Transcriber: Jenny Lam-Chowdhury Reviewer: Tatjana Jevdjic
Video: (Narrator) Anthropocene.
A period marked by a regime change
in the activity of industrial societies
which began at the turn of the XIX century
and which has caused global disruptions in the Earth system
on a scale unprecedented in human history.
Climate change, biodiversity loss,
pollution of the sea, land and air,
resources depredation,
land cover denudation,
radical transformation of the acumen, among others.
These changes command a major realignment
of our consciousness and world views,
and call for different ways to inhabit the Earth.
Colleen Flanigan: This is a human's dining room.
It's a restoration experiment,
where he left it alone for a period of months
to see if it would restore itself to the way it was
when he first bought the house. (Laughter)
Or, he hoped maybe it would renovate itself
and become what he was envisioning.
But months later, it's pretty much the same.
So for the next phase of his experiment,
he's going to build a bar, put up some walls and clean a bit.
Now, this is my dining room. It's one of them.
It's a large table coral with such a valuable investment.
You can see all the gorgeous coloured fish attracted to the living space.
And my visitors — I have a lot.
They just rave about how magical and functional it is.
But, then a bomb blast —
and someone dynamited for fish.
Poseidon and I debate about this all the time.
Do we jut leave it alone and hope the coral reef rubble
will rise from the dead?
Or, do we transform the destruction and rebuild life-supporting habitat?
I say rebuild — using Biorock mineral accretion technology.
To address the effects of human predatory and parasitic symbiotic systems
that float throughout the ocean unchecked,
what if people hone in on specific needs of other species
and develop mutually symbiotic relationships with other organisms,
besides their pets and house plants?
Do corals just need a surface to settle upon
like a shipwreck, or maybe a million tires?
No, it's not a superficial problem.
And will marine protected areas be enough to ensure regeneration?
They may keep out commercial fisheries and other visible invasions,
which is great, and important, and necessary.
Yet, many of the threats are invisible:
climate change, pollution, decreasing alkalinity and disease.
Corals and their symbiotic beneficial algae partners, the zooxanthellae,
have lived in harmony for thousands, maybe millions of years.
The algae gives food and color to the polyp animal
in exchange for protection.
But with warming waters and compound stress
they've been breaking up, and they both suffer the consequences.
The corals starve, turn [unclear] and white,
and the algae is probably eaten.
It is sad. You can cry.
There are some hopeful promising studies
showing that corals may be adapting to some of these increased temperatures.
And I hope so.
I hope they can evolve and adapt, and quickly.
But, right now, Biorock restoration actively cultivates ecosystems.
It stimulates vitality at the cellular and skeletal level,
and what better way to do this than with electrolysis.
This might be just what the polyps and algae need.
A three-way partnership that helps them adapt to the traumatic trends.
So here's how it works —
By running low volt direct current through sea water
the limestone minerals, abundant in the ocean, deposit onto metal,
and the resulting surface is a natural substrate
for corals to settle on and colonize.
It becomes a non-invasive mineral rock.
The electricity locally raises the PH creating an alkaline buffer zone.
This is important because with ocean acidification and all the other factors,
corals have a hard time getting the calcium carbonate they need
to build their excess skeletons.
So essentially we're giving them free skeleton,
so they can use their energy for other vital activities,
like reproduction. They can grow faster,
they can survive higher temperatures that normally kill them.
The electrolysis appears to increase their tolerance
to some environmental stress.
Biorock was invented by architect, Prof. Wolf Hilbertz,
as a building material in the '70s.
It has high compression strength and it's self-repairing in the ocean.
And he teamed up with Dr. Tom Goreau, of the Global Coral Reef Alliance,
to develop coral restoration, sustainable fishing
and permeable breakwaters.
And it can be applied to oysters, mussels and seagrasses.
I want you to imagine coral polyps invertebrate animals calcifying
onto this aquatic topiary.
So here is six years coral growth in an area previously devastated
by dynamite and cyanide fishing.
The minerals keep building up because the limestone is porous,
and if you get really close, if you're there,
you can see the hydrogen bubbles fizzing up from the surface,
so as long as the electricity is flowing, the chemistry is going.
There is about 60 coral arks in Permuteran Bay in Bali,
home of the largest Biorock nursery in the world,
and all of the native species are represented.
The community is very much behind the project
because it helps their eco-tourism, supplies their fish stocks,
and they love natural beauty.
I got to help weld, install and plant the structure back in 2004 at a workshop,
and I just got this footage last week from Thomas Sarkisian.
He is the electrical engineer I'm working with on a project,
so I'm really very happy to be able to share that with you,
because that place looked really bad.
Now, for you do-it-yourselvers I want you to see the basic steps:
design,
weld,
immerse,
electrify
— I'm hoping for a self-contained power supply,
solders homeless fragments,
attach with wires and pliers,
and watch it grow.
(Laughter)
They're so sweet, thank you. OK. (Applause)
Now, this is another sculpture in Bali.
It's a little janky, it's called "Zigzag".
It's a very zigzaggy, but I wanted to show you the progression:
this is three months,
two years,
three and a half years.
And after six years, Liku Liku is overgrown.
The sculptures can be any shape or size,
from the small coral skirt to reefs miles long.
Maybe some tango dancers.
If we can build a super highway,
we can build a super reef.
We already have artificial reefs thriving
with 20 to 50 percent more biomass than most natural reefs.
I'm talking about decommissioned oil wells,
and rather than scrap them, as most regulations require,
we could apply wave or tidal energy to prevent corrosion,
and to provide an alkaline boost to counter bounce ocean acidification
caused by carbon absorption.
It's a great karmic twist.
On my current living sea sculptures inspired by DNA,
and I owe great thanks to all my Kickstarter backers,
Harnisch Foundation, Bertha Philanthropy, TED Fellowship,
and a team that helped me to make it this far.
We plan to install it in the Underwater Museum
in the National Marine Park of Cancun,
to distract and lure the tourists away
from the over-snorkeled natural reefs,
and so it can become a coral refuge and biodiversity study.
Science and policy are key to coral health,
and I invite you to add the arts into the equation.
Coral reefs are one of our planet's oldest natural communities,
established reefs are five to ten thousand years old,
and according to scientist David Miller,
humans share similar innate immunity genes,
so you're deeply connected,
and if they are in trouble, you are in trouble.
I've been talking a lot about how we can help them
because they truly are our life support.
I imagine swimming around this table with all sorts of species.
Thankful, we were able to stimulate mutual symbiosis in the Anthropocene.
Thank you. (Applause)