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Ep. 24: Charting a Sustainable Future - Lessons from the Ocean and Beyond with Bert terHart
63 Plays2 months ago
“Nature is this incredibly complex organism, and if you put good things in, good things tend to come out.”
Let me tell you something about the big lessons from life: they often involve water, wind, and a touch of madness. At least, that’s my takeaway after diving into this transcript. It’s all about navigating challenges—whether you’re steering a ship through wild oceans, grappling with complex environmental issues, or simply finding purpose in your daily grind. The principles? Embrace hard things, adapt to what’s real, and never underestimate the power of genuine effort. Adventure, it turns out, isn’t just about going places—it’s about living with intention, whether you’re on a boat or behind a desk.
Our guest, a sailor-turned-scientist-turned-digital-marketer (because why not?), takes these principles to heart. From braving the treacherous Southern Ocean to conducting groundbreaking citizen science, his insights highlight the interconnectedness of everything. He discusses how small, focused efforts—like deploying scientific tools or supporting good policy—can lead to monumental impacts. Whether it’s protecting marine ecosystems or helping others build their digital presence, his stories remind us that tackling tough challenges is worth every ounce of effort.
Bert terHart is an adventurer, oceanographer, and entrepreneur with a knack for turning wild ideas into impactful realities. The first North or South American to complete a nonstop solo circumnavigation of the globe using only a sextant, Bert combines a love for the sea with a passion for technology. As the founder and CEO of Next Generation SEO and Lead Brain AI, he’s not only helping businesses get noticed online but also making waves in environmental research and advocacy.
Learn more and connect:
Bert on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bertterhart/?originalSubdomain=ca
LeadBrainAI
https://gbpcrush.leadbrain.ai/
Explore these valuable resources to further your journey in regenerative design:
Discover more about Paulownia trees and their sustainable potential at https://www.paulownia-la.com/.
Dive into the Twelve Laws of Nature and unlock the secrets of harmonizing with our planet at https://www.12lawsofnature.com/.
Fulfill your garden aspirations with expert guidance from the Garden of Your Dreams masterclass at https://www.gardenofyourdreams.com/.
Ready to take actionable steps towards your dream garden? Book a complimentary 30-minute training session with Matthieu for immediate results: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams.
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Transcript
Introduction to Regenerative Design and Podcast Host
00:00:00
Speaker
We are so simplistically minded that we can only think of you know one thing in, one thing out, one thing in, one thing out. We have this linear approach to the world. The nature is it's it's fractal, it's chaotic in its and simplest form. so So no matter where you look, you have this idea that you're you're that this that there's you have to look at a hole, you have to adapt, you can't simply mitigate by taking, you just go, okay, we're gonna we're goingnna stop cows farting, you know no more cowing, and no more cattle ranching.
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Regenerative Design Podcast. I'm your host Mathieu Mahes and in this show I interview the leading authorities in the world of regenerative practices. People who do good and do well. Are you a person that cares about your environment and our planet? Are you a person that wants to leave the planet to our children to be something that we can be truly proud of?
00:00:54
Speaker
something to enjoy for many generations to come. But are you also a person that believes we can do all of this and do good in business? Well, I have really good news for you. You're here listening to the podcast that is all about making our planet a better place and making your business more successful. Enjoy the show.
Guest Introduction: Bert Terhart and His Background
00:01:19
Speaker
Hello and welcome to an another episode of the regenerative design podcast. Today we have another amazing guest. His name is Bert Terhart. I could actually say it in Dutch because it sounds like Bert Terhart, I would say, I language. and But Bert is not from the Netherlands. He's actually from Canada, ah British Columbia. And Bert is a SEO and a SEM strategy. So that's all about search engine optimization. He has a business in that field.
00:01:48
Speaker
He also is the founder and CEO of Next Generation SEO. That's all about that business and Lead Brain AI. i'm I'm actually excited to talk a little bit about that as well. But more importantly, and that's why we actually connected, is as a sailor and a real entrepreneur. So will you might be thinking like, what does this have to do with regenerative design? But we'll get to that. First of all, Bert, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
00:02:16
Speaker
ah i'm doing i'm doing I'm doing really well. it's I'm so excited to speak with you again today. this is been I've been looking forward to this conversation actually for for a bit, so I couldn't be more pleased to be here and I'm so excited to get going. and I don't have no idea where we're going to end up because we could be ah could it could be anywhere. Yes, I love that. It's really like an adventure. I think that's a passion that we share. I love traveling the world. It's just going to new places, doing like extreme sports or like I love surfing I love being in the ocean I started sailing a few years ago and I just completely fell in love with it and you're a big sailor so just tell me from a backstory where did all of this adventure start and actually how did you end up starting your business I'm i'm curious about that
00:03:03
Speaker
Well, I i mean, i I think sailing and salt water has been in my in my blood for for a very long time, if if not from the very beginning. My my father actually, well, my parents are Dutch, as as you, you know, my name is Dutch, of course, my parents are Dutch. They immigrated to Canada in 52 for my father and 56 for my mom when they got married. But my father rode and sailed to school.
00:03:26
Speaker
So his his his father was in the Dutch merchant marine, his grandfather was in the Dutch merchant marine, the same thing on my mother's side of the family. So they were all sailors. And ah my father ended up in Canada because he had navigational skills, which translates... Wait, just one step back. How did he sail to school every day? How does that work? He lived on an island. That was in the Netherlands.
00:03:49
Speaker
Yeah, they lived he lived on an island and in in the middle of the amsterdam harbor the that that
Challenges and Innovations in Sailing and Environmentalism
00:03:53
Speaker
island now is is is ah I think is now nothing but giant apartment buildings but at the time it was that island that island was owned by the ship's company that his father worked for and my grandfather was a ship's engineer the chief engineer for the for smn Which is the line that my father sailed with and his father of course, so he was a man. What is that? Uh, I couldn't say it. It's the basically it's the nederlandts sure but much pain needed on yeah Yeah, there you go. Team engine boat company. Wow. It's so interesting because I didn't even know that just before your interview.
00:04:32
Speaker
I interviewed, ah and and this episode will come out before this episode, an
Bert's Career Transition and Solo Adventures
00:04:38
Speaker
entrepreneur from Belgium who has a ah company that they're building huge ships, CMB tech, and they're actually, the reason why I interviewed Alexander Savaré is his name, is because they're building ships on hydrogen.
00:04:53
Speaker
Oh, really? That's really interesting to like, they they're on a mission to change the the transportation system on on boats by going into hydrogen. Well, that's actually I mean, there's there's, and we we're gonna we may talk about this, but at any one time, there's 60,000 ships at sea, 60,000 container ships at sea, which is a massive number. And they all run on the lowest quality
Climate Change Policy and Citizen Science Contributions
00:05:17
Speaker
diesel fuel that you can imagine. And they are that they are the the worst polluters the worst atmospheric polluters in the world by um at least an order of magnitude. and So solving that problem is a very big deal. It's a very, very big deal in terms of ah in terms of um how we're how we're impacting the environment given our ah you know given the current state of of transportation. It's way worse than cars.
00:05:43
Speaker
And you wouldn't think of it, right? It's way worse than cars. No, it's interesting. i I launched it. I told you the story that I launched my book, kind of crazy story. I launched my book on a cruise ship from Vancouver to Alaska. I yeah thought in my life I would never be on a cruise ship, but it was ah organized by the publisher. There was a whole networking event. So I said, okay, let's do it. And I decided to publish my book on that trip. My book was actually published in international waters, which is also i like that way. It's not really binded to place. It's for the whole world. But then we did also a tour of the whole machine rooms and all this stuff. And it was fascinating how how polluting it was. It was like using a thousand liters of oil.
00:06:26
Speaker
yeah per week, per person on that ship. It's hard to grasp that. And interestingly, when we went we went from Vancouver to Alaska, when when it was getting into Alaska waters, they had to switch the the fuel. They couldn't use that polluting fuel. They had to use like a ah more cleaner energy.
00:06:45
Speaker
Correct. Yeah, it it it's it's shocking. and And one of the, what what's I suppose what's interesting about that, I mean, we can talk about this, but but the the there there has always been wide discrepancies in labor for ever since man started making things. So you'd go you know from A to B or country A to B or region A to B, there was discrepancies in labor. Some was cheaper, some was more expensive. And discrepancies mean like inconsistencies or differences.
00:07:09
Speaker
yeah it it means It just means differences. So there was differences in labor costs and and obviously difference in skills. And of course, that that's true today. But one of the the only way that we can
Balancing Professional Work with Environmental Passions
00:07:19
Speaker
take advantage of those discrepancies in labor is the fact that we can transport things so unbelievably cheaply around the world. Confluence of 60,000 container ships at sea. So before, I mean, if you if you think of it, you know if the British Empire would would have to take a, they would have to sail around the world via Cape Horn to go to a different market or to take advantage of a different skill set. So think of s silk, for example, I think how expensive that was to put someone on a ship and send them around the world and come back or or tea. Everyone knows, you know, that that the the tea clippers and the tea races, but we we do that now for next to nothing. Like you can order stuff from China and you'll pay a dollar for shipping and it comes over in a giant freighter. Think of that. If you stop and think about that for a minute, that is it. So it's, it's not,
00:08:04
Speaker
One of the things that, that, that, that completely and utterly enables our lifestyle is the fact that transportation costs are so unbelievably cheap and so, and and so incredibly sophisticated and, and they work so unbelievably well and no one is willing to give up on it, which is one of the reasons why 60,000 ships at sea, the worst, the worst atmospheric polluters on the planet by at least an order of magnitude. No one, everyone turns a blind eye to that. at the expense of marine wildlife, at the expense of yeah the oceans being polluted. yeah yeah so it's i mean it's a It's one of those problems that's staring you square in the face.
00:08:44
Speaker
but um i mean I mean and and look I can let's if it let's we if we can expand this out a bit not talking about something simple let's talk about canada in particular and one of my one of my bugaboos one of the things I don't like one of the things that bothers me ah is really bad policy around really important things if so canada for example has been saying all these tremendously has been saying all these great things about about their commitment to climate change and um battling the issues that are facing us And of course, we're not doing anything about it because um we have these incredibly poor policies that sound good, but do know but do no good whatsoever. So Canada has not met any of its climate change goals, any of its carbon emitting goals ever since. And we signed on to the Kyoto Accord, Paris Accords, you name it, we're we're all on board.
00:09:35
Speaker
But we know that um the policy as such isn't goingnna isn't going to make any difference whatsoever. So there's no reason to engage in something that's that's not going to make any difference. But if you sound good, that means you get votes. And this is a very cynical view of how this works. But that's exactly how that works. I mean, i'm i'm ah I was trained academically. i was so ah um ah I was trained formally as a scientist. So I know where I speak in this regard. I've actually read the IPOs.
00:10:02
Speaker
that I was the best man at one of the Nobel winning scientists on the first intergovernmental panel on climate change. His name is Dr. Andrew Weaver. he ah He's an oceanographer and a climate scientist, now retired at the University of Victoria. But but my point is that um I As a scientist, you don't have the luxury of poor policy because poor policy would be the equivalent of a very bad hypothesis or poor theory. It's just not going to get you anywhere. As a sailor, you don't have the luxury of poor policy because you're so completely embedded in the natural world.
