity in food supply at the same time we have a growing world population. Which then drives a whole nother chain of migration. So that's why I can pronounce Ogallala. Look it up someday. Pretty fascinating, huh? So what's else happening up in the Arctic? This is the Chinese icebreaker, the Shui Long or Snow Dragon. And so the polar silk road now goes through the Arctic. China has very ambitious plans up in the Arctic. They've invested over 20% of the resources into Novotech. Novotech is the largest private gas supplier in Russia that is now extracting natural gas from the Amal Peninsula. They've invested about 12% of Greenland's GDP. So you may have heard about Greenland of late. China's already buying a piece of Greenland. They have first to align privilege. Now they've also invested about 7% into Iceland's GDP. Why? I've been up there, and so more land is being exposed as the ice retreats. And with that, you have rare earth metals being exposed that are ripe for exploitation. I don't know what the long-term plan is, but one area I look at is some of these rare earth metals. Is it in China's game plan to be the OPEC of rare earth metals, lithium and the like? But you certainly see them in Africa and others. So what is the agenda for China up in the Arctic? There's an area there that I pay especially close attention to because the United States has charted an area about twice the size of the state of California. It's called our extended continental shelf that goes beyond our traditional 200-mile limit. And in that extended continental shelf is about 13% of the world's oil reserves, about a third of the world's gas reserves, and over a trillion dollars worth of rare earth metals that could be mined from the seabed when that technology comes to bear. There's a little caveat to that. The United States is among eight nations in the world. In the other seven, I would call the misfits from the Star Wars bar, if you ever saw that movie, Star Wars, that have not ratified the law of the sea convention. So we do not have a governance model for us to lay claim rightfully to this extended continental shelf with all the riches that lay on or below the seabed. I kept close tabs of where Shui Long is going year in and year out. And because our extended continental shelf is viewed as global commons, they do traditional annualized research in our extended continental shelf. Now, fortunately, we have not seen any sovereignty, excessive sovereignty claims by China. I say that with tongue in cheek. But there's another area playing out right before us as we look at what is China's activity up in the Arctic region. Now, we can write papers and say, well, it's ours. But to me, if you don't have presence, well, if you have presence, then you really have no means to exercise sovereignty. Good news story is that Congress did make the appropriation where the United States Coast Guard, working with the United States Navy is finally reconstituting our fleet of ships that can operate up in this domain as well. Russia, we can't leave Russia out of this dialogue either. That is a caliber M cruise missile being launched up in the Arctic. It's a conventional weapon. It has a range of 2,800 miles. And we have one opportunity to shoot that missile down before it might impact some of our critical infrastructure in the lower 48 states. We've seen Russia militarize a whole chain of installations up in the Arctic with surface to air missile batteries. They're gonna deliver three of these ships over the course of the next two to three years. Russia has laid claim to the Northern Sea Route. That turns about 16 days in transit time says significant amount of fuel expenditures between commerce going from Asia to the European market, which is why China has invested into Novotech, which is why China is now a frequent flier, if you will, through the Northern Sea Route. But there's a stipulation with Russia. They have a Northern Sea Route administration and they require that you have a Russian icebreaker escort you through their Northern Sea Route. And for the United States, and Vladimir Putin announced that if the United States ever wants to send a warship through the Northern Sea Route, you must provide 45 days advance notice. I want the name of the captain, what's on the ship and where it's going. And even then we might let you or we might not let you make the transit through the Northern Sea Route. When we're having very, I would say, high anxiety discussions about freedom of navigation and our ability to ply the open oceans in other regions of the world. This is an area where Russia is really being the Arctic Hedgeman, if you will, to the exclusion of the United States. So that's the last picture. And so what I've laid out is, oh my God, what are we going to do about this problem that confronts us? Well, there is good news. And the first good news is where does it start? So in my best military advice role and trying to inform policymakers back in Washington, DC, here in the state of Hawaii, in 2015, the first state to declare net zero carbon emissions by mid-century, actually I think by 2045. Following Hawaii's lead, there have been 22 other states in now the District of Columbia that have joined onto that. When I was in Sun Valley, Idaho, their major transporter has shifted to all electric vehicles or LNG fuel vehicles for the transportation sector, even though it's very costly for them to bring LNG out to Sun Valley, Idaho, which isn't exactly on the major supply routes. So we're seeing it start at the state level. We're seeing it start at the grass root level. So that does at least give me some pause of optimism that we're taking this threat seriously. We have over 78 cities right now that also have net carbon aspirations as well. Not just aspirations, but actually taking initiatives, laying out milestones and objectives. It's great that we have HECO here with us today. And I'm delighted to say I've got solar panels and a wall storage battery unit on my house. So I'm doing my part. I put more miles on a bicycle than I do in a vehicle every year. And I'm not a young guy. So it's pretty hilly out here in Hawaii. But we're making progress. We need to maintain that momentum, but it's good to see those grass root opportunities. If I was in the technology sector right now, what