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This is the ocean as I used to know it.

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And I find that since I've been
in the Gulf a couple of times,

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I really kind of am traumatized
because whenever I look at the ocean now,

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no matter where I am,

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even where I know
that none of the oil has gone,

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I sort of see slicks,

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and I'm finding that I'm very much
haunted by it.

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But what I want to talk to you about today

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is a lot of things that try
to put all of this in context,

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not just about the oil eruption,
but what it means and why it has happened.

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First, just a little bit about me.

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I'm basically just a guy
that likes to go fishing

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ever since I was a little kid,
and because I did,

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I wound up studying sea birds

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to try to stay in the coastal habitats
that I so loved.

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And now I mainly write books
about how the ocean is changing,

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and the ocean is certainly
changing very rapidly.

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Now we saw this graphic earlier on,
that we really live on a hard marble

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that has just a slight bit
of wetness to it.

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It's like you dipped a marble in water.

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And the same thing with the atmosphere:

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If you took all the atmosphere
and rolled it up in a ball,

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you would get that little sphere
of gas on the right.

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So we live on the most fragile
little soap bubble you can imagine,

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a very sacred soap bubble,
but one that is very, very easy to affect.

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And all the burning of oil and coal
and gas, all the fossil fuels,

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have changed the atmosphere greatly.

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Carbon dioxide level
has gone up and up and up.

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We're warming the climate.

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So the blowout in the Gulf

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is just a little piece
of a much larger problem

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that we have with the energy
that we use to run civilization.

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Beyond warming,

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we have the problem
of the oceans getting more acidified...

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And already measurably so,
and already affecting animals.

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Now in the laboratory, if you take a clam
and you put it in the pH that is not 8.1,

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which is the normal pH
of seawater, but 7.5,

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it dissolves in about three days.

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If you take a sea urchin larva from 8.1,

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put it in a pH of 7.7...
Not a huge change...

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It becomes deformed and dies.

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Already, commercial oyster larvae
are dying at large scales in some places.

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Coral reefs are growing slower
in some places because of this problem.

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So this really matters.

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Now, let's take a little tour
around the Gulf a little bit.

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One of the things that really impresses me
about the people in the Gulf:

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They are really, really aquatic people.

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And they can handle water.

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They can handle a hurricane
that comes and goes.

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When the water goes down,
they know what to do.

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But when it's something other than water,
and their water habitat changes,

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they don't have many options.

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In fact, those entire communities
really don't have many options.

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They don't have another thing they can do.

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They can't go and work
in the local hotel business

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because there isn't one
in their community.

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If you go to the Gulf and you look around,
you do see a lot of oil.

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You see a lot of oil on the ocean.

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You see a lot of oil on the shoreline.

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If you go to the site of the blowout,
it looks pretty unbelievable.

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It looks like you just emptied
the oil pan in your car,

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and you just dumped it in the ocean.

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And one of the really
most incredible things, I think,

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is that there's nobody out there
trying to collect it

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at the site where it is densest.

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Parts of the ocean there
look just absolutely apocalyptic.

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You go in along the shore,
you can find it everywhere.

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It's really messy.

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If you go to the places
where it's just arriving,

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like the eastern part
of the Gulf, in Alabama,

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there's still people using the beach

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while there are people
cleaning up the beach.

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And they have a very strange
way of cleaning up the beach.

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They're not allowed to put
more than 10 pounds of sand

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in a 50-gallon plastic bag.

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They have thousands
and thousands of plastic bags.

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I don't know what they'll do
with all that stuff.

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Meanwhile, there are still
people trying to use the beach.

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They don't see the sign
that says: "Stay out of the water."

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Their kids are in the water;

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they're getting tar all over
their clothes and their sandals...

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It's a mess.

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If you go to where the oil has been
for a while, it's an even bigger mess.

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And there's basically
nobody there anymore,

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a few people trying to keep using it.

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You see people who are really
shell-shocked.

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They are very hardworking people.

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All they know about life
is they get up in the morning,

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and if their engine starts,
they go to work.

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They always felt that
they could rely on the assurances

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that nature brought them
through the ecosystem of the Gulf.

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They're finding that their world
is really collapsing.

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And so you can see, literally,
signs of their shock...

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signs of their outrage...

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signs of their anger...

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and signs of their grief.

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These are the things that you can see.

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There's a lot you can't see,
also, underwater.

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What's going on underwater?

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Well, some people say
there are oil plumes.

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Some people say there are not oil plumes.

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And Congressman Markey asks, you know,

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"Is it going to take a submarine ride
to see if there are really oil plumes?"

