Be Curious: Exploring Ocean and Atmosphere Questions

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Do you have questions about the ocean? Or maybe about our climate or

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atmosphere? Maybe you want to know, do megalodons still

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exist? Or what's up with climate change? Is it actually real?

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or even mermaids. Are they real? These are questions that

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are all answered in the new book, Megalodons, Mermaids, and

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Climate Change. There are more questions because they answer questions for

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the ocean and atmosphere. These are common questions and maybe some

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questions that are not so common that are here to help you

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and we have the authors Ellen Prager and Dave

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Jones on the podcast for today to help you

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answer those questions and discuss their book where they just help you know about

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common questions around the ocean and atmosphere. So I can't wait to hear from them. Let's

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start the show. Hey

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.

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I'm your host Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how

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you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by

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taking action. Today is a very interesting day because

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today we're going to be talking about questions, questions around the ocean and

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atmosphere, questions that I feel people ask all the

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time, either myself, Dave Jones, who's on the podcast today as

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a guest, and Ellen Prager, who's also on a podcast today, to

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talk about their new book that answer the questions that you may have or

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that other people may have, or maybe you don't even think you have these questions, but you

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need to know about them, or you want to know about them once you figure that out. And

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these are fun questions. Some of them are a little more serious. Some of them

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are fun. They have some snarky remarks to them. They have some

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fun remarks to them. They have some very serious remarks to them. But they're questions that

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I feel like everybody should know about. And it's very difficult to

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kind of do a Google search on them, because as we discussed in the interview, which

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you'll hear in a second, you just don't know, you know,

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what information you're getting, if the right question is being answered

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the proper way, or if it's being influenced by somebody or not. And

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what I love about this book is that Ellen and Dave have a huge

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network of meteorologists, scientists, marine

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biologists, marine conservationists, oceanographers to

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help answer those questions if they don't know it or even if they do but

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they want to know the updated information because all this information is changing as

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research goes on and on and on. They have you

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know decades of experience, and they wanted to help out

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and provide a book That's a resource for you whether you're

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12 years old whether you're 120 years old it does not matter They're

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here to help you out, and I just can't wait for you

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to listen to this interview So let's listen to the interview with Ellen Prager

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and Dave Jones on Megalodons mermaids and

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climate change answers to your ocean and atmosphere questions

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Enjoy the interview, and I will talk to you after Hey, Alan. Hey,

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Dave. Welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are

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you ready to talk about really ocean literature, which I'm really excited

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We're ready. Right on. I love it. I love

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this energy. This is going to be a lot of fun. Alan,

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this is a returning guest spot for you. I think you were like

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my second or third guest on the podcast. It was one of my first. So

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hopefully I'm a lot better interviewer now than I was back back almost 10 years ago.

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But it's so much fun to be able to have you back. And Dave, welcome. This is

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the first time you're on the podcast, hopefully not the last. And we're going to

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be talking about a new book that you have coming out in

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October. It's called Megalodons, Mermaids, and Climate Change,

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Ocean and Atmosphere Questions. I'm

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excited because I feel like this is a book that is almost perfect

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timing just in general. There's a lot of questions out there

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and sometimes the answers are not exactly what you'd expect or

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really hard to believe depending on what sites you're looking at or

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where you're trying to find those resources. So it's nice to be able to have a book

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like this in the way it's presented and everything. I think it's going to be really great. So

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we're going to get into that. But before we do, let's just get reacquainted

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and acquainted with you, Dave, and reacquainted with you, Ellen. Ellen, why don't you just kind of

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Well, thank you so much for having us. Of course. I am Ellen Prager.

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I am a marine scientist by training, but

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I've had all these amazing jobs. Maybe some

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would say adventures in ocean science from

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teaching oceanography on shore for six weeks to

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out at sea for six weeks with Sea Education Association. I

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ran a marine lab. in a very remote island in the Bahamas.

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I have all sorts of stories because that could be a whole other podcast. I

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worked for the U.S. Geological Survey doing research. I

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was the assistant dean at the University of Miami Rosensteil School. Was

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the chief scientist for the world's only undersea research station. Actually

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lived twice underwater for two weeks. But

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what I discovered was I have this real passion for how

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do we make science entertaining and understandable for

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people of all ages who aren't necessarily scientists. Oh,

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and I almost forgot. This is since my last, oh,

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this is important. Since the last I was on with you, probably my

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claim to fame is I was a consultant on

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Oh, wow. That

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is cool! I did not know that. Oh, wow.