00:10:41
Speaker
that and And in reality, that if you decide to fly in the face of reality, which is in my definition or one of them of a poor policy, then pretty soon you're going to end up with some sort of catastrophic consequences. you know I mean, terminal. um in the in If you're in a small boat at sea, if you're not... we're seeing today yeah big stones it's become So you have to be plugged into really good policy.
00:11:02
Speaker
and um so yeah and Anyway, ah we i mean we could I don't really want to get going on that. but think we can let's Let's just frame it like we know what the problem statement is. yeah We want policies to improve. We correct not necessarily can change that in our you know power. there's Some exciting things are happening and in policies like if you look at ah If we also put our focus away from the bad news, there's actually a ton of really good news. like purs Just to give an example, the actually the Azores where I'm going to be moving and they just ah assigned one of the biggest ocean protected, marine protected areas in the world. So which is great. So they they limit the fishing or they will like organize it.
00:11:52
Speaker
So it's sustainable, ecological, regenerative in that sense. So I think there's, there's a lot of movement, maybe too slow, but that's all we can do. And I think when everybody, instead of waiting for policies to change, when you can change something in your own life, that's gonna.
00:12:07
Speaker
have a way bigger impact than than you can imagine. So that's where I want to get to your work. But maybe just before we go there, I think we're still missing a bit of the backstory. Your father was always in in sailing, all this stuff. yeah And then so you were brought up with that from an early age. yeah you like So you got into some adventures from an early age.
00:12:28
Speaker
Oh yeah, so I grew up in the prairies, um so in the middle of Canada, as far from every one of the oceans as you can get, so as far from the Pacific and the Atlantic and the Arctic as you could get, but my dad, being a sailor, we he we always had a small boat. there's always There's lots of, you know, there's lakes and rivers, so we were always, ah you know,
00:12:46
Speaker
trying to get to a river or getting on a lake and going sailing or rowing or canoeing or something. And just living in those environments is an adventure in in and of itself. it's It's not easy. It's very difficult to make, you know, to, it's a harsh environment. Of course, it's hard to make a living. My dad was a surveyor, so he was always outside. So, you know, I helped my dad. I worked with my dad when I was a kid, so we were always outside.
00:13:08
Speaker
You know, even getting to Canada was an adventure. So my mom, to give you some example, to give you some idea of this is sort of in my blood. My mom was secretary to the ambassador, the Dutch ambassador ah to France. So she was living in Paris. ah And my dad, my dad was surveying in Northern Canada. He saved up, he had, you know, he left the ship's company, he was stopped, was no longer, you know, a mariner.
00:13:37
Speaker
Came to canola. You need to have a job To to come to canola. His job was to paint a house He got that job confluence of his father in regina, sis in the middle of nowhere as far away from the ocean as you could get But that's the only place he could get a job as you got that job Now he has he had navigational skills, which are the equivalent of survey skills So he got hired as a surveyor basically within a week and they sent him up to northern canola like in the it in just in the middle literally the middle of nowhere to survey ah what is now you know a Uranium mine. I was going to say so it was mostly to find resources. or yeah so He was surveying basically the town site, so they were going to build a mine and dad was surveying with a bunch of other people, of course. Saved up all his money for two years and he flew back to Paris
00:14:24
Speaker
and asked my mom to marry him. And my mom is in Paris, working in the and she's working with the Dutch Foreign Service at the time she'd worked in you know in in in Canberra. She'd worked in Paris, of course. She'd worked in Amsterdam. She worked in Ottawa. So all she was a very cosmopolitan woman. She spoke five languages, highly educated, all these things. My dad shows up, says, will you marry me? My mom, for some crazy reason, says yes. And she goes from Paris From a stable, good life with full of opportunities.
00:14:58
Speaker
she ends up in a little town in northern saskatchewan ah right on the we close to the border actually called the pa and Fascinating. it's living in a trailer that my dad had made, a 10 foot wide trailer by you know might maybe 12 feet long, my dad had pounded together with sheet supply wood. So there's a spirit of adventure. you know's that I think I come by it naturally. and Whenever my father used to give me a bad time, you know we would look at him and say, well, I just i learned it from you. And then that would sort of put an end to the conversation. But he would always say, well, it was different. you know It was different. So I i ended up, I wanted to be in the Navy. like when I wanted to be a mariner like my father. And the only place I could get an undergraduate oceanography degree, which is what I wanted to do. I wanted to be you know on an oceanographic. I wanted to be a physical oceanographer, someone who studied waves in the ocean. The only place to do that and to start on that path was in military college. So I did that.
00:16:01
Speaker
um wanting to be a naval officer, but I'm completely colorblind. I basically see the world in grayscale. So you can't you you you can't, you're not supposed to be on a ship. So I'm i'm in military college thinking I'm going to be in the Navy, thinking I have my whole my whole life is laid out before me, right?
00:16:20
Speaker
And they get to me and they say, okay, Terhart, you know, you can't be in the Navy. You've got bad news for you. And I go, okay. Well, the good news is, you know, you've got a couple of choices. Okay, what are they? It's like, okay, Terhart, you can be in the army or you can be in the army. Well, what do you want to do? so so So, okay, well, I'll be in the army. So I i decided to take a more difficult path, a more adventuresome path, ended up in the special service force, you know, jumping out of airplanes, dressed like a bush.
00:16:47
Speaker
And then as soon as I could, as soon as I finished my time, ah I went back to graduate school to become an oceanic scientist. I graduate with my fancy degrees and get a job. And the Canadian government decides right at that time that they're going to stop all all they're they're going to stop funding ah shipboard research, which means I'm not going to get on a ship.
00:17:10
Speaker
to do any oceanography. I could be an oceanographer, but I'm going to be sitting at a desk you know writing computer code, which I thought would be really boring. I didn't want to do that. So a friend of mine at the time said, hey, I'm starting this very large medical clinic.
00:17:27
Speaker
And I want to automate. it I want to automate everything because there's just way too many problems that are because the type of medicine he was doing, it was just fraught with human error because it was nothing but very complicated calculations, ah very difficult patient management routines. And he didn't want to leave that up to humans. He said, Okay, we can we can, you know, computers were just coming online. And you had programming skills. So said can you write this code? I said, I think I can. So I did that we ended up in california with a very large medical clinic It was like 63 000 square feet or something like this and I wrote all the code me and another guy wrote all the code for that And then ended up selling that you know using that code to leverage into other medical practices So at one time, uh, I had 2500 doctors Canada the united states great britain new zealand australia all using um some of this using this patient management differential diagnostic, uh code that i'd written and uh
00:18:22
Speaker
The other partner ended up starting Pandel, which is a huge software company ah in here in Canada. know Anyway, so I fell into computer programming. who and then And then because it was at the right at the start of of of you know Google and all the insanity that the internet turned into, um I fell into that whole space. So basically, we learned very quickly on that that that To get any traction whatsoever, in this world, you have to get found online. And of course, that's meant different things, you know, over this, over the era, if you can use that for the for an internet, if it's only gone an era that lasts like 20 years.
00:19:02
Speaker
So, and I fell into into that space, just getting found online. So that's how I ended up with NexGen SEO, ended up with LeadBrain, ended up doing this thing. ah So that's been that's sort of been the journey. But the the thread that's been that's run through all that is I seem to find and gravitate towards things that are hard.
00:19:23
Speaker
And and there's an interesting full there's an interesting philosophical discussion you can have about that. We talked about that a little bit earlier about you know about soaring music and in cathedrals. And I think we have a moral imperative to to do the things that are hard. um and i think that that's Building a huge church and putting an organ in place and building the architecture for the sound, it's a really hard job. It's a very hard job ah and if you and that's completely scale invariant. So no matter how small you you you break that task up into, then it's still that that this moral imperative drives through that that that entire spectrum of of scale. that and you know it It extends from one end of the scale to the other.
00:20:08
Speaker
So I think that which which again speaks to um you know being on adventure, doing these things that people might consider to be crazy hard, but in point of fact people have been doing them for so for for millennia before me. like i want People have been sailing for a very long time, people have been sailing around the world obviously in different contexts, but at the time That people were doing it was incredibly difficult think of Magellan, you know think of the for the first person you know Well, he never he never quite made it but the first crew to do it how unbelievably difficult that was but that was true sailing anywhere think of just I mean, I mean I I meant to put kind of put a point on this I grew up in Saskatchewan like I said that people have been living in that place for 5,000 years and the oldest thing I have in the house is about 4000 years old. Actually, it's a spear point that I found in the in a creek bed. Well, the people and' living there for a very long time, but yeah at suddenly at some point in there in in in in that in that
00:21:08
Speaker
during that timeframe, when people were living there, obsidian showed up. Obsidian was a far superior material for making arrowheads because they were very sharp, they were long lasting, easy to work, but obsidian is not part of, you don't find obsidian, the closest obsidian is basically 1200 or 1500 miles away. So how does obsidian get to s you know to to Canada, from to a place where I am 1000 miles away? it i mean they It's a trade route it's somehow it got there through trade people walking and doing all the things that that you i do when we go to the grocery store except it just we do it in a very collapsed time frame so.
00:21:46
Speaker
this idea of first adventuring, like getting obsidian from one place to the next, and entrepreneurship, getting obsidian, you know, because that's a business, right? There's some value there that's being exchanged. I love this about the fact that you help people to be found online, because like you said, it's essential, and it's something that I'm going to be focusing on the year that's coming, 2025, is how can I reach more people to online ah search engine optimization, all the work you're doing. I think it's even even i never thought about this, but in the realm of like, okay, how can we make an impact in the world, change, do the work that that I'm doing, like ah creating regenerative gardens, helping farmers to to be more regenerative.
00:22:33
Speaker
When we can use the tool technologies and the knowledge that you have to to reach more people, I think it can have a huge fast ripple effect. I think we should talk offline about that as well. i mean but what's What's interesting about... I'll say one thing about that. the The difference between an explorer and an adventurer. An explorer writes about his experiences and an adventurer just goes searching for experiences and they it's the end with him or her.
00:22:59
Speaker
so um and that's that's a it's ah It's a backhand way of saying that your story your story is the most important um piece of intellectual property. It's the most valuable currency that you have moving forward.
00:23:17
Speaker
And one of the things that social media says is that your stories your stories because social media is all about the an individual story has unbelievable traction a traction that you cannot possibly imagine And because it's our story because we live it we tend to think it's not important because oh, it's just me I've just you know, what does it matter but that's entirely the wrong I mean that's that's that's a perspective that's unbelievably limiting and um I love how you corrected yourself that it is a true perspective, in and but it's a limiting one. Yeah, yeah. So so you have an amazing story. yeah yeah I mean, i've I know that you have an unbelievable story. And if you could, if you lean into that story, the amount of traction that you would get, like that what what do you mean by traction is the amount of of of interest
00:24:14
Speaker
them them How people are drawn to you and how they manage to stick to you like like glue or or velcro is what I'm calling traction. And that is ah that's complete complete that's that's completely and totally a function of your story. So let's think of Nike. Nike spent millions and millions and millions of dollars advertising.
