Exploring Earth’s Oceans with Sylvia Earle and Fabien Cousteau

Dive deep into oceans terrestrial and celestial as Neil deGrasse Tyson chats with oceanographer Sylvia Earle, aquanaut Fabien Cousteau, co-host Scott Adsit, ocean conservationist Laure Katz, actor/environmentalist Adrian Grenier, and submarine pilot Erika Bergman. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/exploring-earths-oceans-with-sylvia-earle-and-fabien-cousteau/ Photo Credit: Amanda Meyer/USFWS.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the hall of the universe.

• 0:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And tonight, we dive in and explore the oceans of planet Earth. Featuring my interview with the legendary oceanographer Sylvia Earle. Yes.

• 0:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And not only that, we also have an interview with famed aquanaut Fabienne Cousteau. So let's do this.

• 0:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh yes. My comedic co-host tonight, Scott Atzen. Scott, welcome back. Good evening, Professor. Always good to have you. Always good to have you. And also joining us is marine biologist and conservationist Lori Katz. All right.

• 1:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do you do? You dive all around the world?

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Sometimes.

• 1:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you do some conserving?

• 1:09Speaker 01

  That's the fun part of my job.

• 1:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  But most of the time, I'm working to try to save some of the most special ocean places we have around the world.

• 1:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we'll be tapping into your expertise throughout this entire program because I sat down recently with one of the great pioneers of oceanography. Underwater explorer and living legend Sylvia Earle. Let's check it out. So Sylvia, I heard a rumor that you were born underwater.

• 1:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you had gills and then you just had to pretend you were human and came out and now it's just a charade when you're on dry land.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  I so wish that were so. My dream, my dream.

• 1:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what happened to you early in life where all of a sudden being on dry land was not the priority?

• 1:55Speaker 02

  Well, I got knocked over by a wave when I was a little kid on the New Jersey shore.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See, that's evidence you should go away from the ocean.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  No, well, that was my first thought because I couldn't breathe. And then suddenly my toes touched the bottom and my head came out and I realized that was kinda cool. That was fun. And my mother, who was watching, mother of all mothers, I mean, instead of reaching in and grabbing me and saying, "You're never going in the ocean again", saw the big smile on my face and she let me go back in.

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So she tossed you?

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Take her, ocean.

• 2:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so this is a parent who sees the joy in adventure and the adventure of joy.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. Yep.

• 2:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I agree, there's not enough parent energy supporting the experiments that children might...

• 2:50Speaker 02

  Well, again, I had parents...

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Might be victims of, even.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And they're so influential when you're a kid. But already I had fallen in love with the big craggy horseshoe crabs.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know those.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Living fossils.

• 3:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They look prehistoric, I mean, those things.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  And they go back...

• 3:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, what is that?

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Three hundred million years.

• 3:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You pick it up and it's all kinda...

• 3:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's all this creepy stuff underneath and they got this tail and...

• 3:15Speaker 02

  You know, I felt as if I knew more than some of the grownups who'd walk down the beach. They, "Oh, don't touch that. That'll stab you with that spiky tail." And I said, "What are you thinking? These are nice little guys. They never hurt anybody." And I knew as a kid, because, I don't know, you just have that empathy for other forms of life.

• 3:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so you were a weird kid. Just say that. Just admit it.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Nothing's changed much.

• 3:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so every now and then a weird kid turns into an extraordinary adult. Yeah, it's like she's got like a superhero origin story, you know? Because like, she was attacked by a wave, and then she devotes her life to studying her attacker, so... That's exactly how that plays out. Were you attacked by a planet at some point? Yeah, no, no, no, I have no superhero powers or anything. Oh, I think everyone would disagree with that. It would be cool if I was attacked by a black hole, and I came out with like, black hole energy. And if I didn't like you, I'd just suck you into a black hole. Spaghetti fire! That's what spaghetti fire you, indeed. So, with her weirdness turning into the adult that she is, like, I gotta read this list of what she is. So, she's a marine biologist, National Geographic Explorer in Residence.

• 4:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's logged 7,000 hours underwater, and led more than 100 undersea expeditions. Uh, she's chief scientist at NOAA, uh, from 1990 to 1992. And she's very influential in her field, that so many people call her "her deepness." So she has, she has an honorific royalty title because of this. And so, so I'm wondering, do you have an origin story with your love of the ocean, Lori?

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it actually is quite similar to hers. I haven't reached, uh, her deepness status. Um, but I had a, a collision with a wave as well, although it was...

• 5:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How, how old were you?

• 5:06Speaker 01

  A toddler. Um, but instead of being knocked over, it was being thrown into the waves, um, actually by my dad, so like Sylvia's mom. I had a parent who encouraged me to love and respect the ocean, but not to fear it, and I...