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So with this whole idea of communications, I started writing books. I

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started writing popular science books and children's books. I wrote some eco-adventure

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novels. And so it's really been about how do we make

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science entertaining, understandable, and usable

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She works a lot, I'm sure. That I know.

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I can see it in the updates. I've been following you for a while and

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just seeing what you're being up to. I didn't know about the Moana thing. We're going to ask

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some questions about that and how that works. I think that's really

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cool to be able to do that and just numerous

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speaking opportunities and engagements and being able to engage

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with people, like you said, who are non-scientists I feel is so important.

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I think it's one of the the front lines of conservation that we never really think about

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when we think about becoming marine biologists and marine conservationists. So

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definitely appreciate the work you do and have been doing and continue to

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do on this. We really, really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Dave,

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let's get to know you a little bit. Can you just let us know who you are and what

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Sure. Yeah, I'm Dave Jones. I'm the founder and CEO of

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Storm Center Communications, and I'm going to have to step out of the

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ocean just for a little bit, but I'll maintain the vapor part. I'm

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a meteorologist, and so we do

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a lot of forecasting of the atmosphere, right? So in my

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past, included working at NASA Goddard Space

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Flight Center and their global modeling and simulation division when

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I was in college and then a little bit after that. Then I worked for

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a computer weather graphics company and I helped design

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computer weather graphics systems that broadcast meteorologists would

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use around the country. and around the world. So I would travel

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to TV stations around the country and train those

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broadcast Mets how to put together their forecasts and how to

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put together graphics for their shows. And then I

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helped a company start up in the Pacific Northwest forecasting winds

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for windsurfers. That was pretty awesome. And

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then I ended up working for NBC4 in

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Washington, D.C. I was a broadcast meteorologist myself

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for About 10 years in Washington, and

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that was really the source of a lot of our questions, I

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think, that we put in the book. Right. And

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so that's very interesting. And then in 2000, I

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left NBC and started my own company. called

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Storm Center Communications, and that's what we're doing today, working

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on a lot of technology to help people share data, access

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data, and share it amongst other computers in

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a real-time collaborative environment. So we

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can all be on the same map looking at the same data, and

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we can help people understand the value of data

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You said something at the end that was really important is that sharing of data. So before,

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was it just like, you know, different regions had their own silos in

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terms of they would collect the data, they would present it in their own kind

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of way. And then another, like the Southwest region, the Northwest region

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Yeah, Andrew, you have it. You know, it's a silo is the,

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is the key word there. And that's the way that many agencies work

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and organizations where they cure it, collect and curate their

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own data. And it's very difficult for anyone else

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in any other science, or if you don't know, because

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you don't know a specific person, how to access the

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data, it's very difficult. And that's why we

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developed what we call GeoCollaborate, so we can access

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disparate data sets and bring them together into

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one map so everybody can see it in a real-time collaborative

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Yeah, and even, like, I would imagine the way it's displayed before,

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when they're in the silos, probably displayed differently from region to region. Now

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it's all the same. So it makes it just uniform, really

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easy to make, you know, seeing the connections

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between the regions. Obviously, you know, the weather doesn't stop

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at borders or the weather doesn't stop within regions. So you're probably seeing a

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lot more, and it's easier for not only meteorologists, but also just

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Yeah, and it turns out that the weather has a little bit to do with the

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Just a little bit. In

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the beginning of the book that we're going to talk about, we have a graphic

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of us having an arm wrestling and over my head I have a thought bubble says

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ocean and Dave over here says one says atmosphere. So we're, you

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And I'm sweating for some reason while I'm arm

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I love it. Well, you know, it's really interesting, too, because, you know, growing

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up, you know, wanting to be in marine biology, you start, as you learn, you

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know, both fields, oceans, you have to learn climate. And when you

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learn climate, you have to learn oceans. Obviously, they're, as we mentioned, they're

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very, very connected. But, you know, what's interesting is both of

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you have had such a You

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walk that line of science and data, but

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you also walk the line of presenting it in front of people and taking

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that complex information and being like, here you go, this

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is what's happening. We'll start with you, Ellen. How did

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you develop that skill set? to

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take the data, you know, talk about even coral reefs, right? Like,

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you know, you headed a research station, you know,

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you did a lot with coral reefs, you knew a lot of information. How

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do you learn that skill set to present it to people of

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So, I think there's two things. One, I think

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you have a passion for it, an interest in doing it, and you, for

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me, and, you know, when I started doing a lot of

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public speaking and I Went on air to become sort

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of an on-air expert and I've been on CNN and NBC and

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all those. I didn't train for that. But

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what I would do is I would learn from my mistakes. And I

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made many to begin. But I think you have to pay attention.