00:24:36
Speaker
And when they first started, you would have no idea that they made shoes because their stories were all about athletes and athletes performing at their best. Michael Jordan flying through the air, all these things. So their story was not about building shoes, it was all about how can we pursue and how can we celebrate athletic excellence. That's their story. It's result oriented, like what's the outcome of the good shoe, it's to perform at the highest level, not to have a nice looking shoe. So they would just lean into that story and of course it has to be genuine, otherwise it goes wildly wrong. Oh yeah. And a good example of it going wildly wrong would be the Jaguar ad that came out just recently. I don't know what's happened. I remember Jaguar had a good one before,
00:25:26
Speaker
where they kind of test dished sorry this Mercedes mercedes or or BMW came out with an ad where they had were holding like chicken. And if you hold the chicken like and you move it around, then the head stays stable. So they use that to to show like they have a new technology that cars are more stable. yeah And that Jaguar made the same,
00:25:51
Speaker
ah advertisement like faking these or like looking at how these Mercedes scientists in white cloths are holding the chicken. like yeah and then There's a big Jaguar that just eats the chicken. That was a good one. But what happened with the recent one?
00:26:08
Speaker
Well, the Jaguar had an ad ah that was that had nothing to do with cars, and it said nothing about their story. it was just this it was ah They were just simply... If you Google it, I forget what it would be exactly, but i mean if you if you look it on, you see it ah yeah Elon Musk, you know, treated that thing. He didn't destroy them from it.
00:26:29
Speaker
Yeah. Do you make cars? but so one So anyway, ah it's it it wasn't it just didn't didn't resonate with with but their customers, didn't get any traction. It was just like, what are you guys talking about? What what is this? It's no longer in the Jaguar because it was absorbed by a Chinese group, I think. Yeah, so I think that, again, this this, ah this idea of of storytelling is has how it can be transformative in terms and in terms of entrepreneurship and, and in terms of ah how the world perceives, ah not just you, but something new. So, and we know what people will find interesting. I know this for a fact, if, if with you in particular, if you're
00:27:17
Speaker
they will You will tell your story or some aspect of it or or something that something that that resonates deeply in you with your story. And someone will take that in, process it internally, and then they'll reflect it back at you in a way that you won't recognize.
00:27:34
Speaker
But it's a it's a different perspective on your story that then that then affords you a deeper, more profound understanding of your own journey and your own perspective and how then how you are then relating, how you are sort of you know reaching out and in the world. So instead of doing this in an in an ignorant, and I don't mean that and in a pejorative fence sense, in an ignorant fashion, which is i don't know how i'm how i I don't know how I'm actually reaching or touching or resonating with people.
00:27:59
Speaker
You'll be able to you know see these reflections and then have a deeper, more profound understanding of how how it is you're actually communicating with with with not just your customers, of course, but but with your audience in general. and I think that's that's incredibly valuable. Do you have certain systems for that or is that generally you mean how that social media can like explode overnight even with oh i mean there's there's social media but like TikTok if you make something that catches fire you don't even need any followers or or anything when it catches fire it can explode overnight that I mean there's I mean people if people knew how to if people knew um people knew how to make viral content
00:28:40
Speaker
um programmatically, then there would be no such thing as viral content, right? So so there's, liquid goh and then it's useless yeah, exactly. So there's no, there's no programmatic way to do it. the The only sure way to do it is to be, is to, I mean, this sounds true cliche is to be real, is to be genuine. Yeah, it's true. ah And and if the if you do that, I mean, you will not You will not appeal to everyone and you don't want to appeal to everyone. You only want to, I mean, I. I've had that crazy. I'm going to tell you a story just to jump into it. I posted a story of my company's name, Polonia of a tree. So my company is named after a tree.
00:29:21
Speaker
which has a lot of really cool properties about it. It's really good for climate change. It grows really fast. It produces huge leaves. And the crazy story is that I was even doubting if anybody would be interested in that story. So just me standing next to that tree with even maybe that help, but there's a little girl in the video that's holding a measurement stick just to show how big the tree grows in one season. sure It's a friend's daughter. And that video,
00:29:51
Speaker
in in like a week or or like ah maybe ah over two weeks, it got 200,000 views on Instagram, which is like, it's already harder on Instagram than on TikTok or I don't know. So 200,000 views. And a lot of people were also reacting about negatively about that this tree might be invasive or, yeah and it might be invasive in some species, in some areas of the world. But it's crazy how, how,
00:30:19
Speaker
when you When you create something that not everybody likes, it actually adds up to the to the to the fire of it. That's probably why so much bad news or or why certain things spread so easily.
00:30:35
Speaker
Well, i you you you hit the nail on the head it in in some in in a very particular way in that if your message is not polarizing, it's the wrong message. So you need to, if your message is is polarizing, it means that you are energizing the people that you want to talk to.
00:30:52
Speaker
Yeah, they get better about it. they get better and And they want more from you and the people that you will never agree anyway, then you go okay, those people just they're just not my audience. It is triggered actually maybe and and I to all these people that I that say like, Oh, this plan is invasive and bad. I always responded to them like, well, it's it's you can also find other plan like I hope that they may be like reconsidered it because there's another brilliant book that's called how invasive species are going to save our planet. And it talks about like, okay, water invasive species, they grow really well. And they haven't grown good in in, or they're not from that specific condition or that area of the world. yeah But with climate change, the climate is changing anyways.
00:31:36
Speaker
And a lot of these invasive species, they now find that they are actually improving the soil. Like in Belgium, we have one invasive species and it's it's it is a bit of ah a difficult plan because it can even ah destroy concrete. But what it also does is that it can restore polluted soils.
00:31:57
Speaker
So it's it's a brilliant plant in that sense because in Belgium we have over over hundreds of years. We had a lot of chemical industries and it is a fairly small country with ah a lot of harbor and and a lot of chemical companies. so yeah And even on the highway we have the oil of the of the cars and all this stuff.
00:32:16
Speaker
That's where these plants are thriving and they're actually restoring the health of the soil. So I'm fascinated about the perspective of maybe we we have to be considered about using invasive plants, but maybe they also are here to fulfill a certain prophecy in in terms of like restoring the soil.
00:32:35
Speaker
Well, I think that, I mean, and every every every plant species that you that that you see is invasive because it it came from somewhere to lend to land here. so catch you um there's But the difference what's happened the difference now is that the timescales have been so incredibly completelyly know collapsed.
00:32:53
Speaker
So things happen things happen at a pace that's ah at an unprecedented pace. So we we have a problem keeping up, right? But that like you said, the earth, not you know maybe not so much.
00:33:05
Speaker
No, that's it. Yeah, that's an interesting perspective that I also considered, like, planet Mother Earth is going to be fine. Like, it's with the climate change and that's, I see it like it's an organism that's kind of in a fever. So when you have fever, you have temperature swings, which is now we see it, like even in Belgium, it's winter here, we have extreme cold and all of a sudden super warm again. So that's kind of the, I think the Earth is an organism in and of itself, we're part of it.
00:33:34
Speaker
But it's trying to, like when it's in a fever situation, it tries to get rid of organisms that are not necessarily helping it. yeah That's how how ah an organism in functions. So we can decide, keep destroying the planet and then it becomes very hard for us to to live on this planet. Or we can change change the direction of the wind.
00:33:57
Speaker
and work not not change the direction of the wind, change the direction of our sails z and go with the wind of how nature works. okay You make an interesting point and we we have talked briefly about about you know good and bad policy and humans are very, very good at at adaptation. ah Your analogy was, okay, we can just we'll just trim the sails a bit and head off in a slightly different direction. We are terrible at mitigating.
00:34:21
Speaker
we we have ah We have a track record that that extends for thousands of years across every single culture and and trying to mitigate ah trying to mitigate things. and so um so Things things like like mitigation would be trying to trying to control the amount of sunlight heading the Earth. you don't want to vote ah One of Bill Gates'... That's a brilliant perspective. I never thought of it that you're not even saying that.
00:34:48
Speaker
historically we have a hard time mitigating it the efforts that we are doing today around climate change whether you like them or not it's about mitigation it's not's it's about okay how can we reduce yeah.
00:35:01
Speaker
greenhouse gas emissions, how we can be find a new technology that that can create more oxygen, or provide trees, maybe, they they're really good at it, or other plants, photosynthesis, the best technology out there. So we're trying to mitigate it, and it doesn't work, and that's the part of what regenerative design is.
00:35:21
Speaker
It's not about sustainability but because if you look at sustainability, it means to sustain, it's just to continue a little bit how we do it and reduce the bad sides. But if we completely change it,
00:35:35
Speaker
And it's it's so possible. I see it in the garden designs that we do. I see it with the farmers that we work with. When we change the way like, okay, we're going to do it a little bit less, bad, changing it to no, no, no, we're just going to make it so much better to what we're doing today. Like I've just interviewed other people in the podcast about biochar, other technologies that are based on how nature works and ah the men the the results are incredible. You're like yeah' trying to solve one problem yeah and out of the blue, you're also solving 10 other problems. yeah That's how nature works and you yeah you serve that wave. It's like we can reverse climate change like so easily. like Even with farming, regenerative farming, we do if half of the farm has changed to that,
00:36:22
Speaker
or when for half of the charm, I'm going to say when not if, when half of the farm has changed to regenerative farming, we can go to pre-industrial revolutions, amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in seven years.
00:36:36
Speaker
Technically, that means we can reverse climate change in seven years. And it's actually going to benefit the farmers because they produce higher quality food. They'll get better pay for it. It's yeah the benefits are are so good. Yeah. But you can't even like we can't continue that those farmers that are not going to change, it becomes impossible for them to farm because of well in Europe, the the legacy, the the policies are changing.
00:37:02
Speaker
And again, whether or not you agree with them, they're not that good actually, but at least there's a direction that we're getting into. But mostly it's climate change itself. Like you can't keep doing it the the way we've been doing it for the last 50 to a hundred years. Just won't work anymore. It's falling a apart.
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's I mean, it's if you actually look at the science, there's there's it would back up exactly what you said. And of course, what you hear today constantly ah are people who are making policy, who are poor policy, are simply cherry picking the science, taking it out of context, and then spinning it up as some sort of... ah some sort of And just trying to... Then they'll put these things like cow forts are bad for you. Yes, for the environment but what my one of my favorite examples, of people i'm I'm sure people, to to really put a stamp on this, ah and my parents are Dutch, right? Most of Holland is under sea level, is under this below sea level, right? So imagine, you know, there's a bunch of Dutch people looking at, you know, they're on the offslope dike and they're looking they're looking and the sea levels are rising.
00:38:04
Speaker
What do you think the Dutch will do? Do you think they'll just throw their hands up and defeat and throw themselves in the ocean? Or do you think they'll adapt by making the dike a little bit higher rather than trying to you know put giant electric elements into the ocean and then and then and then evaporate enough water to lower sea level? I mean, there's there's an example of mitigation right that I just made up. Of course, it's completely ridiculous. No more ridiculous than the lady who decided that every mariner should memorize a thousand a million star patterns. right We talked about that.