• 5:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait. Your dad threw you into the ocean?

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, so as a...

• 5:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this is, this is to teach you to respect the ocean?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Well, to, to love it, so at that point he...

• 5:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But not to respect your family.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  So he would throw me into the ocean, and my mom's friends thought he was absolutely insane, that this three-year-old was being thrown into the ocean.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Crazy dad stuff, yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely. But every single time, I'd pop up giggling my head off, and so pretty soon they thought I was the crazy one.

• 5:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So she mentioned the horseshoe crab, which is completely creepy. And so, is there a point where it's hard for a human to feel empathy for sea creatures? If they look, if they're not furry and cuddly?

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's hard for people to have empathy for anything that's different from them or far away.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  But if you experience marine life, it's hard not to have empathy for them.

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even if they're creepy and weird?

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, so let me give you an example. I was recently diving on a reef and I saw a cuttlefish, which is a relative of squid and octopus, so not particularly cuddly.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't that the thing that can like, has big suckers on the front?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Exactly, and what I watched it do is take those big suckers, its tentacles, and reach it down into each branch of coral. And I looked in close and it was actually caressing and turning each of its eggs. And it's hard not to have empathy for a loving mom.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it still doesn't have the face. It doesn't have, I mean, it doesn't have like the emotional stuff that we can relate to.

• 6:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't have a vertebrate face. Faces are very vertebrate things, aren't they?

• 6:54Speaker 01

  It has, it has eyes and it has personality.

• 6:58Speaker 03

  Because, because we, I think I need something I can relate to, something I can recognize of myself in, and I very seldom will turn my eggs with my sucker face. So I think that's why fish get a, get a kind of a bum deal, because they don't have a face you can look at and adore because you don't see yourself in it so much.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I disagree. So manta rays are considered to be one of the smartest fish in the ocean, and they are so smart that they actually can recognize individual humans and divers. And the way that they recognize you is by your eyes. So they will come and they will swim and they will look you in the eye and they'll know who you are.

• 7:38Speaker 03

  Well, they know more than I do when I look at a fish, then.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Eh, I think that there's, there's a way to make connection with all of these animals.

• 7:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this is the first sort of retinal test? Retinal, uh, ID?

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they'll form relationships with people and unless you actually cover up a diver's eyes, they'll know who you are.

• 7:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  So don't harass them.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  So if you wanna get away from one of them, you can just do that and they won't know you.

• 8:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like the old fashioned photos where you're not supposed to recognize the person. They put a little black strip across their eyes. Like, you don't recognize the body, or the hair, or anything else. You know, that was how they used to do that.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, not anymore.

• 8:19Speaker 03

  I think fish would really be advantaged by having a more expressive face.

• 8:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you want fish to have eyebrows, that's the secret.

• 8:27Speaker 03

  That's all I'm asking, yes.

• 8:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, is that so hard? Is that so wrong?

• 8:30Speaker 03

  Can you do that, please?

• 8:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll work on it. That'll be your next big genetic project.

• 8:37Speaker 03

  It's just for their advantage. I mean, look at them.

• 8:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Sylvia Earle loves every fish in the sea, no matter what, with or without eyebrows. And I asked her about her love of the ocean. Just tell me. Speak the love, and let's see what she says.

• 8:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When I think of people who love the ocean, many of them just like sailing the ocean.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, or surfing.

• 8:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Surfing, right, so the ocean to them is a surface.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  I know.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And to you, it's a three-dimensional...

• 9:05Speaker 02

  The ocean is the wet part.

• 9:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Universe. Wet part, really?

• 9:09Speaker 02

  It's not the top. What is the top? It is the bottom, but it's...

• 9:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Both people, the ocean is a surface, right?

• 9:15Speaker 02

  No, it's the juicy part in the middle. It's this part. That's... and it's alive. That's the thing that... If people think of the ocean, they think rocks and water. And, you know, a place to sail or swim. Or to dump things, or to take things out of the ocean, but... No, the ocean is a... is a living system.

• 9:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Lori, first, remind us what it means for the ocean to be a living system? Because to most people, it's just water. And it contains living things. But to think of it as a living system, take us there.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  So in the same way that a forest with birds and trees and bugs that are all interacting is a living system, the ocean's the same way. It's not only full of life, but it's all interacting together in a connected way that kind of keeps it all functioning.

• 10:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't it just big fish eat little fish?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  That's part of it, but there's a whole complex food web there that most people just don't see and take into consideration.

• 10:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I know, I mean, I study the universe and I happen to know for sure that what happens on Earth's surface has really no effect on anything else in the universe. They're separate things. And, but for marine scientists like Sylvia Earle, like yourself, human activity can have a significant influence on what's going on in the center of your research topic. So I just asked her about that. Let's check it out. If you start out as a scientist interested in the ocean and then learn that human activity is changing what the ocean is, does that turn you into a conservationist? Does that alter you?

