-Welcome. Thank you for being on the show.
-Are you kidding me? This is terrific.
-You have a very -- pretty incredible family.
Your grandfather was Jacques Cousteau.
-Yep. -And just kind of --
[ Cheers and applause ]
And your father, Philippe Sr.,
he was also a conservationist and filmmaker.
-Yeah, filmmaker, that's right.
-Did you feel like this is --
you just have to be a part of this?
This is part of your life?
-You know, I -- -Or did you go,
"Hey, I think I might want to be a deejay or a rapper"?
-Well, when I was little,
I wanted to be a fireman actually.
-You did? -I did.
But, you know, when I was 16, my mom sent me on an expedition.
My first kind of trip, adventure into the wilds.
We were in Papua New Guinea, and we had it all.
We got to do it all, right?
We were in the southeastern part of the country,
diving with sharks and saltwater crocodiles.
And then we were headed up north to the center of the country,
up into the highlands.
To see tribes that have rarely, if ever, seen Westerners.
I mean, it was like "Indiana Jones."
And, of course, growing up with "Indiana Jones,"
this is what I wanted to do.
I almost died at one point, actually.
I was in Port Moresby.
We were on a trip.
We were on two trips, so we had two days in between.
And at the time, the State Department's warning was,
don't leave your hotel, don't go into Port Moresby
if you're a foreigner unescorted
because it was very, very dangerous.
There's just roving bands of people called rascals.
Doesn't sound very scary, but they were notorious.
If they caught you,
they would just kill you and then take whatever you had.
Like, it was really, really dangerous at the time.
-Rascals? -Yeah, rascals.
That's a rascal. Let me tell you.
-That's a cute name. Oh, my gosh.
-Rascals. So super dangerous.
And so I actually decided to leave the hotel at 16,
as one does, because at 16 --
we always make great decisions when we're 16.
-Oh, yeah. Of course. Oh, no. -And went to a local store.
Because we had been there for two days. I was bored.
And as I was coming back to the hotel,
I remember walking around a corner,
and there are these three guys on a park bench.
They see me, I see them, I'm thinking, "Uh-oh."
They get up. They start coming after me.
So I'm certain that it's over. It's curtains for me.
I'm running back to the hotel, and, you know, at 16,
the entire time I'm thinking to myself --
-I'm gonna die. -I'm gonna die.
"But please, don't let me die because --
Don't let me die a virgin." 'Cause I was still a virgin.
This is what's going through my mind.
-That's what you're thinking?
-At 16, please don't let me die a virgin.
-Don't let me die a virgin.
-I don't want to die. I don't want to die.
I don't want to dies. Wait, have sex with me first.
[ Laughter ]
-Don't let me die yet. -It's like no, no, dude, stop.
-It can't happen. -No, that's not what you want.
-And as you know, though, I made it, obviously.
I made it to the hotel. And my wife is pregnant.
We're having our first daughter in five weeks.
-Yes! [ Cheers and applause ]
-I fixed both of those problems.
-You really did. Yeah.
Oh, congrats. This is so exciting.
No spoilers for me.
Do you have a name picked out or anything?
-We do, actually.
I'll tell you -- we haven't made it public yet,
but I'll tell you.
-Don't worry about it. Nobody's watching.
-Nobody's listening, right? -No.
-Cover your ears. The name is Vivian.
[ Audience aws ]
Yeah. -I love the name Vivian.
That's great. Congratulations. -I know.
-It's gonna be so -- I mean, come on.
That's fantastic.
-I think you know, my father always said,
"Adventure is where you lead a full life,"
and I think this is gonna be the greatest adventure of all.
[ Applause ]
-Here's a picture of your dad
and a picture of you, side by side.
I think he'd be very proud to see what you've become.
Let's talk about your foundation EarthEcho International.
-Well, EarthEcho, yeah.
Something that was very much inspired by
my father and my grandfather.
I see a picture back here.
-Oh, yeah, I have your grandfather.
-This is one of my favorites. -That's you.
-That's me as a little boy. My grandfather.
[ Applause ]
I grew up with my grandfather.
Actually my father died six months before I was born,
when he was 39, which I'm 39 this year actually.
So I grew up with his films and his work and my mother,
who is like my hero, raised my sister and I.
And, of course, you know, my grandfather.
And he really inspired me and taught me the importance of
young people, and the importance of young people
changing the world.
And so we founded EarthEcho about 15 years ago.
We've become one of the leading
youth environmental education groups in the country.
And we work with kids actually all over the world,
inspiring them to really change the world.
We really believe they're the hope for the future.
-You are doing a good job.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Yeah.
-Give us an example of one of the things
that's happened recently. Maybe the water challenge?
-Well, you know, we have a program
called the EarthEcho water challenge.
And it mobilizes young people.
We've had 1.5 million people around the world
and 146 countries participate to help solve
the global water crisis that is affecting everyone, everywhere,
even here in the U.S.
And one of my favorite stories is, we had kids in Denver
that actually went to a local river, they used our kit,
they tested the water quality and found that
it was not where it should be, and they decided to go upstream
and do some investigation, and they found that
there was a pipe that was leaking chemicals
into the river, into their water supply that nobody knew about.
So these kids were able to contact local authorities
and really help their entire community
avert what would have been a terrible disaster.
That's just one example of stories
that we see around the world.
And of course, you know, in the press recently
it's been the children's climate march.
I mean, young people have always been the key
to any great social movement has been young people making change.
And that's what EarthEcho is all about.
[ Cheers and applause ]
On Earth Day. -Philippe Cousteau, everybody.
For more information on how to get involved,
go to earthecho.org.