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But I couldn't take a submarine ride...

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Especially between the time I knew
I was coming here and today...

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So I had to do a little experiment myself

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to see if there was oil
in the Gulf of Mexico.

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So this is the Gulf of Mexico...

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sparkling place full of fish.

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And I created a little oil spill
in the Gulf of Mexico.

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And I learned, in fact,
I confirmed the hypothesis

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that oil and water don't mix...

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until you add a dispersant...

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and then...

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they start mixing.

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And you add a little energy
from the wind and the waves,

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and you get a big mess,

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a big mess that you can't possibly clean,

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you can't touch, you can't extract

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and, I think most importantly...
This is what I think...

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You can't see it.

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I think it's being hidden on purpose.

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Now this is such a catastrophe
and such a mess

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that lots of stuff is leaking out
on the edges of the information stream.

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But as many people have said,

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there's a large attempt
to suppress what's going on.

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Personally, I think that the dispersants
are a major strategy to hide the body,

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because we put the murderer
in charge of the crime scene.

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But you can see it.

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You can see where the oil
is concentrated at the surface,

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and then it is attacked,

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because they don't want
the evidence, in my opinion.

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OK.

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We heard that bacteria eat oil?

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So do sea turtles.

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When it breaks up,

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it has a long way to go
before it gets down to bacteria.

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Turtles eat it.
It gets in the gills of fish.

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These guys have to swim around through it.

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I heard the most incredible story today
when I was on the train coming here.

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A writer named Ted Williams called me,

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and he was asking me
a couple of questions about what I saw,

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because he's writing an article
for Audubon magazine.

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He said that he had been in the Gulf
a little while ago; like about a week ago,

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and a guy who had
been a recreational fishing guide

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took him out to show him what's going on.

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That guide's entire calendar year
is canceled bookings.

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He has no bookings left.

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Everybody wanted their deposit back,
everybody is fleeing.

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That's the story of thousands of people.

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But he told Ted
that on the last day he went out,

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a bottlenose dolphin
suddenly appeared next to the boat,

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and it was splattering oil
out its blowhole.

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And he moved away
because it was his last fishing trip,

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and he knew that the dolphins scare fish.

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So he moved away from it,
turned around a few minutes later,

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it was right next to the side
of the boat again.

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He said that in 30 years of fishing
he had never seen a dolphin do that.

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And he felt that...

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(Sigh)

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he felt that it was
coming to ask for help.

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Sorry.

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Now, in the Exxon Valdez spill,

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about 30 percent of the killer whales
died in the first few months.

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Their numbers have never recovered.

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So the recovery rate of all this stuff
is going to be variable.

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It's going to take longer for some things.

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And some things, I think,
will probably come back a little faster.

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The other thing about the Gulf
that is important

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is that there are a lot of animals
that concentrate in the Gulf

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at certain parts of the year.

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So the Gulf is a really
important piece of water...

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More important than a similar volume
of water in the open Atlantic Ocean.

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These tuna swim the entire ocean.

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They get in the Gulf Stream,
they go all the way to Europe.

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When it comes time to spawn,
they come inside,

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and these two tuna that were tagged,

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you can see them on the spawning grounds

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00:10:02,162 --> 00:10:04,867
very much right in the area of the slick.

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They're probably having,
at the very least,

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a catastrophic spawning season this year.

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I'm hoping that maybe the adults
are avoiding that dirty water.

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They don't usually like to go into water
that is very cloudy anyway.

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But these are really
high-performance athletic animals.

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I don't know what this kind of stuff
will do in their gills.

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I don't know if it'll affect the adults.

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If it's not, it's certainly affecting
their eggs and larvae,

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I would certainly think.

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But if you look at that graph
that goes down and down and down,

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that's what we've done to this species
through overfishing over many decades.

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So while the oil spill, the leak,
the eruption, is a catastrophe,

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I think it's important to keep in mind

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that we've done a lot to affect
what's in the ocean, for a very long time.

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It's not like we're starting
with something that's been OK.

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We're starting with something
that's had a lot of stresses

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and a lot of problems to begin with.

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If you look around at the birds,
there are a lot of birds in the Gulf

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00:11:03,800 --> 00:11:06,567
that concentrate in the Gulf
at certain times of the year,

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00:11:06,591 --> 00:11:07,875
but then leave.

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00:11:07,899 --> 00:11:10,971
And they populate much larger areas.

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00:11:12,687 --> 00:11:16,877
For instance, most of the birds
in this picture are migratory birds.

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00:11:16,901 --> 00:11:18,743
They were all on the Gulf in May,

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00:11:18,767 --> 00:11:21,884
while oil was starting
to come ashore in certain places.