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Well, it alters what I have available to see. You know, 90% of the fish have been taken out of the ocean. Not just since when I began exploring the ocean, but really mostly in the last 30 years. We're really good at catching and marketing wildlife from the sea. Half the coral reefs since 1980, since 1980, have either become seriously damaged or they're gone. In the Caribbean, I love the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, it's closer to 90%. Some places are more stressed than others. And it's partly because, yes, the planet is warming,

• 11:42Speaker 02

  but also we're changing the chemistry of the ocean with acidification. Also owing to what we're putting into the sky, carbon dioxide and methane, the CO2. The ocean is a great buffer and has absorbed much of the carbon dioxide. But beyond a certain point, it becomes carbonic acid. And we've seen a great uptick in the...

• 12:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And even if you don't know what carbonic acid is, it doesn't sound good.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Acid, acid, acid, acid. Think...

• 12:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Carbonic acid. It just sounds bad.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  It is bad. And the thought that the ocean is so big, so vast, so resilient, it's too big to fail, right? But now we know it is failing.

• 12:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What does she mean that the ocean is failing? It's an ocean.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  So, like she said, for most of history, we thought of the ocean as this inexhaustible space.

• 12:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Inexhaustible.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Inexhaustible, and it's...

• 12:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Throw your garbage there.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  It turns out it's not. We are taking way more life out of the ocean than can be replenished, and we're putting way more pollution into the ocean than can be absorbed.

• 12:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're saying we're killing the ocean?

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Well, it's not dead yet, but it certainly... Its health is certainly failing.

• 12:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this carbonic acid problem, how bad is it?

• 13:01Speaker 01

  It's pretty bad. So what she's talking about there is a process called ocean acidification. And the oceans absorb about a third of the carbon dioxide that humans are putting into the atmosphere, about 22 million tons every day.

• 13:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every day?

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Every day.

• 13:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's funny, we think of carbon dioxide as a gas, and gas we think of as light and low density. And now you're telling me 22...

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Million.

• 13:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Million tons of this gas is being taken, absorbed by the ocean, okay.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  And once it's in the ocean, as she said, it's turning into carbonic acid. So in the last 200 years alone, we've increased the acidity of the ocean by 30%. That's faster than any time in the last 50 million years. And that's bad for marine life. It's bad for a couple of reasons. The first is that in those acidic conditions, we're actually eroding the shells and the skeleton of critical animals like oysters, mussels, and most importantly, coral reefs. And then the second is that that process actually takes up the chemical building blocks that those animals need to grow.

• 14:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To grow their shells.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  To grow their shells. And, you know, you might ask, why does that even matter? But a billion people rely on coral reefs for food and livelihoods. And so if those reefs...

• 14:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are fishes that live in and only in...

• 14:30Speaker 01

  In coral reefs. At least for part of their lifetime or life history. And so if the coral reefs erode, how are we gonna feed them?

• 14:40Speaker 03

  You know, it's even worse, from what I understand, is something that's also...

• 14:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I worry every time you look at your cards here, something's gonna pop out.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  I did some research. There's something that's even worse than carbonic acid.

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 14:52Speaker 03

  That's filling our oceans called dihydrogen monoxide. Now, this is a colorless, odorless, chemical compound. It contributes to the greenhouse effect. It is a major ingredient in acid rain. And if you inhale it, you die. You can. You can die. And I happen to have some right here. This is dihydrogen monoxide.

• 15:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What does it taste like?

• 15:20Speaker 03

  No, no, no, don't, no, no, no. Don't...

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Dihydrogen monoxide.

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An H2O. Okay, no.

• 15:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. We are talking about ocean exploration and conservation. Live right now by video call is actor and activist Adrian Grenier. He was the star of the HBO series Entourage, you remember that? And he's an ocean conservation advocate. Yeah, I'm here. Adrian, hey, man. Hey, Neil, how's it going? Excellent.

• 16:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I'm old enough to remember when straws were made of paper. And if they got too wet, they would collapse. And I was kind of quite happy when plastic straws came around. If you succeed and you get rid of plastic straws, how are we gonna drink our sodas?

• 16:40Speaker 04

  Well, you know, I sip with my lips.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  My mama didn't give me these beautiful things for nothing.

• 16:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For drinking and kissing, right, right, right.

• 16:52Speaker 04

  But listen, you know, I think we need to reinvent, right? The plastic straw and other plastic materials were a great innovation. We just need to step it up again, you know? We need to renew a vision of the future that does not have plastic in our oceans. We're leaching almost 10 million tons of plastic into the ocean every year. And at that trajectory in 25 years, there's going to be more plastic in the ocean than fish themselves.