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Like, oh, my audience, their eyes are glazing over. They have no

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idea. And then I would change what I was saying. And so I

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had a passion for doing it. It turns out I think I have an

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inherent maybe strength because I really like people. I like interacting with

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people. I like hearing what they have to say and really listening to

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them. And so my skills have evolved over

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time, just because I've seen what works, what doesn't work. And

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I'm really trying to stay aware of that. If I'm talking to an audience and

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I've lost them, I'm like, oh, I gotta shift gears. So it's not,

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you know, you can have some natural talent for it. But

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you have to learn. I learned a lot. Oh my gosh, I look back at

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my first appearances on television and I'm like, oh. But I

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have learned a ton by doing it and now I love it. But

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it's, you know, also as a scientist at the beginning I was so nervous

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because I was, I have to get every single technical detail right.

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And when I realized that the people I was talking to, I didn't have

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to get those technical details exact. They

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could be right, but maybe a little bit broader, maybe not

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exact. And it was much easier. So I don't know, Dave, how about

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Yeah. No, I think that that's right. But although when you're a

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meteorologist, everybody thinks that you get paid for being right 50 percent

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So I was going to mention that. I was like, you're probably in

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the summer. You're probably the most like most loved person ever.

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And then in the winter and you're like, no. And if you get the weather wrong or the

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weather changes, they're like, oh, we hate this guy. Like, why would

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Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And Lord help you if you get a

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Oh, gosh. Yes. Because

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that's going to change anything, right? Yeah. But

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it's interesting, too, because growing up as

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a marine, wanting to be a meteorologist, well, I

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can't even say it, weather person, let's just

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say. What is your thought process wanting to be in

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that field? Is it you want to be in front of a camera and

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talking about the weather? Or you want to be studying at NASA, which you've

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That's a great question. Because, you know, my first, my

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first experience with weather was very electrifying. I

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was six years old, I was looking out my bedroom window,

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and I saw lightning strike a tree across the street. Oh,

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wow. And then I saw ball lightning, which is

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a ball of energy, right out across the

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street, sort of towards my house. And I was just

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you know, six years old, I was glued to it. And and

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then all of a sudden it just disappeared in midair and went away.

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And so that was it. That's all from I was six

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years old till today. It's meteorology all the way. So that's

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Now, going from like presenting in front of people to doing like

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research on on sort of the climate. How

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did you sort of manage that? Like you obviously started off at NASA doing

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doing some research areas and then going into broadcasting.

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It was really very, very interesting. I was very fortunate when

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I was in college. And maybe we'll talk about this a little bit about, you

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know, asking questions and being curious about things. When

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I was at University of Maryland, there was a classmate

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of mine in my cloud physics class. Oh,

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boy. And he said to me, he said, I

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was working at NASA at the time, and

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I was in class, and he said, hey, have you ever thought about doing TV? I

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intern over at NBC4. And

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he said, do you ever think about television? I said, no, not

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really. And so he said, well, you ought to come over, you

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know, and just see what I do. So, you know, I was

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doing, supporting a research scientist at NASA. And

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then I went over to experience NBC, And

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it's a totally different pace, right? I mean, deadlines all

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the time. You have to be on at 5.15 and

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6.15 and all that stuff. So I wasn't on the air then, I was just creating graphics.