are we doing about aviation? If I were to break it down and where are the net emitters coming from, right now the number one emitter is from heat and air conditioning. So while we're enjoying the comfort of AC in this building, this is probably, this is the, contributes about 25% of greenhouse gases. Transportation comes next. Actually it's pretty even mixed between transportation and agriculture. Agriculture weighs in because of all the clear-cutting deforestation that also limits or inhibits the ability to absorb CO2. Transportation comes in behind that. But here in Hawaii, very dependent on Honolulu Airport, major hub, major source of our economic sector, are there ways for the aviation sector to be greener than what they are today? When we're looking at probably at least a tripling, if not quadrupling of air traffic over the next 20 to 25 years. If I was an undergraduate or graduate student, I think that would be a great project. I think it's grant worthy for the airline industries. On the maritime side, I would represent the United States at the International Maritime Organization, representing the United States. But we were the proponents of low sulfur fuel in our commercial carriers. So when you see a match and ship come and go, you won't see black plumes of smoke as they come and go as well. They're burning light sulfur fuel. Some are actually shifting to LNG that leaves very little footprint whatsoever. But if we continue to maintain the status quo, and as I said earlier, we're probably gonna break through that two degree Celsius objective that was set by the Paris Accords, and one that we're seem to be pulling away from. Well, what happens after two degrees Celsius? There was a very disturbing book I read a while back. The author's name is Mark Linus, and the book is called Six Degrees, if you wanna check it out sometime. But once you get to two and a half, three degrees Celsius, the methane up in the Siberian tundra in Alaska now starts to release methane. And the whole house of cards starts to crumble when we start getting much further than that. Does it happen in our lifetime? No. But is our lifetime contributing to what this bow wave is across the horizon? Absolutely. In the weeks following the lecture, Admiral Zekumf came down to our studio and joined us for a talk show to discuss his career and his views on climate change and national security. So I would sit with the joint chiefs, and we would put together a national military strategy. And within that, focusing on areas like China, Russia, Iran, island extremism, North Korea, did we leave something out? And the answer is yes, we did. Within the Department of Homeland Security, we're looking at a flood of migrants leaving their home country. And thinking we can seal off our border, but what are we doing about the root cause of why are they leaving? So my approach to the world, it always begins with why. And then what solutions do we have to go after the why aspect? And one of those is we have a world that is changing around us. It's agnostic to any border, and it's a changing climate. Not just from what I read, but I actually made it a point to actually go up to the Jakobsavn glacier. It's up on the northeast coast of Greenland. I took an independent senator, and people can probably figure out who that independent was. But we wanted to see firsthand what is happening up there. And when we flew over the ice fields of Greenland, what we saw were moulins. These are huge sinkholes with volumes of water flowing down, lubricating the ice field that's been washing into the ocean. We went up to Jakobsavn glacier, and it has retreated over 25 miles in the last five years. That is light speed for a glacier. And then we sat down, and we met with the Inuit elders. And we asked them, what are we witnessing here today? So we have two words, climate change. They didn't have an agenda, but what they do see is their way of life has changed dramatically just in the last five years. Oh, and at the same time, we have China has now taken a keen interest in Greenland. Because as these ice fields are melting, they're exposing raw earth and rare earth metals that China has taken a keen interest in as well. We see China, even though they're not an Arctic nation, they're seeing opportunities right for exploitation. If you want to see the first part of Admiral Sirkham's talk, see oc16.tv, thinktecawaii.com, or youtube.com slash thinktecawaii. If you want to know more about the annual Paul Chong lecture, see pammy.shidler.hawaii.edu slash paul-chung. If you want to know more about the Coast Guard, see uscg.mil. And now let's check out our thinktec schedule of events going forward. 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We'll be right back to wrap up this week's edition of Thinktec, but first we want to thank our underwriters. Thanks to our thinktec underwriters and grand tours, the Atherton Family Foundation, Carol Monly and the Friends of Thinktec, the Center for Microbial Oceanography, Research and Education, Collateral Analytics, The Cook Foundation, Dwayne Kurisu, The Hawaii Community Foundation, The Hawaii Council of Associations of Apartment Owners, Hawaii Energy, The Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, Hawaiian Electric Company, Integrated Security Technologies, Galen Ho of BAE Systems, Kamehameha Schools, MW Group, The Shidler Family Foundation, The Sydney Stern Memorial Trust, Volo Foundation, Yuriko J. Sugimura. Thanks so much to you all. Okay, Christine, that wraps up this week's edition of Thinktec. Remember, you can watch Thinktec on Spectromoc16 several times every week for additional times, check out oc16.tv. For lots more Thinktec videos and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on Thinktec, visit thinktecawaii.com. Be a guest or a host, a producer or an intern and help us reach and have an impact on Hawaii. Thanks so much for being part of our Thinktec family and for supporting our open discussion of tech, energy, diversification, and global awareness. And of course, the ongoing search for innovation and excellence wherever we can find it. You can watch the show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important Thinktec episode. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Christine Linders. Aloha everyone.