00:38:33
Speaker
so But the dots are simply going to mitigate. They'll simply, I'm sorry, they're simply going to adapt. The dike will go higher and then will adapt by building a higher dike. The same thing in the Mekong Delta. There's 130 million people now living below sea level.
00:38:48
Speaker
in the Mekong Delta and that's projected to be 180 million. Well, do you think that, do you think the 50 million are just going to throw themselves into the ocean? No, they'll, they'll adapt by, you know, because they've adapted now. My, my, again, my point is simply that we're very good at adapting, which is what you've been describing. And any, on the local level, anytime, and this is what you can do. This is, this is one of my goals is to get people to engage locally with good policy.
00:39:13
Speaker
and To be vociferous and which is to say rail which is to say razor voices against policy That is just stupid. Yeah, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist We all know what you know what good policy looks like and we all know what bad policy looks like and and we've just been we We've the the backlash The backlash on on typically, the backlash, whatever whatever form that that that comes can be so severe because the people who are, you know, promoting these, I'll say bad ideas, ah they the only way that the only way that you can make a bad idea move forward is by force. I have to literally jam it down your throat because it can't stand on its own merits.
00:39:58
Speaker
So yeah, i'm and ive I think you can do, I think you can, you know but as a citizen scientist, something that we can talk about, I think that you can make a real impact locally. I think that you can, ah you know, you can engage with really good policy, you can support really good policy locally and that. And that thing yeah and and what you had said other was was really interesting as well, because nature is this incredibly complex organism, that's a good way to look at it.
00:40:25
Speaker
there's many many many many many ah variables that go into that go into a single outcome so it's not just i do this one thing and this one thing comes out because there's you say like like you said you we make this one change and suddenly there's all these other benefits that we had no idea that we're gonna be a result of that of that one change. That's because there's many, many many things you know many, many things going into the equation. And there's many, many things that you know that can come out. And if you tend to put good things in, good things tend to come out. Yeah, I think that's a great way of looking at the same. And on the other hand, when we isolate things like like our planet is, like you said, and an incredible
00:41:07
Speaker
complex organism, and then we have certain problems on that um that organism, like climate change, and then we start to isolate these problems, and then all of a sudden we start to look at ah farming, and we look at what emissions, okay, cows are farting, and it's actually true. like It's not that it's a lie that cows are actually producing ma methane, it but what they're forgetting is that when a cow is working as a cow as it should be, it's a grazing animal,
00:41:34
Speaker
and it gets mostly on pasture land which by the way pasture land a lot of cows can be grazed on on land that is unusable for agriculture or even nature restoration it can't be done or even combine it because they've seen also a lot that nature reserves where they started to like fence off certain areas and remove all the impact, that ecosystem also collapsed because grazing animals are an essential part of an ecosystem. Now, okay, we because we've like hunted a lot of the wild animals in a lot of places in the world, we can't put them back yet. And then the the one of the few animals that can help do that, and that's been hooked, like even on on our family farm,
00:42:17
Speaker
we have cattle that is grazing on nature reserve because it enhances the natural value of of that nature reserve because the cows graze they obviously you have the the the bullshit literally that comes out and that attracts insects and that attracts birds to feed from the insects and and there's a whole ecosystem that comes from that But then if you, that is a complex system, which we're only starting to understand now. And it's important to try and understand it, even if it's extremely complex. Same with the soil life, it's extremely complex. and But we're starting to understand there's so much symbiosis happening. and then But if you then isolate a cow as ah as a methane producing unit, it's true, but we forget that when it's grazing as a grazing animal,
00:43:07
Speaker
it's actually and enhancing photosynthesis because the cow grazes the grasslands and that stimulates plant growth and that enhances the the the photosynthesis because it grows and it regrows and the cow dung actually improves the soil health. So then the methane, even if you're emitting methane, it will draw back more carbon dioxide, methane and other ah atmospheric gases into because the grassland is functioning better. In a net, if you do grazing with cattle, that's it's carbon negative, so it can actually produce
00:43:45
Speaker
carbon negative meat. And that's that's something we've been focusing on. And I'm very hopeful about that. And and then the quality and then as as as a small side benefit that you get the quality of the meat that you eat, it's full of like minerals and extremely rich yeah ah healthy fats that we need, that not everybody might need, but at least some people that are drawn to eating more of a meat ah diet, not even fully in meat.
00:44:14
Speaker
that improves their health as well. So I think looking at it holistically is a very important part of the equation. i'll you know in in to Just two to back up completely what you say, and and and ah and in a different context is that here on the West Coast, we rely very heavily on ah the salmon fishery, right, which is this sort of this fish come back every year, different cycles, of course.
00:44:42
Speaker
but um there was in one particular year there was a complete collapse of the sockeye salmon fishery and that was caused by a ah landslide in the Fraser river that basically shut off the the return of millions upon millions upon millions of sockeye salmon up into the tributaries of the Fraser that resulted in a complete collapse of the ecosystems on these smaller tributaries because there was hundreds of thousands of tons of biomass which is basically fertilizer that was no longer going into the into the system. Fertilizer in the form of dead salmon because they go upstream die and then lay in the riverbed.
00:45:22
Speaker
And I heard also that the the bear that eat, they poop in the forest and they're important for the plants to grow. It's crazy. It's a whole nutrient cycle. Exactly. And it's exactly what it's exactly the same thing that that that you described in a slightly different context. So this idea of a very complex system, so that when you when you take one thing out, you you're it's not just that one thing that that that you're affecting, it's the entire body, right? It's the entire organism. And we have, we are,
00:45:52
Speaker
so simplistically minded that we can only think of you know one thing in, one thing out, one thing in, one thing out. We have this linear approach to the world. The the nature is it's it's fractal. It's chaotic in its simplest form. so So no matter where you look, you have this idea that you're you're that this that there's you have to look at a hole. You have to adapt. You can't simply mitigate by Taking you talk. Okay, we're gonna we're gonna stop cows farting, you know, no more cowing then no more cattle ranching It's like that. We're gonna stop that and that that's that's a mitigation response, right? We're gonna stop she makes the problem worse You know, you've done is make it worse. Yeah and in climates of the world where you have limited rainfall Mm-hmm cattle are or well, it used to be grazing animals like in Africa on the on the Great Plains and you have all the the different grazing animals. there They're actually sustaining or regenerating that ecosystem. They'll take them away, it collapses and that's what's been happening. in That's why we have so many deserts in the world and why deserts are increasing because the lack of the grazing animal that is able to improve the soil health. and yeah it's It's a ah beautiful story and similar to like people that would say
00:47:03
Speaker
We have to stop or or even tax cows or whatever. Then you should also go and and talk to the bears and be like, oh, you should stop eating salmon because you're fighting salmon methane as well. Yeah. yeah yeah I mean, do it's it's it's absurd in its face. If you take one step back, right, if you if you want to if you want to stop sounding good,
00:47:27
Speaker
right Because it sounds good. We need to lower the the we need to lower methane you know contributions to the atmosphere. That sounds good. But it doesn't do any good, especially considering that you know where where we are right now. With the war on carbon dioxide, it's it's a wrong way of thinking. and It's like demonizing something. yeah And again, ive there's there's some value in, OK, we have to quantify and and like even carbon taxes it might be valuable or carbon accreditation might be also good, carbon sequestration. But we have to still be aware that carbon dioxide is just part of a cycle. Now that carbon dioxide levels have increased in the atmosphere, trees ah trees are growing faster than ever in history. yeah there's there's At least in in this recent last couple of million years. There's there's a net greening.
00:48:17
Speaker
uh on the world in the world because of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and that that the the landmass the net greening is equivalent to the united states the landmass the other other lower united states not including alaska so that's i mean there's like you say there's there's There's two sides. There's two sides, right? So there there is an increase in carbon dioxide, of course. That has that can have tremendously detrimental impacts, of course. yeah um but But then let's look at the let's look at let's look at the whole picture, right? It turns out that there's some benefits. So you can't just say, OK, it's bad. We've got to do everything in our in our power. So again, it's it's ah it's an ah it's an adaptive response as opposed to a ah mitigative response. but i gave this I gave a talk.
00:49:03
Speaker
but bit of ah It was ah a bit of a keynote thing for the Ocean Cruising Club's 70th anniversary ah celebrations here on the West Coast. And the talk I gave was um climate change, a paddler's perspective, because I had just paddled across Canada and I was going to talk about climate change. Talk a bit more about that adventure.
00:49:22
Speaker
Uh, okay. So I had, or listening I, I came back from my trip around the world, the solo nonstop circumnavigation basically. And I was following in the, i so oh so can you explain that again? So I sailed solo, which is by yourself yes nonstop, which means I left and came back to the same place without stopping.
00:49:43
Speaker
And circumnavigation is around the world. So i ah I had to go, which means that you're traveling through the Southern Ocean because you can't go through the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal because... Cape Horna. You're going through Cape Horna. The most dangerous sea ever. Correct. It's the most extreme environment on the planet is the Southern Ocean. How was that? I'm just curious. Were you lucky or was it still lucky? Well, you have to be lucky. you there's I mean, it's it's insanely difficult i mean to give you some give you some idea of how how hard it is. So 6,000 people have been to the top of Everest. 600 people have been in space. 300 people have sailed nonstop around the world.
00:50:26
Speaker
nine people have done it sailed nonstop around the world using a sextant. So no electronic navigation at all. I'm the ninth and I'm the first North or South American to do it. So that that's a way of only nine people have done what you've done. Well, I, when I finished it, when I finished, I was the ninth since that time, there's been a couple of others as part of the, part of the golden globe race. But it's, it's insanely difficult because it is, it is a wild,
00:50:52
Speaker
part of the world it is it's the most extreme environment on the planet varna including and artica including the top of all these crazy places um you can go in some sketchy situation or from your experience you're able to know you of course you you you you can't help it i mean i turned the boat upside down almost upside down three times in that sea or or generally ah No, when and during that trip, ah you know, and because the storms are wild, the storms are... In the Cape Horn as well, you got some dodgy...
00:51:24
Speaker
oh Yeah, yeah there I mean I went around Cape Horn I was there January 9th or so basically at the height of their summer and I took a massive gamble actually ah To avoid just getting absolutely crushed by a storm i ended up in i Yeah, and anyway, it's the the weather is is crazy the weather is something you can't imagine well firstly the waves are Well, I mean, it's just a, and it's, there's no place in the world like it. There's just no place in the world like it. There's, there's no bound. There's no bound basically, because, um, but random invo for lot there's no, there's no land mass in the Southern ocean. There's no, there's no land mass to, to stop.
00:52:06
Speaker
the firstly to stop or or or steer weather and there's no um so there's no there's no bounding landmass there's no bounding weather because weather tends to be bound by topographically um which is to say that well let's kind of leave it at that again too crazy and then and then there's there's there's no predictability because of that or limit predictive well there's Well, basically, ah if if ah so like went went when a hurricane traveling across the the the Atlantic runs into land, it runs out of it runs out of steam. right it literally It literally starts running out of the energy ah required to to sustain and make it grow because it it uses it sucks up heat and and and moisture from the ocean, which is what which is the driver.
