>> Liz Neeley: [Applause]
Well, hello, everyone.
Welcome. I'm Liz Neeley, and
I'm absolutely delighted
to be moderating today's session.
This is underwater climate
change and me.
And if you are not interested
in hearing about oceans
and coral reefs, well, first,
 I'm sorry for you.
And also you may help yourself
out out of the room. [Laughing]
We are going to be diving into
45 minutes of conversation
about our oceans.
We'll start in sun drenched
shallow waters with coral reefs
and then make our way down into
darker and more mysterious
depths. And what I'm excited
about is to be joined by two
incredible marine scientists
and authors to joining us today,
we have the author of "Life on
the Rocks",
"Building a Future
for Coral Reefs",
Dr. Julie Bald.
[Applause]
As well as an intrepid
explorer, research scientist
and author of "Below the Edge of
Darkness" "A memoir of exploring
Light and Life in the Deep Sea".
Dr. Edith Widder. [Applause]
We'd like to thank the National
Endowment for the Arts
for sponsoring this stage.
And our plan for our time today
is to explore both of these
books, which explore ocean
science as well as personal
stories. Julie and Eddie both
take us on personal journeys,
whether that's navigating
medical mysteries or struggling,
sometimes despairing, before
pushing forward.
My own career path started in
ocean conservation, so it's a
personal joy to explore these
things, and I'm so excited
to get into this together.
So our plan is I'm going to ask
each of them to make
a provocative statement or ask
 a question to get all of you
thinking, because in the final
15 minutes of the session today,
we will take questions from
you.
So get those brains thinking
I'm going to hand the floor over
to both Julie and Eddie in turn
to talk about their books, and
then we'll talk for 15 minutes
or so before we dive in.
At the end of the time today,
you'll be able to get books
signed by our two authors.
All right. So provocative
statements or questions.
Julie, let's start with you.
>> Julie Berwald: So the story 
of the coral reefs
is one of struggle.
I think we all know that.
And so my question is currently
predictions are that by 2050,
99% of the coral reefs will be
lost on our planet.
And if that's the case, what
can we as terrestrial people,
terrestrial beings, people who
live up here on land, do to make
what's beneath the waves less
invisible to us?
>> Edith Widder:
So in 2011, we got our 2012,
we got the first video
of a giant squid in the deep
sea.
The first time we were able to
record this creature in its own
environment. And I maintain
that the reason it took so long
to do that is that we were
doing it wrong.
We were scaring them away.
If it took that long to record
an animal over four stories
tall. How many other creatures
are there in the deep sea
that we don't even know about?
Giant squid happen to float
when they die.
So we had dead specimens, so we
knew they existed.
What about the stuff that
doesn't float?
>> Liz Neeley: All right.
And so on that note,
let's talk a little bit about
your books and high level
takeaways people need to
understand as they approach
these questions.
Julie.
>> Juli Berwald: So I'm going
to forward to a slide.
So this is a coral reef and the
coral reefs are take up less
than 1% of the ocean's area.
So they're quite they're quite
small in terms of the space they
take up, but they have a
disproportional effect on marine
life. It's estimated that a
quarter of all marine species
depend on coral reefs at some
point of their life.
And coral reefs are these
incredibly vibrant, abundant
places rich--rich--rich in
marine life.
But coral have a problem.
They're bumping up against
climate change.
The reason why coral are, first
of all, animals, they're kind of
like little sea anemones that
live in colonies there.
Most of them are about the size
of a pencil eraser and their
superpower is that in their
tissues.
And you can see in that number
one, the little green dots are
algae and those algae
photosynthesize and feed 90%
of the sugar they make 
to the coral.
And that is so much energy that
the coral can actually make
stone. They make the limestone
skeletons that they live inside
of, and that creates the
architecture of a reef.
But when temperatures rise, we
don't know exactly who starts
it, but either the coral kicks
out the algae or the algae just
abandons the coral and takes
with it its color and also its
sugar. So suddenly the corals
on starvation rations and it's
it's bleached. It's called
bleached.
At that point, if the
temperature doesn't fall,
if the temperature falls, the
symbiosis can be reestablished.
But if it doesn't, the coral die
and then a bleached reached reef
looks like skeleton bones and
in a graveyard.