• 17:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so just like, I'm just curious. You're, you're a well-known actor. And how do actors become activists? What, what's the, what is that transition? What, what goes on? Do you go through some activist school? Because all y'all come out protesting something on the other side. So what actually goes on in, in Los Angeles?

• 17:42Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I think we're very blessed in a lot of ways. Um, at least I am. And at a certain point, you start to realize that we gotta give back. We gotta, and find that balance. I, I've lived a great life. I've gotten a lot of the spoils of, of success. And now it's time for me to do my job as a citizen, as a human, and help do my part.

• 18:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a beautiful thing. And it's a message that we are folding into this show.

• 18:12Speaker 04

  I wish I could be there. I'm, I'm, I live in Brooklyn, but I'm in LA right now.

• 18:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right now, okay. Well, great to see you. Maybe you can come by and visit when you come back to town.

• 18:19Speaker 04

  I would love that.

• 18:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Adrian, thanks for calling in. All right.

• 18:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So clearly, it's hard to get people to care about something that they don't know anything about. So, so much of this exercise is awareness. And so I asked oceanographer Sylvia Earle how much we know about the ocean today. Because that could impact how much we end up caring tomorrow. Let's check it out.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Only about 10% of the ocean has been seen at all, let alone seen, or mapped with the same degree of accuracy that we have for the moon, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury. You know, we've gotten pretty good.

• 19:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe space is just easier. There's only, there's only one atmospheric pressure difference between surface of the earth and the vacuum of space.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, whereas you're dealing with, what's the pressure down at the Marianas Trench?

• 19:23Speaker 02

  16,000 pounds per square inch. But, we know how to solve that problem. It was solved in 1960. So, what are we waiting for?

• 19:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, maybe it doesn't have the romance of the sky and the universe.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  I beg your pardon.

• 19:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Send it to the wrong person. So, Laurie, why, why are ocean people so sure that the ocean is more romantic than the cosmos?

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Well, I've got to agree with Sylvia on this one and I'll, uh...

• 19:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, of course you're gonna agree with Sylvia on this one, okay?

• 20:01Speaker 01

  See if I can convince you.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's gonna be hard, but go on, try. Bring it on.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  I'll take the bait. Well, for me, I think about the most romantic dives that I've ever had and experiences under the water.

• 20:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a phrase, romantic dive.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Oh, I think so.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, go on, go on.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  So, the one that speaks to me the most was a time in Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean. Imagine diving over a beautiful coral reef. And then all of a sudden, the reef disappeared. I went over the edge and was above 1,000 feet of blue water. Just blue everywhere, like your cosmos, just vast, open blue. But out of it came a school of eagle rays. And they came right up out of the blue, right to me, swam by, making eye contact, gazing into my eyes, and then swam back out into the blue. So I don't know about you, but to me,

• 21:06Speaker 01

  the only thing more romantic than the mystery of finding unknown life is getting to encounter it right here.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  Feed that, all right.

• 21:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, it's not bad, not bad.

• 21:23Speaker 05

  You can ask your mate.

• 21:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if you're ready for my rebuttal. No, I don't know.

• 21:29Speaker 05

  I know it's coming.

• 21:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if you can handle it.

• 21:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you ready?

• 21:37Speaker 05

  I'll try, I'll try.

• 21:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I get you. There's romance in the ocean. We came from the ocean.

• 21:48Speaker 05

  Yes, we did.

• 21:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But before we came from the ocean, we came from the sky. We came from the universe. Our atoms, our molecules are traceable to the crucibles in the centers of stars across the galaxy that exploded, gave up their lives, scattering that enrichment across gas clouds, hither and yon, from which life emerged. That's where I came from first. And the ocean is where I came from second.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  That was like a nerdy Barry White.

• 22:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Laurie, let me ask you. Sylvia is correct. We know more about the surface of the moon and Venus and Mars and Mercury and Jupiter and Saturn than we do of our own ocean. So up next, we will take a deep dive into Earth's oceans with a submarine shaped like a shark when StarTalk returns.

• 23:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Welcome back to the American Museum of Natural History, right here in New York City. I sat down recently with Aquanaut Fabian Cousteau. This is the grandson of the legendary Jacques Cousteau we all remember. And I asked him about carrying on that great family legacy. So let's check it out.

• 23:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So were you kind of obligated to be interested in the ocean? Would you have been excommunicated? You're carrying some serious name weight.

• 23:41Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, it's a double-edged sword. Uh, no, I was never obligated in the family, or it was never expected of me in the family to carry on.

• 23:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I was wondering, because you would say, "Oh, I'm in the family business."

• 23:52Speaker 06

  You know, it sometimes feels like a business. We're always struggling with connecting people with the value of our life support system, this planet.

• 24:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want to hear you say that again, that the planet is our life support system. Give me that sentence again.