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But the pressure is there to create those graphics to be

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ready for the chief meteorologist at that time to go on the

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air. And so I just fell in love with,

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I love doing supporting research at NASA, but I

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love the fast paceness of news. And

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so I started to bring some things from NASA over

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to NBC, like 3D hurricane visualizations. And

255
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the meteorologists would put them on the air. And all of

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a sudden, the researcher at NASA got more funding. So

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it's like, wow, this is pretty cool. So, you

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know, it's that research to operations transition that

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That's really cool. I love that. I love that aspect. Now,

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you know, over your both of you over over your times, like your career

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periods, we've seen a drastic change in our climate. You

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know, we've been predicting it. You both have probably been predicting it

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for a while. Hopefully we would never going to see it in our lifetimes. But

264
00:16:51,375 --> 00:16:54,498
obviously, it's here we see a lot of consequences due to

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climate change. Dave, we'll start with you. From

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your perspective, did you get a lot, like, were you openly

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talking about climate change? Maybe not on

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NBC4, like during your broadcast, but was that a

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topic of conversation during your time, throughout your career? And

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Yeah, no, thanks for that question. I think I

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was exposed to more climate type data

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as I worked at NASA. And so I almost feel

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like I grew up at a time when the

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discoveries were just happening. And so while

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I wasn't a scientist, I was, you know, did my undergraduate work,

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but I wasn't a PhD. like some people. And

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so, you know, I just would sit there and observe and

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listen to the scientists talk. And, and so

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I knew there was something going on. And then of course, when

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I got in through college, and then I started doing other

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work with, you know, weather graphic systems and stuff

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and training broadcast meteorologists, I would end up teaching

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them maybe how to integrate some climate information into

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their broadcasts. Not formally, but just saying, hey, you

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know, I mean, you might want to compare how many record highs we've been

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having with how many we had 10 years ago, you know, and

287
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giving them those kinds of ideas that they would take and run with.

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Love that. I love that. Now, Ellen, you've talked

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to a lot of people over your time being a

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science communicator and a marine science communicator. How

291
00:18:32,273 --> 00:18:35,579
has your message of climate change changed over

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Well, that's again, that's a tough but good question. So,

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you know, I, when I was doing research, and in some of the

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labs that I worked in, I was very heavily involved in coral reefs. And

295
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I'm not sure, well, I shouldn't say this anymore, I would have

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said, I'm not sure there's anything that's more obvious, the

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impacts of climate change, but that's not true anymore. Now with extreme weather events,

298
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What we're seeing, it's very obvious, but with coral reefs, I

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very early on saw the impacts of climate change

300
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and the just extreme consequences

301
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of prolonged higher water temperatures and

302
00:19:13,859 --> 00:19:17,020
having big mass coral mortality events. Got to

303
00:19:17,080 --> 00:19:21,002
the point where it was very hard for me to go diving in

304
00:19:21,062 --> 00:19:24,443
places where I had spent a lot of time in coral reefs and

305
00:19:24,463 --> 00:19:28,022
to go diving and just see rubble. And it's still very

306
00:19:28,102 --> 00:19:31,243
hard for me. I love coral reefs. It's one of

307
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the things that got me into marine science. In graduate school, I

308
00:19:34,524 --> 00:19:38,926
worked in coral reefs. And after that, I worked in coral reefs. So

309
00:19:39,146 --> 00:19:42,947
I will say, for me, at first, I didn't want to

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talk about the extremes, because I thought that was too alarmist. I

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thought, like you said, we probably wouldn't see them in

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our lifetime, and we had some time to change

313
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our path. But unfortunately, that's not true anymore. And so now I

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am very willing to talk about the extremes

315
00:20:00,471 --> 00:20:03,712
that we're seeing today and that we don't have any time left. We have to

316
00:20:03,732 --> 00:20:07,634
make changes now. And so, you know, because

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00:20:07,674 --> 00:20:11,876
you used to hear that, oh, that person is being an alarmist. But

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I think people between wildfires, flooding, rapid

319
00:20:15,358 --> 00:20:18,739
intensification of hurricanes, what's going on with quarries, it's all

320
00:20:19,220 --> 00:20:22,621
very obvious now, the extreme heat. So don't think

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00:20:22,681 --> 00:20:26,319
it's alarmist anymore to say, how big

322
00:20:28,581 --> 00:20:31,804
And usually scientists are very conservative, right?

323
00:20:31,824 --> 00:20:35,147
They don't want to be on the right side of the bell curve, you

324
00:20:38,309 --> 00:20:41,932
And I think in terms of the scientific community, I think you've seen a lot more scientists

325
00:20:44,758 --> 00:20:48,040
You know, it's not just climate change is real, but it is dire and

326
00:20:50,402 --> 00:20:53,985
Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely more of that alarming messaging

327
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coming out from scientists, including myself, because

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we have to, you know, because that's what we're seeing. It's really hard to we

329
00:21:00,930 --> 00:21:04,113
don't have to predict as much like, oh, it's going to come. It's like the droughts are going to come.