And that's ultimately what it
is.
But and this is a true reality
for our coral reefs around the
world. It's estimated that
already half the reefs have
bleached. Like I said, the
projections for 2050 are really
bad. But it's the book isn't
completely it's not an obituary.
There are people around the
world doing things that are
bolstering the health of the
coral reefs.
So as they come into this
period of stressed stress, as we
warm our -- our oceans and our -- our
planet, there are things we can
do. And so I wanted to tell
some of those stories.
This is a reef in Indonesia.
You can see the rubble beneath
those those bars.
That's -- that's a dead reef.
Those those structures are
called reef stars.
They're made out of rebar and
they are kind of networked
together into a galaxy of reef
stars.
And and what happens is the
reef has resiliency.
And after about 18 months, the
coral has grown.
And after three years, you have
a reef that is completely
restored. So there is -- there's a
lot of work being done to
protect the coral reefs and all
of the life they support.
But it's -- it is also a
precarious time for them.
>> Edith Widder: So it was 
coral reefs that got me hooked
on marine biology.
I was smitten.
Your word. Try it.
When I saw my first coral reef,
I was 11 years old and I got to
explore this reef and decided I
wanted to be a marine biologist.
But instead of becoming a coral
reef biologist,
I became a deep sea biologist.
And my first deep sea
expedition was in 1982
on a little ship
where we went out
and hauled nets behind the ship.
And this is the primary way we
know about life in the deep
ocean. We drag nets behind
ships.
But we were actually able to
bring the animals up alive
because we kept them in a
container that kept them cold.
And when we dumped them out,
everything glowed.
It was incredible.
They were pulsating plankton
and glowing krill and flashes
from mangled jellyfish.
I plunged my arm into the trawl
bucket.
Icy, icy, cold water, pulled
out a red shrimp the size of a
hamster, and it had nozzles on
either side of its mouth that
were spewing out. Sapphire blue
light that pooled in the palm of
my hand dripped between my
fingers, dropped in back into
the trawl bucket and went on
glowing.
Everything lit up.
These animals had photo floors,
they had lures.
They had all kinds of
contraptions for being able to
make light, to find food, to
attract mates, to defend against
predators. And I wanted to know
what that world looked like.
And I got an opportunity in
1984 when I got to be with a
group of scientists who were
testing a new tool for exploring
what was then and still is the
largest, least explored habitat
on our planet, the mid-water.
It was a diving suit called
WASP.
That's not an acronym.
It's just somebody thought it
looked like the insect has kind
of a yellow body, bulbous head,
Michelin man arms with pincers
on the end of it. And it was
developed for the offshore oil
industry for diving on oil rigs
down to 2000 feet.
I trained in a tank in Port
Hueneme, and my first open ocean
dive was in the Santa Barbara
Channel.
The first dive, they just put
us one in after the other
dropped us to 800 feet to make
sure we weren't going to have a
claustrophobic meltdown.
I didn't because I was so
intrigued by what I was seeing.
I saved that for the next dive.
But I went down 800 feet and I
turned out the lights and I just
was blown away by what I saw.
Now, at the time, there were no
cameras that could record this,
but this is what it looks like.
It looked like a fireworks
display.
And in fact, later when I was
interviewed by our local
newspaper, they asked me,
what's it like down there?
And I blurted out, It's like
the 4th of July, which of course
they used as a headline.
And I took a tremendous ribbing
from my colleagues for such a
non scientific statement.
But I have lost track of the
number of times over the years.
I have taken people down for
their first dive and had them
describe it as being like the
4th of July.
It was incredible.
I -- I saw jellyfish that just
blew my mind.
And I included these for Julie
for her book Spineless.
So this is a safe conifer chain.
You see it on the left in the
light and on the right by its
own bioluminescence.
It was longer than this room.
I brushed up against it with
the wasp, and it lit up,
propagated down, and everything
inside the suit lit up.
I could read all the dials and
gauges inside the suit without
a flashlight just by the
bioluminescence I was seeing.
This is a colony.
Sort of like a coral.
It's just a really bizarre
creature.
But what an astonishing amount
of light.
And then some of these
jellyfish produced different
displays depending on how they
were stimulated.