• 24:06Speaker 06

  The planet is our life support system.

• 24:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spoken from someone who's been underwater who needs life support.

• 24:12Speaker 06

  There you go, there are correlations.

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I'm thinking Earth is just here, and I do what I want, and it's not supporting. I don't think that way.

• 24:21Speaker 06

  But we take it for granted, right? I mean, you're born, you go through your lifetime doing the basic necessities that you need to do to survive, to pay your bills, to da-da-da-da-da. But you never think about where your breath is coming from.

• 24:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Laurie, where's our breath coming from?

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Well, the oceans, of course.

• 24:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but that's not what we're taught in school. In school, we say, "Oh, the leaves and the plants and the..." And it's very land-based teaching.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  They contribute, but the oceans produce over 50% of the oxygen that we breathe, most of which is from little plants, microscopic, that live in the water column.

• 24:57Speaker 03

  How much does space generate for us?

• 24:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, yeah.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, see? Please go on.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Why, thank you. So, I mean, I think it's a good example of all the ways that we take for granted what the planet and oceans do for us. They don't just give us the breath that we, the oxygen that we breathe. They regulate our climate. Uh, three out of seven people on the planet rely on seafood for protein every day.

• 25:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Three out of seven?

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Three out of seven. And the oceans, uh, generate $2.5 trillion for our global economy each year.

• 25:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From fishing, I guess.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  From fishing, from shipping, from all sorts of different industries. And so we, we often overlook it, but it's really the blue in our blue planet that makes everything else possible, including us.

• 25:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Jacques Cousteau, I mean... He was an explorer, a scientist, a filmmaker. Would you count him as a real-life ocean hero?

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. He invented scuba, which makes my life a whole lot happier, so I'll call him a superhero.

• 26:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I didn't know that.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, that's a pretty big shadow for this guy to grow up under. But I think Fabien has done alright for himself. And, you know, he learned to scuba at age four. How you like that?

• 26:20Speaker 01

  I thought I was pretty young. I did it at 12, but he got me there.

• 26:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I'm told, he's officially an aquanaut.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that has definition to it? Because it just seems like, an astronaut, you go into space. We got that. So an aquanaut, that's not just somebody who goes underwater?

• 26:40Speaker 01

  No, it's somebody who goes underwater and stays there long enough that they actually reach an equilibrium with the pressure underwater and the gases in their system.

• 26:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  It takes about 24 hours typically, but I think he's far surpassed that.

• 26:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, just so I understand, so on land, there's one atmospheric pressure.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We inhale that, so all the gases in our body recognize and are in balance with one atmospheric pressure.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you go underwater.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, two atmospheres, three atmospheres, five atmospheres, 10 atmospheres.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you breathe air that's under 10 atmospheres of pressure. Now your body has to absorb that in a 10 atmospheric way. And that takes about 24 hours.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  Is this the 10 atmospheric way?

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I'm just feeling it. Right, right, right. So, that's why you can't come back out too quickly.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because then 10 atmospheric pressure will bust out of your body. That can't be fun.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Right, so you have all of this gas that's been absorbed into your system. Think about it, almost like a Coke that you shake in. It's got carbonation, it's got all this gas inside of it. If you open that too fast, the pressure changes and all of that bubbles out of your system. So as long as it's in your bloodstream, it's liquid and it's fine, and you don't feel it at all. But if you pop to the surface, you don't want that gas bubbling out.

• 27:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this acclimation takes about a day, you say?

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so I understand that Fabien Cousteau accomplished this inside an underwater research station where he stayed for 31 days. And Fabien had another recent underwater adventure that I had to ask him about. Let's check it out. I couldn't believe what I read, but now I have you here to confirm or deny that you have a submarine that looks like a shark. Just tell me that's not true. Just tell me that was a cartoon I saw or something on SpongeBob.

• 28:28Speaker 06

  You're right on both accounts, by the way. It wasn't a cartoon. It was in a comic book called Tenta or Tin Tin.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remember Tenta.

• 28:35Speaker 06

  And that's always stuck in the back of my mind. It's such a cool idea. You know, but imagination, expression of dreams is what makes things possible. Space exploration is based on that.

• 28:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it completely?

• 28:49Speaker 06

  So is inter-space exploration.

• 28:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But still, you made a submarine that looked like a shark.

• 28:54Speaker 06

  Well, the reason was simple.

• 28:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You weren't getting close enough to sharks?

• 28:56Speaker 06

  Well, the reason, yeah, that's exactly what it was. I looked, I'm like, "Cool idea. Okay." Right now, everyone's studying sharks. This was a few years ago. Everyone's studying sharks in cages and they're throwing chum at the animal and expecting natural behavior.

• 29:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait. Just to be clear, they're not studying sharks in cages. They're studying sharks from cages.