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00:11:21,908 --> 00:11:26,463
Down on the lower left there
are ruddy turnstones and sanderlings.

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00:11:26,487 --> 00:11:28,210
They breed in the High Arctic,

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00:11:28,234 --> 00:11:30,796
and they winter
down in southern South America.

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00:11:30,820 --> 00:11:35,631
But they concentrate in the Gulf
and then fan out all across the Arctic.

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00:11:35,655 --> 00:11:38,781
I saw birds that breed
in Greenland, in the Gulf.

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00:11:40,152 --> 00:11:43,563
So this is a hemispheric issue.

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00:11:43,587 --> 00:11:48,383
The economic effects
go at least nationally in many ways.

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00:11:48,407 --> 00:11:51,474
The biological effects
are certainly hemispheric.

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00:11:54,167 --> 00:11:59,360
I think that this is one of the most
absolutely mind-boggling examples

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00:11:59,384 --> 00:12:02,196
of total unpreparedness
that I can even think of.

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00:12:02,220 --> 00:12:06,118
Even when the Japanese
bombed Pearl Harbor,

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00:12:06,142 --> 00:12:07,549
at least they shot back.

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00:12:07,573 --> 00:12:11,656
And we just seem to be unable
to figure out what to do.

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00:12:11,680 --> 00:12:15,316
There was nothing ready,

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00:12:15,340 --> 00:12:18,730
and, you know, as we can see
by what they're doing.

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00:12:18,754 --> 00:12:21,518
Mainly what they're doing
is booms and dispersants.

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00:12:21,542 --> 00:12:25,294
The booms are absolutely
not made for open water.

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00:12:25,318 --> 00:12:30,159
They don't even attempt to corral
the oil where it is most concentrated.

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00:12:30,183 --> 00:12:32,417
They get near shore...
Look at these two boats.

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00:12:32,441 --> 00:12:35,065
That one on the right
is called Fishing Fool.

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00:12:35,089 --> 00:12:37,099
And I think, you know, that's a great name

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00:12:37,123 --> 00:12:40,181
for boats that think
that they're going to do anything

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00:12:40,205 --> 00:12:43,277
to make a dent in this,
by dragging a boom between them

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00:12:43,301 --> 00:12:46,265
when there are literally
hundreds of thousands of square miles

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00:12:46,289 --> 00:12:49,170
in the Gulf right now
with oil at the surface.

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00:12:49,194 --> 00:12:52,944
The dispersants make the oil
go right under the booms.

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00:12:52,968 --> 00:12:56,332
The booms are only
about 13 inches in diameter.

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00:12:57,167 --> 00:13:00,193
So it's just absolutely crazy.

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00:13:00,217 --> 00:13:01,911
Here are shrimp boats employed.

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00:13:01,935 --> 00:13:05,876
There are hundreds of shrimp boats
employed to drag booms instead of nets.

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00:13:05,900 --> 00:13:07,223
Here they are working.

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00:13:07,247 --> 00:13:09,044
You can see easily

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00:13:09,068 --> 00:13:12,963
that all the oily water
just goes over the back of the boom.

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00:13:12,987 --> 00:13:14,937
All they're doing is stirring it.

238
00:13:14,961 --> 00:13:16,559
It's just ridiculous.

239
00:13:18,404 --> 00:13:20,509
Also, for all the shoreline
that has booms...

240
00:13:20,533 --> 00:13:22,704
Hundreds and hundreds
of miles of shoreline...

241
00:13:22,728 --> 00:13:24,509
All of the shoreline that has booms,

242
00:13:24,533 --> 00:13:27,219
there's adjacent shoreline
that doesn't have any booms.

243
00:13:27,243 --> 00:13:32,276
There is ample opportunity for oil
and dirty water to get in behind them.

244
00:13:32,300 --> 00:13:36,123
And that lower photo,
that's a bird colony that has been boomed.

245
00:13:36,147 --> 00:13:40,716
Everybody's trying to protect
the bird colonies there.

246
00:13:40,740 --> 00:13:45,971
Well, as an ornithologist,
I can tell you that birds fly, and that...

247
00:13:45,995 --> 00:13:48,300
(Laughter)

248
00:13:50,971 --> 00:13:56,276
and that booming a bird colony
doesn't do it; it doesn't do it.

249
00:13:56,300 --> 00:13:59,820
These birds make a living
by diving into the water.

250
00:14:00,923 --> 00:14:02,073
In fact...

251
00:14:03,440 --> 00:14:06,583
really what I think
they should do, if anything...