So the comb jelly you're seeing
in the light on the left, when
you see that rainbow color,
that's because it's being
illuminated. That's not
bioluminescence.
But the bioluminescence, the
cold living light that this
creature makes, it can make it
intrinsically, as you see in the
middle image or extrinsic,
Leigh, where it releases it as a
cloud of particles, just the
way an octopus or a squid could
release an ink cloud in the
face of a predator.
Tremendous number of these
animals can release their
bioluminescent chemicals into
the face of a predator,
temporarily blinding them,
allowing them to make an escape.
And it was the jellyfish that
intrigued me the most.
They don't have eyes.
So who were these displays
being directed at and why were
there different displays in the
same jellyfish?
And so I developed an
electronic jellyfish that
imitated certain kinds of
displays.
And it turned out that was
enormously attractive to squid,
which is what led to the giant
squid hunt.
>> Liz Neeley: I'd like to turn
 a question to the audience.
Raise your hands if you've ever
been in the oceans, keep them
raised, have you? Snorkel?
Do we have scuba divers in the
room?
So we have a lot of people
who've been in oceans in these
books. We are traveling from
locations near here in the
Florida Keys, for example, to
the opposite side of the planet.
And we cover a swath of time
from early in your career all
the way up to the beginning of
the pandemic.
That's that's quite a sweep.
I know that writing books that
combines science and memoir is
an incredible intellectual and
emotional challenge.
Since this is a book festival,
let's start with the process
of writing a book.
I'm curious about tapping into
your memories and what motivated
you to write these books at
this point.
That's it for both of you.
>> Edith Widder: You go first.
 I'll go first.
First.
>> Liz Neeley: Okay.
>> Edith Widder: So -- So never
 intended in my life
to write a memoir.
I was contacted by a literary
agent who saw an article about
my research in the New York
Times, and he asked me if I'd
ever thought of writing a
memoir. And I said, No, go away.
[Laughing]
And then we got the first video
of a giant squid using the
electronic jellyfish that also
got written up in a lot of
places. And he contacted me
again.
This time he had a whole speech
prepared about how I had seen
things that nobody had ever
seen, and I should be willing to
share them with the world.
And I said, I don't know how
I'm a scientist.
We don't write in the first
person.
And I counted.
And from that time there were
40 emails from him.
They weren't pushy, but he just
kept.
Have you read this memoir?
Have you thought about this?
And finally, I just decided,
okay, I'll give it a shot.
And one Christmas I just took
some time and started trying to
write in the first person. And
I had kept first person memoirs,
I mean, diaries, especially of
my expeditions of of what I saw
on each dive, for example.
And actually, I ended up having
fun writing the book.
I just was so freeing compared
to writing science papers.
I had a blast and I, I was very
much benefited from the pandemic
because I run a not for profit
That takes a lot of my time.
And with the pandemic, I got a
little extra time for the
rewrite of the book. And
anyways, it was unexpected in
every possible way.
>> Liz Neeley: I'm glad that 
your agent was that persistent.
I am too. And you can feel the
fun that's being had, and you'll
enjoy it too, especially in the
footnotes.
I think your sense of humor
comes across there.
And Julie, what about you?
>> Juli Berwald: I was a little
more intentional in my decision
to write in the first person.
Well, I was a
scientist, and then I fell off
this scientific path and I
started writing textbooks.
And and then I was actually I
got a little bit of a gig
writing some short articles for
National Geographic, which was
really cool. And there was a
photographer who was who liked
what I was writing, and he
asked me to write the text for
one of his books. And I was
like, I'm a -- I'm -- I'm a huge
reader like crazy.
I read everything.
And I think the idea that I
could actually be an author was
something I hadn't dared to
imagine before.
This photographer asked me to
write the text for his
photography book. And actually
it was a book.
The first chapter was about
Coral, and I wrote my heart out
and and then I didn't hear back
from him and I didn't hear back
from him. And I called the
editor of the book and I'm like,
What's happened? And he was
like, Sorry, he's not going to
go with you. And it was in that
moment I was like, Oh, I really
want to be an author. But I
understood that I needed I
couldn't do it for someone
else.
I needed to do it for myself,
and I needed to find my own
voice. And then I started
reading a ton of popular science
and I would finish reading
those books and I would put them
on my nightstand and I'd be
like, Oh gosh, I could never
write a book like that.