00:52:54
Speaker
So landmass when it bumps into North America as it travels, you know from east to west It's building starts on the coast of Africa builds builds builds, you know it gets me You know huge by the time it gets to the Caribbean and bigger when it gets across the Gulf Stream because that's a very warm Humid very very warm current. Of course. It's very humid And then it bumps into North America and then suddenly the energy source is just shut off. It's like someone hits the switch and it gets smaller. And then as it sort of curves up and starts heading North, ah it loses all that. ah you It loses some of that, some of the, well, the energy that's that's required to maintain a sustain starts to shut off gradually. But in the Southern Ocean, ah it's a little bit different in terms of energy sources, but um there's no bounding limits cause there's no land mass. There's just this, uh,
00:53:39
Speaker
Tell me what's your what was your sketch now just out of interest because I'm fascinated about big adventures myself. Yeah. And I have still a few that I want to do, but what what was your most well exciting and maybe also scary moment of that whole trip? Well, I think the... ah ah Well, I can start with ah probably one of the... I'll start with them one of the more surreal moments.
00:54:09
Speaker
ah so i'm this is it's at the very end ah It's at the tail end of a storm and everything gets very confused like the because the wind has been blowing in one direction, usually in the same direction as the swell. So the swell gets gets heaped up and heaped up and heaped up. And then the wind changes direction very suddenly and in the southern ocean that happens in ah you know within 10 minutes.
00:54:30
Speaker
It's blowing 50 knots, say, you know, um northwesterly. And then within 10 minutes, it's blowing 75 southwesterly. So the the the ocean becomes chaotic. so it' after one of the Like the swell goes in one direction and the wind blows in the other and it becomes like... Well, so the the the typical swell in the southern ocean is 10 meters.
00:54:53
Speaker
And, and that's, you know, it's a very big wave, but the wavelength is very long and that gets amplified. So what you have, what you have is a 10 meter amplified swell running in one direction and you have wind waves, winds that are generated at, you know, at that place, at that moment by the wind. And those are six to eight meters. So that's all a good day, it sounds like.
00:55:13
Speaker
No, that's a bad day. That's a bad that's a bad day. and on on On a good day, you have this generally well aligned swell, this well swell that's not been you know typically amplified by some massive storm. and it's not Anyway, so you have this very chaotic sea, this large swell, large wind wave, and of course it's blowing like hell. And you decide to get in there because you're avoiding an even worse?
00:55:38
Speaker
Well, i'm I can't avoid it. like there's you just i've I've done everything in my power not to be in that place, but yeah I can't in the boat i cannot outrun the weather in the boat that I was in. so um i just you You just get past it. There's just no going around it.
00:55:54
Speaker
So I was at the end of this very bad storm and I was out in the cockpit, I was out on the back of the boat trying to make, trying to understand how I could keep the boat going safely given the conditions. So I'm trying to adapt right to the conditions. So and a huge gust comes along and that that makes the boat want to round up into the wind. So the boat suddenly wants to change direction And at the same time, ah a big a wave picked me up and then broke right on top of the boat. So what happens is the boat kind of starts to broach, which starts to slide sideways. At the same time, it gets lifted up and then thrown down. And so it gets lifted up and thrown down, basically. And it happens in ah in a heartbeat. You don't even have time to think about it. You realize, oh my god, here comes this big gust. You can you can hear it coming. It's like a freight train. Literally, it's like a freight train coming because the wind is so
00:56:48
Speaker
It's just unreal. And ah you can see it in the water. The water is just turned to to foam and and and nothing but mist. So you have this wall of, you have this wall of white coming at you, which is the, you you know, the gust front. And, um you know, that it's, you know, you kind of hope and pray that it's not gonna be too bad. So the gust comes, it just wipes the boat out. And at the same moment, I get hit by this wave. So this is kind of this, this, this.
00:57:16
Speaker
perfect storm and and not and not am i just hit by the wave because the wave will suddenly just make you go faster but the wave breaks and the wave when it breaks is enough to just flip the boat that well so in a heartbeat i'm now swimming up like this i'm swimming what was horizontal right is now vertical and so i've realized i'm swimming up the side of the cockpit to get to hang on to something the boat is almost completely underwater and I realize as I'm swimming up I'm thinking to myself I hope the boat I hope the mast comes back because typically what happens when the boat when the boat does that when it gets pulled up the mast is gone or is broken and yeah so the mast so as I'm swimming up I'm i'm thinking oh I hope the mast come I hope the mast is I hope I hope I hope and and then uh the boat just flips it gets thrown down and then it the wave
00:58:09
Speaker
just the way the boat is designed it comes up relatively quickly along with you know the the way that the wave dynamics also help it right itself depending how you are in the you know in the way which is just fortunate for me I ended up in a in a place where the water helped bring the boat back up so I'm I'm mostly upside down and then the it's swimming and then suddenly almost right side up again in the time frame this is all happening in relatively slow motion and i'm thinking i hope the mask comes up and then i look over to my left and i see the mast i go okay that's no that wasn't so bad and then the next thing is i hope i hope the cabin isn't flooded i hope all the water that's supposed to be but like that's your only job
00:58:52
Speaker
My only job is to keep the water on that side, the outside of the hull, right? It stays there and I stay here. So I think I i hope the boat's not flooded, because then I have nothing but... four months or six months of misery because I'm only I'm barely halfway around now I'm actually not even halfway around when that when that first one happened you know because if the boats filled up with water then everything is it'll never dry most of the food is gone you know all that sort of stuff so but it I mean I was unbelievably rocky lucky so that's that's um That would be one of the more surreal moments. that This podcast is brought to you by the Garden of Your Dreams Masterclass. Are you struggling with finding the right tools and tricks for your garden? Are you lacking the confidence to be a self-sufficient gardener? Do you sometimes get overwhelmed by the lack of knowledge and time you have to actually do gardening? Then the Garden of Your Dreams Masterclass is for you. I want to tie it now back to
00:59:50
Speaker
The word that you're doing as an oceanographic, ah no graphic having a hard time saying, can you help me out again with how you say? I'm an oceanographer, not an oceanographer, but an oceanographer.
01:00:10
Speaker
You always wanted to be that even though yeah the the the maybe the universe decided differently that you had to help people to be found online. yeah yeah no i That was still your big passion. So you tied that to that trip and you did some research.
01:00:25
Speaker
Yeah, so I, I'd mentioned, I we mentioned earlier, we talked a little bit about, you know, being a citizen scientist. So I went to some of my old contacts in the academic world and said, Hey, I'm planning this trip. ah I would like to do this. I know that, for example, there was a scientist who was on my PhD committee who was part and parcel of this program to to just throw current rogues in the world. So they were basically these, this team of scientists led by, by, by this guy, guy's name is Thompson.
01:00:53
Speaker
was to just throw drifters in the and on the surface of the ocean, the drifters were all GPS tracked. So the the issue in in science, even today, is that it's really, really hard and expensive to get good data. You have all these great ideas, you have all these wonderful theories, but the theories themselves cannot be proven until you get data, real world, real good data. And is that then also part of like, understand, like we talked about the holistic complex organism,
01:01:20
Speaker
That's part of the science to understand how that works or is it more to see what climate effects have seen? No, no it's it's understand it's to understand all the different, it's to understand more deeply some of the features that seem to be the most relevant. So obviously currents are incredibly relevant to the way that heat is transported around the world.
01:01:37
Speaker
and And the idea and ocean atmosphere coupling is the most important it's just about the most important thing in terms of climate change ah Because where does what what drives a storm at sea what drives a hurricane? It's it's the heat, you know It's well the the ocean is this largest is the largest repository of carbon dioxide in the world like bar none clearly, right? It's also the largest heat capacitor There's more heat stored in the ocean than there is anywhere else in the world. So there's there's these there's these incredible drivers of just about everything that we know about the natural and don't know about the natural world. So currents, of course, is obvious, like the reason that the reason that um the reason that northern Europe is warmer than northern Canada is because of the Gulf Stream is because you have heat that's that's transported north and and eventually east. Yeah, I got to realize this this year that Toronto, New York,
01:02:27
Speaker
which gets like, you can get blizzards and extreme colds. yeah It's actually on the on the same latitude of the south of France. So Belgium, where I am, it's more northern. And even Scandinavia, well, there it does get a lot colder, but like let's pick Belgium, it's it's more it's higher than... than ah most cities in Canada, but because of the Gulf Stream, we have usually we have very mild winters. Some talks are saying, and I'd love to hear your opinion, that Gulf Stream could actually stop in the next, some say even really like in the next decade, which would then mean somewhat of a small ice age in and Europe. I don't know how how much that is possible. What's your take on that?
01:03:14
Speaker
Well, i I mean, I think that the Gulf Stream turning off would be basically the Earth would have to stop turning, which is unlikely. Because the reason that the Gulf Stream exists is because the Earth spins on its axis, sort of stop the Gulf Stream, you'd actually have to, I mean, it's the Coriolis force that drives everything, you know, in the Northern Hemisphere to the right, which is why, which is why, um you know, the, current which, well, I mean, So even though some people are claiming that with climate change that the Gulf Stream might change or stop or something, it's it's not even possible. Well, it's very well changed. There's no doubt that and because it's changing all the time, right? Oh, yeah. So the fact of it stopping is is I think it's a little is a little bit far fetched because the driver is literally the earth spinning. so But then the temperature changes can have a significant impact on northern Europe. So, I mean, one of the reasons why Toronto and New York are so cold is because winds tend to, in and where we are at this latitude, winds tend to be westerly, right? So the winds blow from the west to the east. So the wind is blowing across all of the North American continent at that el you know at that same latitude, and it ends up in Toronto and New York.
01:04:26
Speaker
Well, in the winter, the landmass is very cold because land gets cold and the ocean stays warm because the ocean is this incredibly vast heat reservoir. But those same westerly winds blow across the North Atlantic and that the ocean is warmer and they land up you know in in in Belgium. And that happens if you have all this, instead of instead of instead of the wind blowing the same wind, instead of the wind blowing over a cold landmass, you have the wind blowing over a warm oceanic mass.
01:04:51
Speaker
therefore the temperature where you are is warmer. So there's so there's all kinds of, there's there's all these, well it it's always amazing. Because then if you go to like Berlin in winter, it's it's not It's still like ah quite a bit of a drive, but there it's already more continental climate, and it gets way colder. And then think of think if you go that same latitude all the way across to Vladivostok, the ocean is frozen, right? The ocean is frozen now in Vladivostok, this time of year, or soon will be in Vladivostok, because the same wind is blowing across you know this will massively this massive landmass, and the land is cold.
01:05:27
Speaker
And this idea of the land cooling off every day is is why you get these, you know, diurnal winds. That's why you get onshore and offshore breezes, right? Because the ocean ocean typically, you know, hass stays the same temperature and the land temperature is going up and down, you know, during the day and in the evening. So there's there's ah like We've talked about this, more than one driver. right there's more than one thing that's that's you know there's The guy behind the curtain is pushing more than one button. right the wizard of the wizard so that Part of your trip was mapping that out and and placing these buoys. I went to my friend and said, hey i'm going to be I'm going to be in places where you would never get one of these current rogues.