252
00:14:06,607 --> 00:14:09,744
They're trying so hard
to protect those nests...

253
00:14:09,768 --> 00:14:12,441
Actually, if they destroyed
every single nest,

254
00:14:12,465 --> 00:14:14,501
some of the birds would leave,

255
00:14:14,525 --> 00:14:16,830
and that would be better
for them this year.

256
00:14:17,715 --> 00:14:19,248
As far as cleaning them...

257
00:14:20,301 --> 00:14:25,234
I don't mean to cast any aspersion
on people cleaning birds.

258
00:14:25,258 --> 00:14:29,158
It's really, really important
that we express our compassion.

259
00:14:29,182 --> 00:14:32,722
I think that's the most important
thing that people have, is compassion.

260
00:14:33,326 --> 00:14:37,276
It's really important
to get those images and to show it.

261
00:14:37,300 --> 00:14:40,675
But really, where are those birds
going to get released to?

262
00:14:40,699 --> 00:14:43,144
It's like taking somebody
out of a burning building,

263
00:14:43,168 --> 00:14:44,808
treating them for smoke inhalation

264
00:14:44,832 --> 00:14:48,585
and sending them back into the building,
because the oil is still gushing.

265
00:14:48,986 --> 00:14:52,878
I refuse to acknowledge this
as anything like an accident.

266
00:14:52,902 --> 00:14:56,489
I think that this is the result
of gross negligence.

267
00:14:56,513 --> 00:15:01,276
(Applause)

268
00:15:01,648 --> 00:15:03,931
Not just BP.

269
00:15:03,955 --> 00:15:10,612
BP operated very sloppily
and very recklessly because they could.

270
00:15:10,636 --> 00:15:12,583
And they were allowed to do so

271
00:15:12,607 --> 00:15:17,000
because of the absolute failure
of oversight of the government

272
00:15:17,024 --> 00:15:21,349
that is supposed to be
our government, protecting us.

273
00:15:23,605 --> 00:15:25,114
It turns out that...

274
00:15:25,138 --> 00:15:28,369
You see this sign on every commercial
vessel in the United States...

275
00:15:28,393 --> 00:15:30,995
You know, if you spilled
a couple of gallons of oil,

276
00:15:31,019 --> 00:15:32,398
you would be in big trouble.

277
00:15:32,422 --> 00:15:37,029
And you have to really wonder
who are the laws made for,

278
00:15:37,053 --> 00:15:40,725
and who has gotten above the laws.

279
00:15:40,749 --> 00:15:43,100
And there are things
that we can do in the future.

280
00:15:43,124 --> 00:15:46,176
We could have the kinds of equipment
that we would really need.

281
00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:48,803
It would not take
an awful lot to anticipate

282
00:15:49,176 --> 00:15:51,571
that after making 30,000 holes

283
00:15:51,595 --> 00:15:54,420
in the sea floor of the Gulf
of Mexico looking for oil,

284
00:15:54,444 --> 00:15:56,837
oil might start coming out of one of them.

285
00:15:56,861 --> 00:16:00,021
And you'd have some idea of what to do.

286
00:16:00,045 --> 00:16:02,336
That's certainly
one of the things we need to do.

287
00:16:02,360 --> 00:16:06,409
But I think we have to understand
where this leak really started from.

288
00:16:07,300 --> 00:16:12,647
It really started from the destruction
of the idea that the government is there

289
00:16:12,671 --> 00:16:14,386
because it's our government,

290
00:16:14,410 --> 00:16:17,294
meant to protect
the larger public interest.

291
00:16:21,300 --> 00:16:25,260
So I think that the oil blowout,
the bank bailout,

292
00:16:25,940 --> 00:16:32,605
the mortgage crisis and all these things
are absolutely symptoms of the same cause.

293
00:16:33,536 --> 00:16:36,405
We still seem to understand that at least,

294
00:16:36,429 --> 00:16:40,819
we need the police to protect us
from a few bad people.

295
00:16:40,843 --> 00:16:43,846
And even though the police
can be a little annoying at times...

296
00:16:43,870 --> 00:16:45,781
Giving us tickets and stuff like that...

297
00:16:45,805 --> 00:16:48,330
Nobody says that we should
just get rid of them.

298
00:16:48,354 --> 00:16:51,276
But in the entire rest
of government right now

299
00:16:51,300 --> 00:16:53,162
and for the last at least 30 years,

300
00:16:53,186 --> 00:16:56,276
there has been a culture of deregulation

301
00:16:56,300 --> 00:17:01,706
that is caused directly by the people
who we need to be protected from,

302
00:17:02,254 --> 00:17:04,777
buying the government out from under us.