I just could never write a book
like that.
And then one day I put that
book on my nightstand and I was
like, I can never write a book
like that because I could only
write a book in my own voice.
And and that's when I realized
that I could only write a book,
a science book, if I combined
memoir with the science.
That was just the way it was
going to come out for me.
And that's kind of the way I've
been writing ever since.
And in terms of like, memories,
it's interesting because I, I
have some very vibrant
memories, but I didn't keep
journals of all my dives.
And so I just have to rely on
my memories now that I am
intentional about going out and
traveling and and telling the
stories about what I'm doing
when I'm collecting information
for the books. I keep journals
like crazy, and I do I do
journal after every dive, after
every day, after every
interview. So that's really,
really helpful.
>> Liz Neeley: Yeah.
 So we've already touched
briefly on the fact that the way
we write in science for
publication is very formulaic.
It's technical.
You remove your personality and
your sense of humor from that.
And what you've done in these
books is, is quite different.
Another one of the hard things
is that science is perpetually
iterating and building on that
body of knowledge.
And when you write a book like
this, you have to.
Stop reading, stop researching
and publish at some point.
So, Julia, I'm curious for you,
is there anything new, anything
that you've learned since the
publication of the book around
the status of coral reefs or
the health of the oceans that
you wanted to update us on?
>> Juli Berwald: Yeah.
 You know, what's really
amazing is that coral reefs are
still being discovered.
And and to me, that's just it
blows my mind because coral have
to live shallow in order to
provide the algae that live
inside their tissue with enough
light for them to
photosynthesize. And so, as we
know, the deep ocean is too dark
for that to happen.
So algae have I mean, coral
have to live close in clear
enough water near the surface
that they they can have that
photosynthesis that gives them
all their energy.
And yet in the last since the
book was published, I've just
I've learned of three coral
reefs that we didn't know of
before. There was a deepwater
one found near Tahiti.
There was one found at the
mouth of the Amazon River, which
is long been considered too
sediment too for -- for coral
to be there.
And then there's one in
Honduras, in at the mouth of
where all these banana
plantations were built.
And the fertilizer has been
running in the water there for a
century. And so people thought
there was just too much
fertilizer and sediment for
coral to survive.
And these are really healthy
reefs.
So, yeah, I mean, the question
is what is the reef of the
future going to look like and
are these forebearers of these
future reefs?
These are really questions that
we don't know the answers to
right now.
>> Liz Neeley: Yeah, 
And I have a follow up
question for you, too.
You showed us what bleaching
looks like.
You mentioned briefly how dire
the circumstances are.
It feels to me that in your
book you're doing this important
balancing act between
confronting the brutal reality
of the threats to coral reefs,
the damage that they've already
undergone while maintaining
sort of this unwavering hope in
the future, and specifically
looking for data, looking for
evidence, looking for case
studies that give us a
foundation for having that hope
rather than just sort of closing
our eyes to it. And can you
talk about your own feelings
about the future of coral reefs
as you wrote this book?
>> Juli Berwald:
The book sort of starts at this
meeting I went to in Florida.
It was called Reef Futures.
It was in 2018, in December,
the end of 2018.
And I went to this meeting
expecting just a bunch of really
depressed scientists would be
there and that people would be
reporting in on these mass
bleaching things around the
world which are happening.
But what I discovered were all
these people who were doing the
kind of restoration I showed
you in those slides and also
looking at the incredible
genetic flexibility of coral.
Coral are great at hybridizing.
They -- they -- the idea
of species for coral
is a very fluid sort of thing.
We're actually there
was just a paper published last
week that corals seem to be
able to integrate mutations from
there their somatic cells, the
cells in their -- their body,
not in their reproductive line.
They can take mutations from
their body and put them into
their genetic line and pass
them on to their offspring,
which is crazy.
And we should that shouldn't
happen in animals.
So there are people doing
making sperm banks of jelly,
of corals, making embryo banks,
 of corals doing.
>> Liz Neeley: Freezing, 
freezing, freezing.
>> Juli Berwald: Them freezing 
embryos like doing
all kinds of amazing projects
to boost coral reproduction, to
boost coral survival.
And and it's definitely not
game over.