• 29:14Speaker 06

  Correct. I'm sorry. Yes, you're absolutely correct.

• 29:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the person is in the cage, and the shark is not in the cage.

• 29:20Speaker 06

  Right. And we should always keep it that way.

• 29:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you know about this shark thing?

• 29:28Speaker 01

  I did. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing it, but I have heard about it.

• 29:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's kind of a Trojan horse, where you can get close enough to the sharks and people come out.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Well, you would think that, but I think they actually can probably tell that he's there. Sharks don't actually use their sense of sight very much. They more rely on their sense of smell and a special sense that they can read electric charges or the heart rates of animals. And so even though he's visually camouflaged, I would imagine that they can see him.

• 29:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, to help us continue this conversation about undersea exploration, we have a professional submarine pilot standing by live right now on video call. So...

• 30:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hello.

• 30:14Speaker 07

  Hi.

• 30:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is Erika Bergman.

• 30:16Speaker 07

  Hey, everybody.

• 30:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're a submarine pilot?

• 30:19Speaker 07

  That's right.

• 30:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and that wouldn't happen to be your submarine behind you?

• 30:23Speaker 07

  Oh, what, this old thing?

• 30:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, where are you?

• 30:29Speaker 07

  Well, I'm in my workshop with a bunch of tools, the submarine itself, and I'll actually take you down right now. Sorry, it's hard to hold with one hand.

• 30:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're doing a great job, by the way.

• 30:39Speaker 07

  Thank you.

• 30:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, okay.

• 30:41Speaker 07

  So, this is the hatch right here, and when I close this hatch, it seals all of the water out. So, it's basically the opposite of an airplane. And an airplane, when you go up, because the pressure is decreased, all of the rivets tighten down. In our case, all of the seals are the opposite direction, and when water presses in, it seals this hatch up here.

• 31:07Speaker 07

  There we go.

• 31:09Speaker 07

  It's quite heavy.

• 31:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the water pressure-

• 31:10Speaker 07

  I'm very strong, don't worry.

• 31:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The water pressure does your sealing for you?

• 31:14Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 31:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what's the coolest place you've been in this thing?

• 31:19Speaker 07

  Um, Vancouver, B.C. actually has this stunning ecosystem that I never could have imagined in a million years, and it is, in fact, 500 million years old.

• 31:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa.

• 31:33Speaker 07

  It's called a glass sponge reef, and it's the first animal life form on Earth. They're a single-celled organism that grow huge. They look like trumpets that have been hanging out underwater for millennia, because they've been hanging out underwater for millennia.

• 31:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wonder what they, what they say about you.

• 31:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Erica, thank you for giving us a tour.

• 32:00Speaker 07

  Sure, of course, my pleasure.

• 32:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. So, coming up next, we'll explore oceans on other planets on Star Trek.

• 32:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History, and we are featuring my interview with the legendary oceanographer Sylvia Earle. And back in 1970, when NASA was putting men on the moon, Sylvia Earle and her team of all-female aquanauts were exploring deep beneath the waves. Let's check it out.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  There were no women involved with going in the sky at that point. But there was a team of women who were allowed to experience living underwater in isolation and to simulate, in some fashion, what others would come to experience in space.

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The isolation.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. Being remote and under "hostile" circumstances. I've never thought of the ocean as being particularly hostile, but it is true. You have to take your life support system with you.

• 33:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  If you're going to have a little house underwater, which we did, a Tectite underwater laboratory. And when we...

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you just lived underwater?

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, for two weeks.

• 33:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two weeks?

• 33:33Speaker 02

  So there were ten different teams of people over a period of a year. And the first year that preceded that, 1969, was just four guys stayed for two months underwater.

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So was that the oceanic equivalent of the Mercury Seven astronauts? The first set of people just testing the limits of...

• 33:54Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 33:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The equipment, as well as...

• 33:56Speaker 02

  And the effects on your body, yeah. And behavior. On all of the Tectite missions, from the Tectite 1 to Tectite 2, when they had these ten teams of scientists exploring the ocean, we were monitored, when we were inside at least, by teams of people who looked at us day and night and made little notes about what we were doing.

• 34:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, so you were like a little underwater diorama?

• 34:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that mission was called Tech Type 2. Let the record show that Tech types come from space. And you're naming an underwater thing after space objects.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  They are found underwater, though.

• 34:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they fell from space.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  I'll give you that one.

• 34:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, this is the longest duration that scientists had ever been continuously submerged. I was very impressed to learn about that. That that was happening contemporaneously with our missions to the moon. And I bet that's not an accident. They share a lot of challenges, right? So, you need air, where there isn't any. Breathable air. You can be isolated for long periods of time.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  They both have unflattering suits.

