the oceans produce half of the oxygen on
the planet start and end there every
other breath 845 million people on the
planet are going to be closer to
diseases associated with malnutrition
90% of the liveable space on our planet
is oceans trillions of dollars in assets
come out of what we harvest from the
seas we have to engage the exciting
power of technology to fix problems in
the oceans if we can't do that
successfully we're not gonna be able to
hang on to this ecosystem that is just
so vital for the future of our planet
go go go go get it find one
Vinny I think I saw some down this way
my name is Douglas McCauley I'm a
professor of marine biology UC Santa
Barbara I grew up in LA and I've always
been interested in the ocean my earliest
memories for a kid are playing around in
the tide pools and turn it figure out
how this grand amazing old but really
unknown ecosystem it's so important for
our planet and how it works let's see if
we can find any sea creatures because
this is like an apartment complex for
all the little animals in the ocean
anyone living in here I see a worm do
you see the worm in there what I've been
trained to do is understand how systems
are networks work in the ocean Hey look
at this guy the same way that you would
understand like a social network or a
network on a computer chip and how
they're all sort of wired together and
do that but underwater with living
networks guys
would you ever go in a journey if he
could sit on the back of the whale and
get way out into the ocean Finny I saw
these systems intricate beautiful
complex networks changing because of us
you know the moment for me that was just
this sort of personal moment that I
really realized that more was needed was
I took Finn out visits on these coral
reefs and he's just blown away
you know he's seeing this world that's
so colorful and so full of life it was a
special just to see the part of the
planet I thought loved us to see him
falling in love with it but at the same
time I knew that the reef that he was
swimming on was 50% dead 50% of the reef
had bleached since the time that I was
studying that reef just as a student
just a handful of years ago and for me
like knowing that um just knowing that I
was passing on a system that was 50%
dead to my kids like you know that was
just not the legacy that I wanted to
leave
so the grand challenge I think for a lot
of us have marine science is being open
and brave enough to have conversations
with new people in the technology world
I evolved as a scientist and really sort
of refocus to figure out how to embrace
that same power of technology to track
vessels process new big data from
sensors that are roaming on the oceans
look down and see whales from outer
space to help fix some of these issues
that are so vital to the future of our
oceans
[Music]
we're in Ventura Harbor here we're
getting ready to get out on the water
went across the Santa Barbara Channel
get over to the Channel Islands into the
National Park and make our first set of
the dives for the day
[Music]
morning we're gonna get a chance to do a
bit of research and actually see
firsthand the special biodiversity
special marine life that is there in
this protected area
[Music]
the problem in the oceans is that you
don't usually see the things that are
right there in your backyard just
because it's this huge expanse of of
failed life anything that happens below
the water stays below the water at least
in terms of like what we can see
historically mining in the oceans wasn't
a thing now it's actually not science
fiction its science we're sending 300
ton water proof robots down to the
deepest section of the oceans to grind
them up to get rare earth elements to
get golds and get copper other precious
metals and it's a big thing and we're
talking about in the case of mining over
a million square kilometers that have
been zoned into these mining claim areas
it's a section in the center of the
Pacific that is just about as wide as
the continental US as you can imagine
pretty bad news for the very old marine
life that lives in these deep sea
sections in fact over 50 percent of
species that I've been discovered in
some of these mining claim areas are
brand new to science so we created this
project called deep sea mining watch
which is like a transparency site for
deep-sea mining like a watchdog site so
that you eye your neighbor can track
where this exploration for seabed mining
and this this mineral extraction the
oceans is happening we actually take
sensor data from all vessels that are
transiting the oceans we process it
using an algorithm that helps detect the
special signature of mining exploration
and we pull out those cases we publish
them publicly so anyone can zoom in and
see oh okay this is a no-go area for
mining because there's just too much
unique life down there and we just we
just can't afford to mine that
so out there is one of the large
container ships coming across this ocean
highway out here there's the shipping
lane that cuts right across to the Santa
Barbara Channel just like you have a
problem with roadkill on land you have a
problem with the roadkill at the sea too
so you have these big container ships
and they just don't have the view
they'll have the vantage point to see
well so they run right over them if
there's a big whale ripe right around
the bow of one of these ships and it's a
problem that is really severe when you
have an endangered whale it's really
quite rare this is a great example where
technology can step in and do something
we're putting in what is the first
real-time system for detecting whales in
that same space so we're using thermal
sensors that look at the heat signature
so you can actually you know use these
thermal cameras to actually pick up the
hot bodies in the hot breath of a
warm-blooded whale there's a acoustic
sensor that's listening for whales and
then a third sensing modality here is
satellites telling us what's going on
where are productive spots what's the
temperature how all these things align
to help predict where whales are likely
to be it's like weather forecasting but
weather forecasting for whales so we
take all of that information and we
stick it together and it just creates a
simpler we tailed the ships keep doing
business but today there are whales in
this space and so slow down please
and when they slow down and they
actually have a much lower probability
running those over these whales
[Music]
there's a lot of tools in our toolbox
for looking after oceans Oh a 2% of our
oceans is closed completely to harvest
that means that 98% of our oceans is
like Hunger Games for underwater life
right and so we need to be working with
governments working with policy to
increase the number of protected areas
in our lab we've been tracking sharks I
just wanted to learn where these sharks
are feeding and where they are moving
one of the though is that this
particular species of shark actually was
wandering much further from these coral
reefs than we ever anticipated this data
all of the color data our fishing
vessels so because we're tracking the
fishermen and tracking the fish we can
actually mix the story of these two apex
predators out in the ocean then we had
this moment where in the last
administration here in the United States
they had in mind setting up a protected
area out in Hawaii and we can tell you
that the boundary setup right now are
too small and the government listened
and they sat down and said okay it's
science is saying you need to move this
boundary we'll do that and so we created
the world's largest protected area and
to sort of see this all start as a
journey with a simple tag stuck to it
reef shark is the transit all the way up
to the White House was just really
inspirational
for me stewardship for the oceans is
protecting all the things that we need
from that space it's protecting
inspirations that starfish that you show
your kid and there's like whoa what is
that funny-looking thing that's an
important intrinsic and tangible value
that comes in the oceans then really
needs to be looked after
understanding how important oceans are
for our fate is a gauntlet and I'd like
to throw down
technology is like a yin and a yang or
it's a blessing and a curse the science
I do can't be any longer something or
just out there with duct tape and zip
ties
there's a lot of need to embrace
technologies and draw them into what we
do more for scientists who get involved
and using creativity to come up with a
hyper high IQ solution
what we do the oceans is going to
dictate what happens to our species to
our place on the planets we can't forget
it
you