01:06:05
Speaker
i'm willing to throw i'm willing to put them in places that would be really interesting to give you some other insight because like i said you need data and they don't have data in these places there's no data in the southern ocean right because no one goes there except except for except you who are the nine crazy people yeah there's very few people that go there and of course you can you can use satellites to get data but you know again that's an inference right you're you're inferring you know you know what the temperature might be or you're inferring you know but based on Your remote sensing as opposed to guys being there my dad like if you some of the most Important bits well some of the most practical aspects of citizen scientists Revolved around oceanic transportation again because ship in the old days. They still do it now you ships officers are required to record temperature wind relative humidity cloud cover and they report that
01:07:02
Speaker
ships at sea report that globally into scientific databases. And those that's the real world data that drives climate modeling. They use that real world data to give real input. To protect, to predict hurricanes, jet, different weather pattern models. So so you if you have a model, right, everyone knows this idea in the computer age, garbage in garbage out, right?
01:07:25
Speaker
so So you have a model, that's the black box. You got to feed the model something. And if let's just assume that the model is actually good to people who wrote the code. ah The code is accurate. And the and the approximations are good. Well, if you put if the if the raw data that you're sticking in makes no sense whatsoever, it doesn't matter how good the model is. You're only going to get nonsensical data out. So in terms of weather forecasting, ah the short-term weather forecasting locally is very, very good. And that's because the data inputs are very good.
01:07:53
Speaker
Like there's every every airport, every new station, there's there's weather sensing data on top of every building and that's so that they can put real data into these sophisticated models. Even though I have a feeling I might be wrong, just maybe because I got aware aware of it that the the weather predictions are becoming less less predictable, like sometimes they're wrong. Is that because of climate change or like that, that we don't know certain things yet?
01:08:22
Speaker
No, I think that the you're you're right. The the weather predictions are are are only good for, say, you know, three to five days. After that, it's just a guess. And that's because we don't know all the inputs into the model. We only know the variables. yeah so And even those are even those aren't very good because what you have, let's say you look at the the the surface of the Earth and and you you divide it up into squares.
01:08:48
Speaker
And you want to make sure that the weather forecast in each of those squares is good. Well, the only way for that to happen is for you to have really good data in each of the squares. So the so the model inputs in each square are very good.
01:09:01
Speaker
It's interesting that they also bring that up because my father, who's obviously a farmer, he he doesn't listen too much to the local weather forecasting. He found a website from a Danish... I don't know the name, I could find it. And he squares by that one. The models are way more correct. Yes.
01:09:21
Speaker
yeah So that's interesting that farmers have a lot of knowledge about. My grandfather would be on on on his farm and be like, oh, now we can hear the clocks from that church, from the next village. It's going to rain in five days. And he had all this weather prediction. Well, not because the wind was coming from a different direction. yeah They could predict. So.
01:09:45
Speaker
so he has So there's a really good example, right? So there's somebody who has a really good model, which is to say that he's been living there for and farming outside, living out in the weather. In his brain, he's been building this model, and he knows when one of the inputs is really good. And that really good input leads to a really good forecast, right? So he hears here's the clock chiming you know two miles away because the wind is from a different direction. Not only that,
01:10:10
Speaker
But for the sound to travel, the air density has to be different, right? So maybe it's colder or warmer, or maybe that's relative humidity is a little bit, but he knows he's ah he's managed to sort of formulate this in his mind through years and years of experience. He gets this one really good input and that's enough to drive a really good output. So that's that's that's exactly what's missing in in the world. We don't have all these really good inputs. And in most places in the world, this grid I talked about is empty in the Southern Ocean.
01:10:37
Speaker
there's there's virtually There's no land mass. There's very few ships down there. The only ships that are there consistently are the illegal our commercial fleets fishing illegally. 80% of the commercial catch in the world, fish catch, is illegal.
01:10:52
Speaker
So think about that for a minute if you want to talk about ocean sustainability. And they're not so and they don't want and know they still want to help anybody with oh they don't want anyone to know that they're there. So here's a really good, here's like here's a cool example, thinking of that, to digress. You talk about something really cool. So ah there was a young scientist who figured out that there this is an issue, obviously and illegal commercial fishing, and there's no way to tell. 80% of it. 80% of the fish Yes, 80% of the commercial fish catch is illegal, and most of the commercial fish catch is consumed by a handful of nations, so most of that most of that biomass that's being yanked out of the ocean is going somewhere else, and they keep working up the food chain. so Anyway, so so, and one of the effects is that the the albatross population is going down. It's it's collapsing.
01:11:42
Speaker
And they live in the southern ocean. and That's because their food source is is is fish it's being literally raped. So this guy figured, OK, well, how can we how can we how can we find these ships? and then get and Because they're not self-reporting. So he strapped a magnetometer, which is something that measures the Earth's magnetic field, and a GPS onto captured albatross. So albatross, they they spend ah they spend almost their entire life at sea they fly thousands and thousands and thousands of miles so as soon as an albatross would and they're attracted to ships because the ships tend to throw over food you know like fish bits whoa and and they're different so an albatross and anything that's different they'll will will attract their attention because that's one of the ways that you just stay alive right you notice that something is different in your landscape whether it's a you know whether it's a cow grazing or a buffalo or or a berry bush but anyway
01:12:38
Speaker
It turns out that ah um with a magnetometer, they would fly over a ship. And of course, the Earth's magnetic field is changed ever so slightly by a giant iron mass, right? so the And then the GPS would tell but tell this guy where it is. even So these ships that are taking away the the seagulls or or the albatross are kind of, I don't know, paying back is maybe not the right way of saying it, but they're solving the illegal fishing problem.
01:13:06
Speaker
So he did it on a shoestring, right? Because magnetographers and GPS are in are cost nothing. All he had to do was go to see and capture Albatross, which is maybe not so hard. So he found ah they they captured 160 or so Albatross. They flew the equivalent of 45 million square miles.
01:13:24
Speaker
in the Southern Ocean and they found hundreds of these, well, I shouldn't say hundreds, but they found dozens of these illegal ships that were, these ships that were fishing illegally. Because if they fly, the only reason for that ship to be there, if it's a military ship or if it's a civilian ship, like a ah cruise ship or something, ah a freighter, then they they will self-report on EIS.
01:13:45
Speaker
And if they're not self-reporting them, then they shouldn't be there, which means that they're likely fishing illegally. So that the albatross would fly over a ship, the magnetometer would go off, the GPS would ping, the scientist sitting at his desk somewhere would go, oh, there's a ship there. And and he would look on that on the, because there are there's websites where all these ships are, all the AIS data is is output. And it's ah at that place, at that time, there's no ship listed in the AIS database real time. Therefore, that ship is likely fishing illegally.
01:14:13
Speaker
but so Then they would be able to push resources to these to these very specific places where they do these ships for fishing. So there's a there's a way to adapt. There's a way to, you know, to engage in ah something on ah literally on a shoestring, where you can make an impact. It's an incredible story. Like how, how simple you can most ah ah yes came across that I'm trying to play it in my work, like most solutions can be very simple. And if you have different options to solve us and this issue, always take the most simple one, even if it's feels it so simple. but It's like too good to be true to go for that one. because It's Okum's razor, right? which is yeah yeah And the and the other the other thing too is that a very smart person can can explain a very complicated concept very simply. Yes?
01:15:07
Speaker
Yeah E equals mc squared like it's everyone knows what it's the simplest thing in the whole world energy and mass are the same but it took einstein to to to formulate that A very someone who's maybe not so smart will take a very simple situation and make it sound unbelievably complicated So i'm i'm completely On your side when you say okay simple. Let's think simple. Let's can we do this easier? There's got to be a better way. There has to be a simpler way that we can you know that that we can have at least the same uh that we can have at at at least the same um affect on on the problem and it's it's the way that nature the it's the way that nature works nature does not looking for complicated solute because they don't work in the long run see this this organism that you talked about is simply driving constantly striving for the simplest possible solution it's the it's it's it's an invasive species right what's simpler
01:16:02
Speaker
What's simpler for Mother Nature? to To evolve a completely new species, ah a completely new tree? Or just to move one tree to you know from one place to the next? So that's, I mean, Sitka spruce, for example, it's a very, speaking of invasive trees, Sitka spruce is one of the most commercially viable tree species here on the West Coast. It's been here for thousands of years, but it's in an invasive species that started in Northern California.
01:16:27
Speaker
And as as climate changed, it's been migrating north, north, north, north, north, north, and eventually down the Aleutian, eventually into the Aleutian chain. But it's it didn't start out here, it it landed here somehow, someway. So this part of the citizen scientist stuff I did was tree coring, you know, going to these, sailing to crazy places where you could only get a boat.
01:16:49
Speaker
with students, I got on, I had, I went to UBC and said, Hey, I'm going to go to this crazy place. And is there somebody who's doing anything interesting out there? And I, the forestry people said, well, we have the student who's doing genetic studies on the migration of Sitka spruce, you know, North and West, can they get on board the boat? And will you take them to a place that if we could never go? I said, sure, let's, we can do that. So there's this, so there, I don't know anything about, I was able, I don't know anything about trees, but I was able to to help.
01:17:17
Speaker
Right. And I was able, and it's very, it's a relatively. I think that's a ah beautiful, and that's the point that I wanted to make by interviewing you today as well. I said, okay, with your day to day job.
01:17:31
Speaker
You can have an impact. I would say your impact in in helping our planet is rather indirect. like If you can help me to reach more people, that will help. like correct But then whatever your passion is, maybe there's a way that your your biggest passion, which I think clearly for you, it's it's sailing and adventurous trips. I think, I'm assuming, it is is that correct?
01:17:54
Speaker
well i think i I liked, well, I guess, in ah you know, I don't want to, I don't want to sound this, I don't want to sound this to be Eric, it's going to come out Eric. I just like to help. Yeah. I like to help. I don't think it's about better. I like to serve. I think we have it. I think we have the, all of society is built on this idea of duty and service. You, you, you know, you, you, you, as a father, you live to serve your family. I'm a father. As a soldier, you live to serve your country. I was a soldier. As a scientist, you live to serve,
01:18:25
Speaker
culture and knowledge, right? As an entrepreneur, you live to serve in your community. So this idea of of service is is, I think, is it's fundamental. It's not just important. then the ah the The foundation of our of of our society lays at the feet of of duty and service. Yes. So that's it. Thank you for correcting me. So the driving force in in your life is being at service with then the combined passion about and the oceans and and adventures like you've done. But then the point I was wanting to make is that maybe there's a leisure activity that you have and that you're passionate about that you can turn into something that helps the environment. like Just like you, you're helping scientists across the world with your crazy adventure. and Nobody wants to go into those oceans. You're you're the one that can
01:19:17
Speaker
bring hugely important data to the table. And there's other similar things that I've seen now, projects popping up that people get together, of course, to plant trees. is There's a ton of things you can do. They're building projects, like all of this stuff. I think it's it can be hugely beneficial to to the holistic approach of solving this this problem that we are facing.