• 35:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unflattering suits? We're trying to change that, actually.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah?

• 35:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a whole next frontier of spacesuits that are a little bit sexy and a little bit interesting. What else? Access to food.

• 35:13Speaker 03

  They're both jobs that I pretend to have when trying to impress women.

• 35:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that right?

• 35:17Speaker 03

  Sure. Oceanographer. Astronaut.

• 35:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 35:21Speaker 03

  Same thing.

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how's that been working for you?

• 35:25Speaker 03

  I'm sitting here by myself.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  Did I tell you I'm an astronaut?

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Did you tell you I'm a marine biologist?

• 35:37Speaker 03

  Is she lying?

• 35:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, she's not lying. Of the two of you, she's the one not lying. So why was Tech Type 2 important? Other than what she said, did it have a bigger significance in the day and for what followed?

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I mean Sylvia's been an inspiration for a whole generation of marine biologists, myself included, who saw her kind of open up that frontier and make it seem feasible for women to be part of this industry. You know, there's still barriers, but she definitely set the path.

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we found a newspaper headline from 1970 about Sylvia Earle's mission underwater. And you know what the headline read? Beacon Hill Housewife to Lead a Team of Female Aquanauts.

• 36:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the kind of stuff that went down back then.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  I actually have a stack of newspapers from an alternate universe where the headlines...

• 36:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have access to the multiverse?

• 36:35Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 36:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't tell me that!

• 36:36Speaker 03

  You gotta come over.

• 36:40Speaker 03

  Over there, their headlines treat male scientists like we treated female scientists.

• 36:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really? Okay, so what do you have?

• 36:47Speaker 03

  I got this. "Father of Three Finds Time to Walk on the Moon." "How does he balance it all?" Another one. "Physicist Shows Awesome Leg While at Beach Writes Theory." This one. "Bossy Astronomer Won't Quit Nagging About Earth Revolving Around Sun."

• 37:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so I also chatted recently with famed underwater explorer Fabian Cousteau. You know, I had to ask him about the idea of exploring oceans beyond Earth. Let's check it out. You may know that we're discovering oceans on moons of planets.

• 37:35Speaker 06

  Sign me up, I'm there.

• 37:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, as all evidence shows that there's a layer of ice.

• 37:45Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 37:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Afloat atop an ocean that may have been an ocean for billions of years. So when we astrophysicists go there, we're gonna have to call one of you guys up. Because we don't do that. That's what you guys do. And you have to cut through the ice, that's another kind of thing. And they'll just send you down there, and we'll just stay up top.

• 38:07Speaker 06

  I'm not there. I have no problem with that, bring me with you. But it is a really, really intriguing part of what you're doing, what your discoveries are doing. Because it has made me dream of, wow, if what is down in our oceans is so amazing, what's over there?

• 38:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Laura, do you like this idea of alien oceans?

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 38:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we can send you there too?

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Sure, sign me up.

• 38:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so we talked about Jupiter's moon, that was Europa. But also, there's a moon Enceladus orbiting Saturn.

• 38:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are moon planets, if you will, that are kept warm deep inside because of the gravity stress that they experience in orbit around their host star. And so the surface is icy, but we have liquid water beneath. And it's not fundamentally different from cutting through polar ice and reaching the lake or whatever is the ocean below. And so it's a global subsurface ocean.

• 39:08Speaker 03

  How thick is that surface?

• 39:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we don't want it to be thick, so... Because that makes it harder to cut through. But realistic estimates put it at about a kilometer. And so the hole you cut to go ice fishing, it has to be really deep. So we haven't really figured out how to do that. Some were imagining you can get like a radioactive heat source that just melts its way down. But then you put radioactivity down in the water supply and affect whatever life might be there. So there are issues that have to be resolved. So if we go there, you sign up.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, you have no idea what you could find there. It makes me actually think about exploring here on our oceans. In the 70s, oceanographers found for the first time hydrothermal vents. They kind of assumed that they were there and modeled them there, but they finally found them. And were shocked that they not only found life in these really hostile environments, but they found life that made their living an entirely different way than any other life form that they had found. They actually found life that used the chemicals coming out of these vents to create energy, a process called chemosynthesis.

• 40:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rather than from the sun?

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Rather than from the sun. So if organisms can support themselves in a whole new way here on Earth, think about what's possible in these other oceans.

• 40:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Blows it wide open.

• 40:30Speaker 03

  And you're discovering new species every what? Every day, every year?

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Well, some of the reefs that I work on in Indonesia, it's on a weekly basis that we're discovering a new species. But so around the world, definitely on a daily basis.

• 40:43Speaker 03

  Who needs space?