330
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The wildfires are they're here and they're worse than than ever.

331
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And I think, you know, one thing that I realized from, I think

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what's happening is people are getting personally touched by it. You

333
00:21:14,797 --> 00:21:18,138
know, especially here, I mean, all over the world. But if we focus

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00:21:18,178 --> 00:21:21,880
on North America, you know, I remember last,

335
00:21:22,140 --> 00:21:25,681
right before last year, in 2023, I was saying, you know, in Ontario,

336
00:21:25,701 --> 00:21:29,102
we're pretty good. You know, like, considering all the damage that's

337
00:21:29,122 --> 00:21:32,383
happened on the West Coast and on the East Coast, like, we're kind of protected a

338
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little bit. And we would find, of course, lo and behold, I should have knocked on wood

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00:21:35,684 --> 00:21:39,025
when I said it. You know, we had the wildfires of

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our northern barrier forest across Canada, and we started to get smoke

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from the north. And not only did we get it, but I mean, we saw

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the images of New York City getting it from northern

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Quebec, and all that smoke coming in. And now we're saying, OK,

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now we're starting to, we can't, there's no denying it now that

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something's happening. But I find now,

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and we'll get into it just, because we're going to talk about the book in just a few seconds, I

347
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think this is a good segue into it, because you mentioned it on

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the cover, is you have the words climate

349
00:22:10,866 --> 00:22:14,169
change on there. And sometimes that can be a

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very polarizing phrase to

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give people, is we're going to talk about climate change now. And

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00:22:22,197 --> 00:22:25,541
some people are like, oh, no, it doesn't exist. There's still some denial. There's still

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some, oh, well, we've just got to live with it. We've seen the messaging change from

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various influences. But do you find, for

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both of you, and Dave, we can start with you, when you speak to

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people about climate change, do you find that just saying

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those words change the way

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the conversation goes in the first place. Do you ever omit those words

359
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and just talk about, look, we're seeing flooding, or we're seeing droughts, or

360
00:22:53,066 --> 00:22:56,308
Yeah, I typically don't, you know, go into a room and say, let's

361
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talk climate change. But we do occasionally,

362
00:23:00,990 --> 00:23:04,231
you know, somewhat frequently go into places and listen to

363
00:23:04,311 --> 00:23:07,593
other people talking. Right. And we do

364
00:23:08,073 --> 00:23:11,275
something that would be great for everybody to do. And that

365
00:23:11,355 --> 00:23:14,636
is meet them where they are. So as they

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00:23:14,716 --> 00:23:19,325
talk, they might be saying, you know, I, I don't know, I haven't caught anywhere

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00:23:19,385 --> 00:23:22,907
near as many fish as I did this time last year. And you know, you

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00:23:22,927 --> 00:23:26,029
know, we might say, well, what do you think is causing that? You

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00:23:26,069 --> 00:23:29,512
know, what's the what's the problem? I don't know. I mean, the ocean seems

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to be pretty warm. Maybe they don't like warm weather, warm water. And

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so, you know, you can start that conversation. You don't

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really want to start with a kind of polarizing term

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so they think that you're going to be trying to teach them something, but

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00:23:43,827 --> 00:23:47,309
just talk to them and ask questions. That's the really key

375
00:23:47,449 --> 00:23:50,871
thing about this book. And what we try to tell everybody we

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Well, and I think the other part is if we do bring up climate

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change and somebody says, oh, well, you know, I don't really believe that. And

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we say, well, Why not? Why not? And in a very, I

379
00:24:04,559 --> 00:24:08,062
think it's very important to be respectful and not condescending. And,

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00:24:08,442 --> 00:24:11,625
you know, a lot of times we'll hear somebody say something and we're like, well, why do

381
00:24:11,665 --> 00:24:15,068
you think that? You know, even if it's something we know is wrong on

382
00:24:15,948 --> 00:24:19,471
the data, we want to understand where did that information

383
00:24:19,531 --> 00:24:22,993
come from? Why is it that they are thinking that way? And

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so I think it's really important to ask questions and listen

385
00:24:26,434 --> 00:24:29,835
to other people and just have a respectful conversation. We've had

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00:24:30,675 --> 00:24:34,337
several of those with people who, when we first started, were really