01:19:42
Speaker
But ah okay how can we ah sustain living on this planet or actually thrive living on this planet? I think that's a better way of putting it.
The Role of Citizen Science and Personal Actions in Environmentalism
01:19:50
Speaker
ah let me okay so let me let let me say so you You like to surf, right? Yes, I love it. Okay, you like to surf. so um You could, as a surfer, every time you went to the beach, estimate wave height, right? Yes.
01:20:03
Speaker
And you'd get very good at that after a while. well what Why is that important? period we and we and and then you could you could you could come up There's all kinds of ways to define a wave. Well, that's important because waves that are hitting the beach, they transport soils from one one place to the other. It's called littoral transport.
01:20:21
Speaker
which is an incredibly important bit of science to understand right because how soils get transported you know down the coastline from one beach to the other, I can guarantee you that there there are people who've dedicated their whole life to understanding littoral transport and then understanding how that impacts um you know soil conditions, how that how that impacts near shore oceanic viability in terms of you know the marine biomass, how that impacts migration of ah larger marine mammals because I'm thinking of the oceanic large marine mammals because of course if you have this stuff being transported up and down the coast that means nutrients are going up and down the coast which means that whales who are traveling north and south or east and west they're they have to eat so they're they're relying on these on on these nutrient transports or the presence of nutrients in order for them to survive and so this idea you could literally just go to the every time you go surfing
01:21:10
Speaker
Pretty much anything you do in life, you can add something. So yeah, your your passion for surfing, you can you can find someone who has some idea of why that's important. My example was littoral transport, like soil transport, you know, down the beach, up or down the beach.
01:21:27
Speaker
And you can have you could give him data that he would not normally get, he or she would not normally get. And that would be incredibly valuable to how they you know to the work that that they may be doing. So it's this little tiny piece of the knowledge puzzle that they're trying to fill in. That's what science says. I'm not going to solve everything, but maybe I can you know get a little small glimpse into this.
01:21:47
Speaker
it it be I mean, there are there are people who are interested in clouds, right? Who simply go outside, look every day and describe what the clouds are like, which is incredibly important. It's one of the it's one of the most, it's one of the easiest ways to to predict whether locally is to understand what's going on. And it's probably very meditative as well. Yeah, so there's i say going to specimen there and meditate outside and you could actually say, I'm gonna just learn a little bit about, you could actually just get a chart from these guys and just tick off, you know,
01:22:15
Speaker
Are you aware, um and maybe that's a business idea for you, but are you aware of a platform that actually um brings these scientists together with with other people that are like surfers or sailors like you? is there Is there a system, a platform? Sure. i think if you yeah there's there's I don't know them off the top of my head, but I know that there's, I know that if you just Googled citizen scientists or, youre you know, googling a bit, you you would find it. I know there there are people sailing now and know who who are Trying to engage you know, you know trying to engage um Scientists with you know with their passion so there's you could simply I mean you could if you want to be more proactive You could simply just like I simply wrote a letter to the fiscal ocean physical oceanographers ah in in my field when I was gonna sail around the world and the other thing I did was I i did micro and I I
01:23:07
Speaker
I did macroplastic surveys, you know, looking out on the ocean and trying to count bits of plastic in places where nobody goes. Right. So I would dedicate a certain amount of time every day if I could to get outside and and look and look for it. Right. Because this idea of plastic in the ocean is a is a big is a problem. It's not really going away because anyway, so and I tried to do some microplastic surveys and I just couldn't do that. I just couldn't do that. The the the required science was too difficult.
01:23:36
Speaker
but But my point is that there you know there isn't anything that that you have a passion that someone has a passion about that you can't plug into the scientific community if you're so you know if you're so inclined. so i think it's you know As humans, I think we have a duty to serve, I've mentioned that, and and you can contribute in in in ways, you can you can contribute locally to this, to the global knowledge base, right? That helps move us forward, helps keeps us, you know, on this planet, helped help to become, you know, better and more informed stewards of of this place that we call home. I think that's important. I think, I mean, I just don't think it's important. I think it's vital. I agree. And I think I always reflect light of
01:24:22
Speaker
I might be repeating myself in some of the episodes, but I often talk about the ripple effect ah that has both on like a visual or like, let's say, a physical way that, I don't know, whenever you walk the streets, you pick up a piece of plastic and throw it in the trash. It's not going to solve the plastic problem that we're facing, but maybe you'll see somebody else looking at you like, what is he doing? Picking up trash on the street.
01:24:49
Speaker
Maybe that's going to inspire that person to start doing the same and then it ripples through. And it gives actually, I try to do that also when I go surfing, when I see it laying you around and it actually gives me a good feeling. It feels like, a okay, i'm thought of I've at least accomplished something or I did something good. So there's something to say about that, even if it's small, it seems to be small and insignificant.
Regenerative Gardening and Moral Imperatives
01:25:15
Speaker
And then that's also linked to the to the butterfly effect, like yeah that a small change can can have a huge impact. well that's That's what we do with our gardeners. I encourage people to to do regenerative gardening. And I don't try them to do it because it's good for the environment. this It actually saves them a lot of time and back pain. Because that's like like we talked about, if you do it in a certain way, it has so many different benefits. One is that you you have to work less in your garden.
01:25:45
Speaker
So, but for me, it's important because I know that this type of gardening, it also improves the environment, even the local biodiversity. So yeah, it's, it's incredible to see the work that you're doing and how that links up to having ah an impact in the world. Seemingly small, but rippling true on many levels.
01:26:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's the beautiful thing about it because it it would be it would be the height of arrogance and hubris to to think that I do this and the ripple effect is going to be that. it's like i'm i'm so and It would be like literally predicting the future.
01:26:22
Speaker
like you would You would have to assume you're some sort of God to think that I can throw this pebble in the water and that this rebel is going to have this is' going to have this ah reaction. literally it's it Literally, I am predicting the future. it It is so absurd on its face. All that matters is that you pick up the piece of trash. That's the that's the pebble you throw in the water. yeah and if it's the rest yeah do you Remember I said earlier you have a moral imperative to do to do good?
01:26:51
Speaker
so So you're walking down the street and you see a piece of trash on the ground. What's harder? Is it harder to walk by it or is it harder to pick it up? but clearly it's harder to pick it up, right? So that's the moral imperative. Do the hard thing. The next thing is, well, what do I do with the garbage? i can yeah you can You can throw it back down. That would be the easy thing. The next harder thing is to dispose of it properly in some way, shape, or form. So I mentioned this this idea of of the moral imperative is scale and variant. Literally, and you have no idea what'll happen when you pick up that piece of, gold you know you don't bend down and pick it up because you look out of the corner of your eye, there's someone looking at you, right? So you're doing this for
01:27:28
Speaker
reasons that are beyond you know the moral good. It's just this narcissistic, I want a value, so I want a virtual signal and and and look good, right? I'm going to bend down. And as soon as a person turns away, you throw it out again, right? Because you you know you've you've already done your bit, right? you've So it's it's just it's a beautiful analogy. I love the way that you say, and and and this idea that the ripple effect goes forward in time. You have no idea what it's going to be, but you've done something good, so you can only assume something is good is going to come out of it.
01:27:56
Speaker
Right? Imagine if you you walking down the street again, this is simplistic, but I think it's might be helpful again to illustrate a point you walk down the street, get in your pocket, you have some trash, whatever it might be. You look down and see a piece of plastics you take out of your pocket, whatever you and you throw that out on top. So that I mean, it sounds ridiculous, right? But someone but it's the moral imperative is to bend down and pick something up not to not to make it worse, right not to make it worse by throwing more on it. Right.
01:28:26
Speaker
yeah And imagine someone sees you throw something down, the chances of that person, maybe someone else coming over, hey, you know, what are you doing? It's probably pretty good, right? Depending where you're doing that. yeah i up and I used to live in Munich in Germany and and people seem to have a ah real big connection and respect for their public environment more than any other city I've been to. So whenever somebody would throw a cigarette butt on the street or or you even a chewing gum,
01:28:57
Speaker
especially older people would come up to you and say, like Hey, please pick that up. That's not, that's not how you do things around here. They're very proud of their, it's Bavarian even like they're extremely proud of their area. And I think that's, that's beauty that, that you can be proud of your environment that you live in.
01:29:17
Speaker
And then you protect it more. And also then a big part of what you're doing is also understanding it. Because that we there's a quote, I think it goes something like, we can only protect what we understand. yeah So the the work that you're doing about the scientists is just about, okay, how does this thing actually work?
01:29:36
Speaker
It's a key to then also be able to protect it or enhance it or or have a positive impact on it. And then it's also because we then can see it. That's all all of the change that I've seen in my life that has a positive impact.
01:29:52
Speaker
You have to be able to visualize it. Same with with my father on our farm, we started to do regenerative practices. My father was like, I don't believe that this is ever going to work. it's so stay like You think the green nature stuff, it's going to help farming? No, we've been doing this in that way for a long time. That's the way things work.
01:30:13
Speaker
But still we persisted, me and my brother, to to try certain things. So we you also did sample plots. We said, okay, half of the field is still the old way and and half of it is is the new or the regenerative way. And then we get the results that are mind-blowing. Heels go up, maintenance costs go down, fuel consumption goes down.
01:30:32
Speaker
and soy quality goes up. And then my father could clearly see it, that it was actually better for him. Now he's the one who's who's doing all the, he's buying the seeds to use the cover crops and the regenerative methods. So once you can prove certain things, and that can only be done with certain scientific backup, then it's easier to to keep doing it in the in the good way. it Otherwise you're just guessing at things.
01:31:00
Speaker
Yeah. yeah i think it's You make a really good point there. And and and in and i I don't mean to say this is in an indirect way, but the point that you're making is that if you have a system and the system is good,
01:31:13
Speaker
you can't just blow that that system out just because the system is new. If you're gonna replace this, what you replace it with had better be better, which is what your father is saying. Okay, we've we've been we're we're we' we've been we've been managing to feed an incredible number of people this way. yes So in order to blow this up, this had better be very good, right? Which is the scientific method between those two. So in order to replace old system, new system had better be better. and The oil system has, it's there because it stood the
Adapting Farming Practices for Environmental Impact
01:31:45
Speaker
test of time. That's one of the great equalizers, right? If something has been around for a long time, there's probably something good about it. Yeah, industrial farming actually eradicated world hunger. Yes, of course. It's hard to say that because some areas people are still in hunger, but it's mostly related to wars or conflicts or climate change now, of course. But it kind of, in the last 60 years,
01:32:11
Speaker
The industrial chemical complex of farming, which massively increased the yields, eradicated world hunger to a certain extent. But then it came with ah with a price to pay on the environmental impact and they were not aware of that. Correct. And then now we are, so what's what are we going to do about it?
01:32:30
Speaker
Yeah. So so you you you just can't blow up ah the the industrial agricultural complex because there's there's bad things about it. Because if you do that, most of the world's population will starve like that. that Right? because because of Because of yields, just like you said. So if you're going to replace this with that, this had better be good, which is the exact path that you're on. You're saying, okay, we can do this. We can still feed the world, right? And and more.