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 40:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the last time you're invited on this show. You're supposed to have my back. But coming up, we assess the future of our oceans here on Planet Earth. Because I sat down recently with underwater explorer and living legend Sylvia Earle. I asked for her outlook on protecting the world's oceans, and this is what she said.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Now, I think we're at that point in time that we have been able to develop the technologies with the ability to speak to other brains on the other side of the planet. And we're connected. We have the computers to be able to crunch data, to analyze these masses of information, see patterns that we could not see before, to give us insight, to give us some answers to who are we? Who are we, anyway? Where do we come from? And where are we going?

• 41:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Laurie, who are we? And where do we come from and where are we going? And very quickly, please.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  That's a pretty big question, Neil. So, we did come from the ocean. So, we're inherently sea creatures, and we're still dependent on the ocean for our very survival. We, as of now, know of one planet that can sustain life. This one. And it can only support life as we know it with very specific conditions, very specific climatic conditions. And the ocean is what keeps the Earth hospitable for us. So, without the oceans, our very survival is in jeopardy.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  We are at a moment in time when we actually have the capacity to change that. We can reverse these trends. We have the knowledge, we have the science, we know what we need to do. The question for me is whether we're gonna have the wisdom to use it.

• 42:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're bumming us out, man.

• 42:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Sylvia Earle... No, no, it's the truth. Sometimes the truth is a bummer. Sylvia Earle actually has an initiative to protect oceans, and it's called Mission Blue. And so I asked her about that mission. Let's check it out.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  So, the idea of blue parks, protecting the ocean. Nobody thought we needed to protect the ocean when I was a kid.

• 43:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it's the ocean version of a national park?

• 43:14Speaker 02

  Exactly. A place that you deliberately say, "This place is special." But here's the thing. It turns out that it was only 0.01% of the ocean was really safe for wildlife, protected where the fish could do their thing in peace, whatever that is.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  Now.

• 43:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where they can eat each other in peace.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  They can eat each other and one another in peace, right. So, okay. It seems it's good, good ideas, but not enough. My wish was to explore the ocean, to use our mighty powers to communicate, but to lead to a network of hope spots, protected areas around the world, large enough to save and restore the blue heart of the planet.

• 44:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what will happen is when, when fish achieve collective consciousness, they'll put out maps of where these hope spots are, then they'll all cluster.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  But we, I think we have time. I think that especially in the next decade, next 10 years will shape the next 10,000 years in a magnified way. Because we still have 10% of the sharks. We still have half the coral reefs. So a network of hope spots for the ocean. We've developed a kind of a framework where people, wherever in the world you are, to nominate a place in the ocean that you think is important or that you love. And you say who you are, why this place matters, and what you're going to do to help take care of it and, and make it, make it so. It's knowing, it is the key to, to caring. Maybe if you care, you'll do something. You can't care if you don't know.

• 44:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hope spots, that's a good thing. Laura, are you hopeful about hope spots?

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I actually am. Uh, I think we still have time. So in my work with Conservation International, I actually get to work on blue parks or marine protected areas all around the world and see the dedication of communities and governments and businesses collaborating to make these protected areas. Um, and we actually just reached a milestone.

• 45:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This requires international cooperation.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 45:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why the word international is in your title.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Indeed.

• 45:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In, in the company title, yes.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's a lot of work.

• 45:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For everyone's benefit.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  So, I have a hope spot myself. For me, it's a place in eastern Indonesia called the Birds Head Seaside. And there's more species there than anywhere else on, in the ocean. It's the epicenter of marine biodiversity. And I've had the privilege for almost a decade of working there with indigenous communities, governments, to help create a network of large marine parks, or these blue parks. And we're now seeing that they're working. So, we're now measuring fish and coral coming back. Local fisheries are rebounding, and people have more to eat.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  And so, seeing that and those communities, that's what gives me hope.

• 46:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's a good note to end on, I think. Well, if I can offer some parting thoughts.

• 46:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I happen to love the ocean.

• 46:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We went a lot as a kid. And you go to the beach, and you go to the edge, and you chase the wave, the wave chases you back. There seems to be a kind of a magnetic draw to the shoreline that is the boundary between land and water. And that forces me to wonder whether, deep down within our DNA genetically, we have a memory of having come from the water.

• 46:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because so many of us are drawn to it. So, there's something about it that keeps us coming back. And I will not stand in denial of what might be a search, this genetic search for where we came from. Whether or not you knew explicitly that that was true, you feel it, sitting there hearing the ocean come to the shore, watching the sunset over the water. Looking at the seashells. I don't know, there's something about it. I think it's real. And I think not enough people take that the next step and ask, "What's going on down deep within?

• 47:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how does my life depend on it?"

• 47:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We came from there,

• 47:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  and we depend on it. And that is a cosmic perspective. You've been watching StarTalk.

• 47:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you, Scott Adsit. Glory Katz.

• 48:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've been your host, your personal astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up!