387
00:24:34,397 --> 00:24:37,858
skeptical. And then when, by the end of the conversation, they were like, well, you

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00:24:37,878 --> 00:24:41,659
know, I think, you know, maybe, maybe you're right. And

389
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so, you know, and again, it's also, being

390
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able to use the right language. We don't have to speak in science jargony

391
00:24:48,810 --> 00:24:52,291
terms to explain, um, you know, what are people's

392
00:24:52,351 --> 00:24:55,611
concerns? So all of that, I think we, we try and do that

393
00:24:57,892 --> 00:25:01,672
When I think it's really great. I've, I've heard this from, from a lot of other people lately

394
00:25:01,712 --> 00:25:04,893
as well. And I had a guest on a Janelle Kelman who she

395
00:25:04,913 --> 00:25:08,554
used to be the mayor of city of Sausalito in California. And

396
00:25:08,574 --> 00:25:11,754
now she sits on the, on the city council and she's going to run in 2026 for the, uh,

397
00:25:11,774 --> 00:25:14,995
the lieutenant governorship, uh, of California. And

398
00:25:15,015 --> 00:25:18,579
she was saying the same thing in the city. She wouldn't mention climate change.

399
00:25:18,599 --> 00:25:21,782
She would just kind of like, hey, what's your concern? In

400
00:25:21,802 --> 00:25:25,025
your city, talking to her constituents, what's

401
00:25:25,045 --> 00:25:28,108
your concern? They'd be like, well, I'm worried about flooding, or I'm worried about wildfires, or I'm

402
00:25:28,128 --> 00:25:31,451
worried about this. OK, let's see what policies we could put in place

403
00:25:31,912 --> 00:25:35,195
to stop that. And lo and behold, there would be policies that

404
00:25:35,255 --> 00:25:38,718
met up with a lot of the solutions. that you would see people

405
00:25:38,778 --> 00:25:42,161
propose for climate change, but you take the word out

406
00:25:42,181 --> 00:25:45,363
and sometimes, like you said, you meet them where they are, like, what's your concern? What

407
00:25:45,383 --> 00:25:48,986
are you worried about? You know, and I think that we

408
00:25:49,006 --> 00:25:52,829
start to see the answers come out and less of a polarization

409
00:25:52,870 --> 00:25:56,292
and more of like, well, yeah, this is affecting you and me at the same time.

410
00:25:56,573 --> 00:25:59,935
Locally here, you know, we've been having some crazy weather,

411
00:26:00,055 --> 00:26:03,668
you know, as the humidity increases, we've had really, really hot weather. But

412
00:26:03,708 --> 00:26:07,231
we've been starting to get squalls, like squall warnings and flash

413
00:26:07,271 --> 00:26:10,833
flooding. And people are concerned that their

414
00:26:10,933 --> 00:26:14,176
basements and their backyards and everything is going to continue to

415
00:26:14,256 --> 00:26:17,438
flood over time. So we need to make those changes. Forget about

416
00:26:17,478 --> 00:26:20,600
climate change. What do we need to do to make those changes? And how do we prepare for

417
00:26:24,223 --> 00:26:27,485
Sometimes I get conversations started by saying, hey, let's talk about the

418
00:26:32,818 --> 00:26:36,060
And that's when I say, excuse me, why don't I

419
00:26:40,183 --> 00:26:43,426
I love it. You never know when you might get that, right? You

420
00:26:43,466 --> 00:26:46,788
could be at MIT and somebody comes up and asks

421
00:26:46,828 --> 00:26:51,091
you that. But this leads us great into the book because we

422
00:26:51,131 --> 00:26:54,193
talk about asking questions. We talk about being curious. And there are a

423
00:26:54,233 --> 00:26:58,548
lot of people who are curious but may not have the

424
00:26:58,608 --> 00:27:01,949
ability to get the answers that they want, and not just

425
00:27:01,989 --> 00:27:05,570
saying they don't have the intellect, it's trying to find the right

426
00:27:05,870 --> 00:27:10,072
answer to things. We were talking about this before we started recording. Social

427
00:27:10,112 --> 00:27:14,173
media and the internet has been wonderful in sharing information. But

428
00:27:14,193 --> 00:27:17,475
it doesn't mean you're getting the right information. I remember I grew up without

429
00:27:17,515 --> 00:27:21,018
the Internet and in the mid 90s we started to get Internet to our houses