01:32:55
Speaker
But we can do it in a slightly different way. We don't have to blow everything up. we can make We can adapt based on what we know and what we can see because now we know more. We know that we know what the what what the downsides are before we didn't know what they were. Now we know what they are. Let's tweak this a little bit. Let's adapt what we're doing to have a better, a more sustainable outcome without actually blowing up this side of the fence. that's ah It's a very I think that's a wonderful argument that you are wonder wonderful description of of this process that you've that you've said because that's uh It lies at the it lies at the heart of of what we have to do It lies at the heart of of of adaptability. It's lies at the heart heart of how of how humans have been able to thrive I mean think about if you think about climate change, ah this is an interesting thought experiment so humans live uh
01:33:45
Speaker
across the globe in unbelievably extreme climates because they've been able to adapt. think of the Think of the people, you know, think of the Greenlanders, think of the Inuit living in Northern Canada and across, you know, Northern Russia. Think of the, you know, First Nations people living, think of the Aboriginals living in Australia, two wildly different climate extremes, right? Extreme.
01:34:04
Speaker
But without any other intervention other than what they could dream up on their own with none none of the resources that we would think um are necessary today, that they were able to adapt and thrive, live, love and thrive in those environments because they were able to adapt. So facing climate extremes, which we will be, don't you think we should be able to adapt? Well, I think the answer to that is yes. And I don't have to, I just have to point to the extremes, right, that that already exist.
01:34:30
Speaker
to say that, you know, we can, we should be, we should be focusing on adapting, just like you've described about regenerative ah farming, how that's an adaptation to what we're doing, not a without a complete, you know, blowing up of of of what we know about agriculture, it's an adaptation.
01:34:48
Speaker
No, it's building on top of what actually works as it is the scalability of farming and then going to the to actually fixing the the problems that are part of the old system and replacing them with things that even but that are even better. it and that's And that's what farmers are actually, that they have already been doing for 60 years. They've become like I'm always saying that farmers are the best businessmen in the world. The ones that are still farming today, I can tell you they like they've been through a lot and they they they know how to run a business. because farmers we
01:35:26
Speaker
we might even have a perception of the old McDonald had a farm and that that is does not longer exist. No. so It's yeah it's been so important to stress that that farmers, they that they are mechanics, they are accounts, they there are traders, they are commodity traders, they do all of that and it's crazy. so And and the the ones that are no longer like the people that are farming today,
01:35:53
Speaker
they went through a lot, most, like a lot of people have quit along the way. So the people that are still doing it today are like really, really good at it. So it's also, it can become and very arrogant, like politics, not telling them that they've been doing things wrong. yeah And that they should change overnight to an ecological way of farming. I mean, there's a good say, it's like I said, there's,
01:36:17
Speaker
It's good to point out to that direction, but then how are we going to do it and not like eradicate the good things they've created? it So yeah, I think that's important. Yeah, I think the the margins are so slim. Like the margins are so slim in farming and and the the the probability of catastrophe. Probably same with fishing as well. That's why there's so much illegal fishing.
01:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, so it's yeah, it's it's a tremendously difficult problem, right? And it's shocking that we've been actually been able to be good at it. This I mean, just look at the number of people fed as as a single metric, right? The number the the the amount of people who are who who actually have access to food is is shocking. i I asked my dad who grew up in Holland during the war, we were in the grocery store. And I turned to it was around remember and stay here. So November 11. And I said, Dad,
01:37:11
Speaker
You know, what would you have done? What would it be like if somebody, you know, living in holland ah the the winter of starvation in 1945, what was it like if they walked into say, you know, Walmart or something like that, this giant grocery store? And he said that people would have been killing themselves outside just to get in.
01:37:30
Speaker
it would have been it would have been just mayhem it would have been crazy and you know here where i live on a small island is only four thousand people live on this island if things got bad like if things got really bad. The response to a civic emergency is an armed response by the local constabulary in front of the grocery store.
01:37:52
Speaker
So it's not all they're going to do is get a bunch of guns, park a bunch of cops outside the grocery store and stop people from killing themselves trying to get in. And that's that might sound crazy, but look what happened during COVID that people are writing over toilet paper. right all the worldke So this idea of of food availability, and we've become just completely non-plussed about it. we We just take it for granted that there's going to be this massive amount of food in the grocery store coming from
Local Farming, Food Sovereignty, and Community Engagement
01:38:20
Speaker
all over the world. I i walk into the grocery store and I'm i'm shocked. every I still can't get over it because I grew up, my mom, we were growing carrots, right? Carrots and turnips is the only thing that could grow you know in in a garden back then and in Saskatchewan. It's all glacial gravel basically, right? And does and clay, there's not much that I mean.
01:38:39
Speaker
So without fertilizer, there's you know stuff that grows. it's It's interesting. Anyway, so we could grow turnips, we could grow rhubarb, and we could grow um carrots.
01:38:50
Speaker
So ah that's what that's what I grew up on. I grew up on carrots and potatoes. So I walk into the grocery store and it's like, I'm shocked. I'm just, what's there? Like, and we just take it for granted. Oh, I'll just get some kiwi fruit and oh, look at that. There's a, there's a wonderful, you know, pepper. No, there's a big say about food sovereignty, how and an own nation can provide for its own citizens to have healthy, affordable food. That's part of that equation of like, okay,
01:39:20
Speaker
do we need to import all those foods from all across the world is it and in COVID it a a lot of grocery stores run we're running empty because a lot of areas in the world they couldn't provide for their own food so I think that's changing and local farming and getting like supporting people that are doing regenerative farming is really a big step into that direction. yeah Well, Bert, I feel like we can keep talking for hours and hours here and maybe we should do that at some other time. yeah yeah but We have to start wrapping up the episode. It's already been more than one hour and 38 minutes. It's crazy. I really enjoyed this conversation. Just to wrap it up, what what is your single best piece of advice for our listeners that
01:40:04
Speaker
want to have an impact in the environment and want to do something good in business as well? Well, I think if you want to have an impact on the environment, firstly, you have to think locally. Like, what am I doing? What am I doing? What am I engaging with? What do i what motivates me to get up and and do this, whatever this might be? And somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, someplace, there's a scientist who's completely and totally uh absorbed in that thing and you can make a you can make a contribution you can make a significant meaningful contribution to the global knowledge base by engaging with scientists who are interested in the thing that you like to do so it could be anything it could be we've talked about farming we've talked about you know oceanography we've talked about trees we've talked about the beaches so you can and it doesn't and the scale doesn't have to be big it doesn't have to be grandiose it's like picking up that little tiny piece of plastic that you walk by
01:40:56
Speaker
The ripple effect of that is something you can't imagine. The idea you you engaging in this is absolutely transformative, not just for you, but for your community and for the scientific community, perhaps as a whole. So I can't, i can't from my perspective, I simply cannot say how meaningful and how important that can become.
Persistence and Final Thoughts from Bert Terhart
01:41:15
Speaker
And in terms of business, and again, this this is sort of business encapsulating everything, because we're in the business of living, right? That's just flat out right.
01:41:24
Speaker
I would say boring is best, which is a way of saying that you have to persist. If you are unwilling to persist, then you will simply be unsuccessful. You were able to persist in showing your father that regenerative farming was the right way to go. But if you had not persisted, if you had quit then you would be nowhere. You would not have been successful. So you were persisted in the face of you know everybody saying no, which is typically what happens. You'll hear no way more often than you'll hear yes and cannot more often than you hear can, but you need to persist. And you need to persist typically at what's very boring.
01:41:57
Speaker
So I'm sure going through the motions, you know, throwing your dad, doing the same thing, you know, after a while, no matter how exciting it might've been the first time it gets boring afterwards. So I can assure you that we had to go through to to do these things because the the legal, like it was, it became nearly illegal to use these kinds of seeds that are actually beneficial for the environment. It was crazy paperwork to get it done. Eventually we found a way.
01:42:23
Speaker
but you have I love that advice, like going through the boringness of things yeah and taking pride in that work and yeah persisting. like yeah boring is past How consistent can you be at something that's... Well, I think that the the the beautiful part about that that, if you're boring is best, which is ah which is kind of an interesting way of saying that you have to be completely embedded in the now and divorced from the outcome. like ah The future is not in my business. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone you know a month or a year from now.
01:42:52
Speaker
The only way that I can get to where I want to go is to understand where I am, which is to say what is now. And in your case, what is now is I need to find these seeds. Right. i So that's now despite the might despite the goals that you might have to to transform um industrial a good agriculture worldwide, which is something you could very well do. Right now you have to find a seed or seeds. And that might be getting up doing the same thing every single day for a month. But if unless you solve this problem, then you're going to get nowhere. So and that might be get that might get very boring after a while. So if you're willing to persist, then you will succeed. Full stop. You don't have to be good. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be anything other than persistent.
01:43:30
Speaker
Well, that's a beautiful piece of advice to end up. i'm I'm really excited that we got to talk about all these things and ending with that. It's amazing. So Bert, how can people reach out if there's some adventurous listening or people that want to learn more about than search engine optimization and in your work? ah How can they connect? I'm thinking maybe sailors are listening. yeah I do have clients that became friends. They'll be doing a big travel, a big world sale tour, I'm going to encourage them to to get in touch with you and see if they can actually help with some of the scientific work. sure so how ah How can people find you, reach out to you?
01:44:10
Speaker
Well, the simplest way is to, is just bertterhart.com. So B-E-R-T-T-E-R-H-A-R-T, bertterhart.com. And and you know if you if you Google my name, there'll be all kinds of stuff too. So you if you if you go to bertterhart.com, then you can- know the you can if find all the other links. Find all the other stuff there. so And you're most active on LinkedIn, I think? or Sure. Yeah, you can get me on LinkedIn too. So again, my name, but i i'm i'm I'm really,
01:44:39
Speaker
Anybody who has anybody who who who has the courage to reach out, because that's, again, it's the harder thing to do, right? is is either well you know i could I could ignore it or I could actually send an email, ignoring or sending. or the The slightly harder thing is to actually sit down and write the email. So there's a moral imperative to that, like I talked about. so if people are courage courageous enough to and do the work to reach out i i i have i'm more than happy to to to talk and reach out again because i for one it's a it's an incredible privilege to be able to to speak to other people um and i mean this in the most sincere way i can possibly say it is that it's a it's a blessing and a privilege for me to to speak to other people with different perspectives because that only enriches my own so there's a
01:45:27
Speaker
yeah And I'm incredibly and internally grateful for that. So if anybody's listening, they want to reach out. um i'd be I'd love to hear from you. Let's put it that way. Nice. Okay. We'll put all of that in the show notes. Bert, the sailor, the adventurous, the SEO specialist. Thank you so much for coming on to the show and bringing all this beautiful knowledge. ah well I wish you a wonderful rest of your day. Yes. Well, thank you. for It's been my privilege. It's been my privilege and dunk you all in the air.
01:45:55
Speaker
tell tricks by but Okay, bye bye.