So the yeah I mean it's these
two things are happening our
oceans are warming They're
warming at an alarming rate.
93% of the heat that carbon
dioxide in our atmosphere holds
has gone into the ocean.
Coral. They only have 1 to 2
degrees of a buffer before they
start bleaching, but they seem
to be trying to yeah, use this
incredible genetic flexibility
they have.
And then there's the people
around the world who are trying
to bolster that.
So I did try to walk this line
and I'm glad it came off that
way because this is not the
story isn't.
>> Edith Widder: Over.
>> Juli Berwald: On this. 
It's really an active story.
>> Liz Neeley: So in reading 
these books, there's an incredible
sort of broadening as a reader,
you have to stretch your mind to
think about what is happening
on a global scale.
We're talking about genetic
adaptation.
We're talking about heroic
efforts to create arcs for
genetic material.
And I think one of the things I
want to switch to Eddie is it's
hard for us to imagine the true
expanse of some of these
ecosystems that we're talking
about.
So you mentioned sort of
briefly in passing that the
mid-water is one of the largest
ecosystems on the planet.
Can you help us really
understand what that means?
>> Edith Widder: So the most
 incredible thing to me
is how little of the ocean we
have actually explored.
The number you hear sometimes
is we've only explored 5%.
That number is not right.
That was based on mapping, but
from a remote sensing device at
the surface of the ocean.
So not actually visiting the
place.
We're up to closer to 30% now
on that.
But if you're talking about
actually visiting just the
bottom of the ocean, I'm not
even talking about the huge
volume above it.
We've only visited about 0.05%.
Wow. And our usual protocol is
humans is to explore a place and
then exploit it.
Right. But in the ocean, we
reversed that.
We're exploiting it before
we've explored it.
So dragging nets that can hold
jumbo jets through the oceans to
just decimate the fish
populations and dragging nets
across the bottom that turn
unbelievable Gardens of Eden
into a moonscape that won't
sustain life for hundreds of
years. All of this is going on,
as Julie says, out of sight, out
of mind. And we've -- we're
introducing our toxins and
pollutants into the environment
as we're taking out every last
fish and form of marine life
there is.
And as I said, we don't know
how the system works.
We're an ocean planet.
When we look for life on other
planets, we look for oceans.
And and yet we don't know how
our ocean world works.
And I did the Artemus go off?
Does anybody know it was
supposed to go off today?
It's a moonshot.
No, it didn't. Yeah.
Okay. $40 Billion we've spent
so far and they still haven't
got it off the ground.
And it's going to be $90
Billion.
And we're not spending anything
like that on our own planet.
It doesn't make any sense.
[Applause]
>> Liz Neeley: I know
 a lot of people. [Applause]
So you're one of the relatively
small number of people who have
done some of this exploring of
our ocean depths.
Can you talk about what it
feels like?
What do you see? How long does
it take?
So just paint a picture for us
as you drop into the depths.
>> Edith Widder: So every time
 I dive in a submersible,
I have the opportunity 
to see something,
some possibly some species
 never seen before.
Certainly a behavior, something
nobody's ever seen before.
And that excitement of
discovery is so incredible.
I think it has to be baked into
our DNA.
It is how we have learned to
survive on this planet.
We are all explorers and
stories about exploration are
what? And excite us from
childhood.
A secret garden going down a
hole into a wonderland, you
know, finding an ancient cave
or an.
>> Liz Neeley: Mysterious.
>> Edith Widder: Forest.
These are all the things
that excite us.
We are explorers, and I think
that we really need to be
tapping into that right now
because that is how we have
learned to survive on this
planet, exploring it, figuring
out what's safe, what's not,
what we need to do to survive.
That's what we need to be doing
right now.
>> Liz Neeley: One of the parts
that really struck me
actually is reflected in the
title of the book
The Edge of Darkness.
So as you're dropping through
the water column, you talk about
how it's spectacularly blue and
then strangely, both bright and
dark at the same time.
And then that zone, that shadow
zone shifts over the course of
the day as the sun is high in
the sky and then as the sun
starts to set. And that sets
off an entire incredible
biological phenomenon.
Do you want to talk about.
>> Edith Widder: Yeah.
So the edge of darkness is
a really important shifting
place in the ocean because
there's so many animals out
there that are using vision and
they are paying attention to
where that edge of darkness is.