303
00:17:05,563 --> 00:17:12,563
(Applause)

304
00:17:15,221 --> 00:17:18,027
Now this has been a problem
for a very, very long time.

305
00:17:18,464 --> 00:17:23,824
You can see that corporations were illegal
at the founding of America,

306
00:17:23,848 --> 00:17:26,556
and even Thomas Jefferson complained

307
00:17:26,579 --> 00:17:32,196
that they were already bidding defiance
to the laws of our country.

308
00:17:33,462 --> 00:17:36,357
OK, people who say they're conservative,

309
00:17:36,991 --> 00:17:41,804
if they really wanted to be
really conservative and patriotic,

310
00:17:41,828 --> 00:17:44,872
they would tell
these corporations to go to hell.

311
00:17:45,483 --> 00:17:48,300
That's what it would really mean
to be conservative.

312
00:17:49,107 --> 00:17:53,805
So what we really need to do
is regain the idea

313
00:17:53,829 --> 00:17:57,044
that it's our government
safeguarding our interests,

314
00:17:57,068 --> 00:18:01,276
and regain a sense of unity
and common cause in our country

315
00:18:01,300 --> 00:18:02,929
that really has been lost.

316
00:18:04,232 --> 00:18:06,162
I think there are signs of hope.

317
00:18:06,186 --> 00:18:08,276
We seem to be waking up a little bit.

318
00:18:08,715 --> 00:18:11,727
The Glass-Steagall Act...
Which was really to protect us

319
00:18:11,751 --> 00:18:14,777
from the kind of thing
that caused the recession to happen,

320
00:18:14,801 --> 00:18:18,493
and the bank meltdown and all that stuff
that required the bailouts...

321
00:18:18,517 --> 00:18:22,732
That was put in effect in 1933,
was systematically destroyed.

322
00:18:23,237 --> 00:18:26,974
Now there's a mood to put
some of that stuff back in place,

323
00:18:26,998 --> 00:18:31,519
but the lobbyists are already there
trying to weaken the regulations

324
00:18:31,543 --> 00:18:34,276
after the legislation has just passed.

325
00:18:34,300 --> 00:18:36,276
So it's a continued fight.

326
00:18:36,300 --> 00:18:38,348
It's a historic moment right now.

327
00:18:38,372 --> 00:18:42,385
We're either going to have an absolutely
unmitigated catastrophe

328
00:18:42,409 --> 00:18:44,046
of this oil leak in the Gulf,

329
00:18:44,070 --> 00:18:46,716
or we will make the moment
we need out of this,

330
00:18:46,740 --> 00:18:48,407
as many people have noted today.

331
00:18:48,431 --> 00:18:50,087
There's certainly a common theme

332
00:18:50,111 --> 00:18:52,518
about needing to make
the moment out of this.

333
00:18:52,542 --> 00:18:56,557
We've been through this before
with other ways of offshore drilling.

334
00:18:56,581 --> 00:18:59,276
The first offshore wells
were called whales.

335
00:18:59,605 --> 00:19:02,463
The first offshore drills
were called harpoons.

336
00:19:02,487 --> 00:19:05,276
We emptied the ocean
of the whales at that time.

337
00:19:06,035 --> 00:19:07,731
Now are we stuck with this?

338
00:19:07,755 --> 00:19:11,667
Ever since we lived in caves,
every time we wanted any energy,

339
00:19:11,691 --> 00:19:15,242
we lit something on fire,
and that is still what we're doing.

340
00:19:15,266 --> 00:19:19,460
We're still lighting something on fire
every time we want energy.

341
00:19:19,890 --> 00:19:23,375
And people say we can't have clean energy

342
00:19:23,399 --> 00:19:25,711
because it's too expensive.

343
00:19:26,300 --> 00:19:28,072
Who says it's too expensive?

344
00:19:28,096 --> 00:19:30,354
People who sell us fossil fuels.

345
00:19:30,378 --> 00:19:33,276
We've been here before with energy,

346
00:19:33,300 --> 00:19:37,401
and people saying the economy
cannot withstand a switch,

347
00:19:37,425 --> 00:19:40,637
because the cheapest energy was slavery.

348
00:19:40,661 --> 00:19:43,418
Energy is always a moral issue.

349
00:19:43,442 --> 00:19:45,707
It's an issue that is moral right now.

350
00:19:45,731 --> 00:19:48,274
It's a matter of right and wrong.

351
00:19:48,298 --> 00:19:49,466
Thank you very much.

352
00:19:49,490 --> 00:19:50,863
(Applause)