So at during the day, they go
down and hide below the edge of
darkness because there's no
hiding places, there's no trees
or bushes for animals to hide
behind.
So they hide in the dark depths
during the day, and then they
come up and feed in the food
rich surface waters where
photosynthesis occurs under
cover of darkness.
And that is the most massive
animal migration pattern on the
planet. And it happens every
single day in the ocean.
But different animals handle it
in different ways.
There's a lot of activity going
on.
And so I've hung there in the
diving suit, WASP or in
submersibles and watched this
traffic of animals going up at
night to feed.
And it's it's all being driven
by light.
And so many of these animals
that are living at the edge of
darkness, below the edge of
darkness, sometimes never seeing
sunlight at all. But they have
eyes because of bioluminescence,
because approximately 75% of
the animals in the open ocean
environment make light.
So it could be claimed that it
may be the most common form of
communication on the planet,
which means we probably ought to
know a little bit more about
it.
Yeah. Yeah.
>> Liz Neeley: So one of
 the things I really enjoyed
about your book and
talking about the scientific
process, you opened your slides
by saying we didn't used to
have cameras that were sensitive
enough to detect the light that
you were seeing.
I love the stories about
creating the mechanical tools,
the equipment that you need.
Do you have a favorite story or
a piece of equipment that's near
and dear to your heart?
>> Edith Widder: Yeah. So.
I spent all this time in
submersibles wondering about how
many animals there were just
beyond the range of my lights
that could see me and I
couldn't see them.
How was I ever going to be able
to see them and observe them?
And so I wanted to have a
camera system that I could leave
on the bottom, but I needed it
to be unobtrusive.
So I wanted to use red light
that was invisible to the
animals. That turns out to be
kind of tricky.
And then I wanted to have I
didn't want to just leave bait
on the bottom because that just
attracts scavengers.
I wanted an optical lure, so
that's where the electronic
jellyfish came in. I couldn't
get this funded right.
I you know, I went to the major
funding agencies and they would
always say the same thing.
But what were you discover?
That's the point.
[Laughing]
So I had a series of mishaps
that I describe in the book,
including having the camera
flood at one point on national
television and having to
scrounge money to be able to
make it work and finally
getting everything operational
for an expedition to the Gulf
of Mexico in 2004, where I put
the I in the sea camera system
on the bottom with the optical
lure. I had about 4 hours of
video that I was observing, and
I was so excited because I had
my window into the deep sea.
I could see these animals
moving around and I could tell
for sure this time that they
weren't being disturbed
by the lights the way I'd seen 
in the past.
And then 4 hours into the
deployment, I had programmed the
electronic jellyfish to come on
for the very first time with
this pinwheel display that I
thought was a type of display
that would attract large
predators.
I swear this is true.
86 seconds after it came on for
the first time, we recorded a
squid over six feet long,
completely new to science.
I could not have asked for a
better proof of concept.
[Applause]
I went back to the National
Science Foundation and I said,
This is what we will discover.
And they gave me a half a
million dollars to do it, right?
Yeah.
[Applause]
>> Liz Neeley: I remember 
as you describe that camera
flooding, that horrible
sinking feeling you had
and you had a teammate 
who said anybody
can deal with Plan A, It's how
you cope with plan B that
defines you. And it really
struck me throughout your book.
And Julie, this touches on
yours as well, that the
technology is incredible, the
biology is amazing.
But really, when it comes down
to it, what we collectively need
are teams and high functioning
teams.
And Julie, you were talking
about how hobbyists and research
scientists are sort of
operating in parallel, amassing
incredible amounts of knowledge
that could be useful to each
other but are not
collaborating.
>> Juli Berwald: Yeah, yeah.
There's like a huge coral world
up here on land.
These coral activists who -- who
raise coral in aquaria in their
garages and their basements and
their living rooms and they
actually have developed a lot
of tools that are now being
shifted to coral restoration.
And they're one of the things
that these coral people have
discovered is that if you cut a
coral, if you -- if you actually
saw it and create this a little
nubbin, which they call a frag,
it grows as much as five times
faster than a regular coral.
And so you can expand, you
know, you can grow coral a lot
faster. And as they're starting
to farm coral, this is a really
important technique.
And the coral growers have
known this for decades.
This is what they do to create
new pieces of coral that they
sell or give to other other
people who are hobbyists.
And -- and now the scientists
are sort of taking
these techniques
and using them to propagate
coral, which then they can
replant on the reefs out in the
oceans.
And a lot of the pieces, the
equipments, the little stubs
that you put the coral on, the
racks that you grow them on,
they all came from the aquarium
hobby and, and yet the hobbyists
have like their own names for
coral that aren't scientific
names and the scientists have
their scientific names and--and
they really haven't spoken to
each other that much except for
that you're right it's--it's
changing in that there's a
really horrible disease going
through the Caribbean right now
called stony coral tissue loss
disease.
And it's -- it's very infectious
it infects about 22 species of
coral, and the tissue just kind
of melts off these coral.
And so what the scientists are
doing is going out in front of
the infection front and
collecting healthy coral, and
then they're putting them in
aquaria up here on land.
And so the zoos and aquaria who
have been part of this hobby or
the hobbyists, not just
hobbyists, but like
professionals who do this as
well, they are actually holding
coral in safety up here on land
while this terrible disease
sweeps through the Caribbean.
Yeah.
>> Liz Neeley: While I ask Eddie
 a similar question
about science and projects 
that excite you,
I'd like to welcome
those of you in the audience
who have questions
to come to the front and stand
in front of the microphones so
that we can take your questions
for the final 10 minutes of the
session.
So in terms of teamwork,
collaboration, exciting science
projects that you're keeping an
eye on right now, Eddie, do you
want to mention any of them in
particular?
>> Edith Widder: Well, actually,
I've been involved in a couple
recently that pretty exciting.
I had to sign an NDA, so you
just have to watch
National Geographic next year.
[Laughing]
Oh, but it's the best
bioluminescence ever filmed
anywhere. So the new camera
systems are amazing.
And I'm also working with a
colleague on some newer types
of cameras that are smaller,
cheaper, easier to deploy.
I want to get as many of them
out there as I possibly can,
because the more opportunities
for observation,
the more discoveries will make.
>> Liz Neeley: That's right.
I can see we have
a lot of people and just a
little bit of time, so please
keep your questions concise
and let us know who you'd like 
to answer it.
We'll start on this side and
then go back and forth.
So go ahead
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:  I'd like
to thank you guys for coming
the sign language interpreters
as well.
My questions about communication
 and getting the word
about climate change out
there.
I was a biologist in undergrad
and then moved more in toward
sort of the policy realm.
I'm interested to know how do
you communicate the dangers of
oceans and climate change in
-- in the modern era?
Is it a story about what we
have to lose or is it a story
about what we have to gain?
>> Edith Widder: I've been 
trying to emphasize
what we have to gain.
I think when we emphasize what
we have to lose, too many people
shut down. It's been said that
Martin Luther King did not
mobilize the civil rights
movement by preaching I have a
nightmare, [Laughing]
 but that's what
the environmental community
keeps doing and wondering 
why nobody wants to listen.
Yeah. Thank you.
>> Juli Berwald: Yeah, I agree.
Also, I think it's about what
we have to treasure here on this
planet, which is so much and
it's way more than we even know.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
More than sending rockets.
>> Liz Neeley:
Right over here.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
Hi there. I used to live in
Papua New Guinea,
 and in that area there is a --
a mine on land,
but it has been disposing of all
of the mine tailings in the
deep sea by just piping its 
way out.
Is there -- do you know
 of any studies on -- on like,
well how bad is this going to be.
And then a second question is
how much danger are we in from
people that want to start doing
mining on the ocean floor?
>> Edith Widder: Oh, well, 
I'm--I'm just horrified
by the mining on the ocean floor
thing. I mean, we've already
been seeing trawling, but
they're talking about mining
event sites, you know, these
just incredible hotbeds of
biodiversity and they just want
to scrape them.
And -- and it's -- 
it's going to be horrific
and once again, out of
sight and out of mind and the
the dumping on the bottom,
nobody's looking at that.
I mean, we -- we're putting the
art in this -- in the air
for $40Billion.
We can't spend any
money to go down and look at
what all this dumping has done
to the bottom of the ocean.
>> Liz Neeley: It feels to me
 like this weaves together
the previous question as well.
A lot of assumptions
are made that the the ocean is
empty and lifeless and it's
just mud with nothing in it.
And what we know is everywhere
we look, we find incredible
richness in life.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: So is 
part of the problem
that -- that these are like
international waters?
And is there something that
like international agreements
that have to be made by
everyone?
>> Juli Berwald: They've been 
trying to make agreements
and failing  for years now.
>> Liz Neeley: This is a big 
and complicated question,
and I think, to be continued.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Thank you
again for speaking.
I really enjoyed this.
As a student in my last
year of college, I'm getting a
degree related to environmental
policy, but I spend so much time
overwhelmed by the amount of
change that needs to happen and
feeling hopeless about the
future.
So what advice would you give
to someone who wants to
contribute and really make a
change but feel like individual
contributions can never
outweigh the insurmountable
effects of climate change?
>> Edith Widder: Well, 
I feel like we've got this
disconnect from the natural
 world that is really problematic
and in my own back yard, I've
seen real change with citizen
science. We have a citizen
science team at ORCA, our
organization that we -- we train
rigorously to.
So they're doing real science
that's expanding
our understanding of our local
environment.
And it creates environmental
stewards, it enhances
understanding of science, and
it -- it creates a sense
of community, all of which has
been missing.
So I'm a big advocate for high
quality citizen science.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Thank you. 
Hi, my name is.
My question is for Julie.
You showed some pictures.
Of the bleached coral reef
and then the revitalized 
restored coral reef in that
same Indonesian reef there.
And you mentioned the rebar Star
Reef stars.
I think that was used.
I guess if it takes just 1 to
2 degrees
of temperature.
Change to bleach the coral, how
much more does it take to
restore that coral? Because I'm
very interested in how that
restored in that same area.
>> Juli Berwald: So -- so that
-- the -- the bleached well
--the bleached reef.
So actually the reef that was
restored was a bombed out reef.
So there is a thing called
blast fishing, which is common
in around coral reefs,
unfortunately.
So that one actually had been
blast fished and unless they put
those reef stars in place, that
rubble would roll around
and you couldn't re-establish 
itself there.
So that reef had been bombed 30
years ago, the one where the
reef stars were.
But you do see sort of a
similar crumbling in a bleached
out reef. So I -- I -- 
I should be clear that
they weren't the same
places. And what was the
question?
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Sorry? 
Like, how -- how could you
restore a bleached reef?
>> Juli Berwald: I mean,
 so this that Reef Star project
has been only used about
on over ten hectares, but that
is the largest restoration
that exists right now.
The question is, will that work
in other places around the
world? And so that's still to
be seen.
They have just done some
installations in Australia on
the Great Barrier Reef and also
in Mexico, but it hasn't been
long enough to see if they'll
come back in those places yet.
>> Liz Neeley: So I apologize,
 but we only have time
for one final question.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Hi. 
Thank you again.
What advice do you have for
those of us who are not
scientists but would love to
contribute to conservation?
How can we be parts of these
big teams?
How can we best have impact?
>> Juli Berwald: I think one
 way is to -- a really
easy ways to call your Congress
people all the time and tell
them that you care and that, you
know, we need to be worried
about climate change in a way
that is more serious than the
way we have been.
So that's one thing you can do.
Just put it on your reminder
every month to call your
congress people. But I also have
a sense that art
and communication matter a lot.
I think as we bring art and
science closer together, we have
more impact because people tend
to work on -- have action
when they feel something.
And -- and we can know something
intellectually in our brain, but
we don't always take action
based on that.
But when we feel something,
that's when we act.
So connecting -- connecting
science and art
is really important.
>> Liz Neeley: Okay.
We've had a special
dispensation from the organisers
of the festival for one final
year.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
What can my school community
do to help the ocean?
You can write to politicians
too. [Laughing]
You'd be surprised how much
they listen.
>> Liz Neeley:
Thank you to everyone who cares
enough to ask that question of
what can we do?
I think the answer is more than
you might think.
And there's certainly reason
for hope and a whole vast ocean
to care for in our own
particular ways.
Thank you so much, Julie Bald.
Dr. Widder. Thank you all of you
who was in our session.