430
00:27:21,058 --> 00:27:24,360
and we started to learn more about the Internet. But I remember my teachers, my high school teachers

431
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,542
saying, hey, don't always believe what you read on the

432
00:27:27,582 --> 00:27:31,005
Internet. I think that's changed a lot where now we rely so

433
00:27:31,065 --> 00:27:34,967
much on the Internet and so much on information that comes to us that we believe

434
00:27:35,147 --> 00:27:38,309
sometimes we believe like the first thing that we see or

435
00:27:38,349 --> 00:27:41,832
that we Google search or that we, you know, wherever wherever you're searching or

436
00:27:41,892 --> 00:27:45,214
watching a video or things like that. It can be very difficult to

437
00:27:45,254 --> 00:27:48,577
get that source. And so you can ask that question, but are you going to get the right

438
00:27:48,637 --> 00:27:52,380
answers? You have provided a solution for that by putting together, both

439
00:27:52,420 --> 00:27:55,863
of you, putting together this book called Megalodons, Mermaids,

440
00:27:55,943 --> 00:27:59,826
and Climate Change, Answers to Your Ocean and Atmospheric Questions.

441
00:28:00,447 --> 00:28:03,629
I think it's laid out perfectly. I think this is a book that

442
00:28:03,649 --> 00:28:07,192
a lot of people need. Now how, obviously using both

443
00:28:07,232 --> 00:28:10,535
of your backgrounds and your careers, what was

444
00:28:10,595 --> 00:28:13,846
the reasoning for this book? And like, why

445
00:28:17,249 --> 00:28:20,432
So we love to ask questions. I'll have to tell a

446
00:28:20,472 --> 00:28:23,956
little story about Dave. Okay. Let's

447
00:28:23,996 --> 00:28:27,179
see, two, two years ago, and it continued this year, I will say,

448
00:28:27,199 --> 00:28:30,903
but two years ago, we were at the American Meteorological Society

449
00:28:31,603 --> 00:28:34,746
conference for broadcast meteorologists. And every time somebody would

450
00:28:34,766 --> 00:28:37,827
give a talk, at the end of the talk, Dave would go up to the mic, I have a

451
00:28:37,847 --> 00:28:41,289
question. And they'd be like, Dave Jones, Dave Jones, Dave Jones.

452
00:28:41,309 --> 00:28:44,510
So at the break, the moderator, the

453
00:28:44,610 --> 00:28:47,911
people organizing the conference at the break, came over to Dave and

454
00:28:55,876 --> 00:28:59,120
It was perfect. The truth is, then a young

455
00:28:59,181 --> 00:29:02,525
meteorologist later in the conference got up to the mic, they had

456
00:29:02,585 --> 00:29:05,889
a mic in the front, and people wouldn't ask questions. The speaker

457
00:29:05,929 --> 00:29:09,273
would stop, nobody was asked. This young woman got up and she said,

458
00:29:10,014 --> 00:29:13,418
I'm really very nervous about asking a question, but hearing Dave

459
00:29:13,458 --> 00:29:16,821
Jones, I'm going to do it.

460
00:29:16,861 --> 00:29:20,785
We both feel that asking questions is really important.

461
00:29:20,885 --> 00:29:24,268
Not only when you're looking at some information online, you

462
00:29:24,288 --> 00:29:27,512
want to ask questions and do some investigation, but

463
00:29:27,532 --> 00:29:31,355
when you're giving talks, we both do a lot of public speaking, We

464
00:29:31,395 --> 00:29:34,858
hate it when nobody asks questions. We want people to ask questions. They

465
00:29:34,938 --> 00:29:38,422
may make you look at a subject from a different perspective. They

466
00:29:38,462 --> 00:29:41,804
may test you to think in a different way. But it's how

467
00:29:41,885 --> 00:29:45,027
we learn. There's a, sort of in the dedication of the book,

468
00:29:45,067 --> 00:29:48,490
it says, questions are the lifeblood of learning. And

469
00:29:48,530 --> 00:29:52,270
we really believe that. And so that was That

470
00:29:52,350 --> 00:29:55,471
and the idea that there's a lot of misinformation out there. And so we

471
00:29:55,491 --> 00:29:59,293
thought, what a great way to combat that misinformation by

472
00:29:59,393 --> 00:30:02,834
giving the answers to the questions that we and our colleagues

473
00:30:02,894 --> 00:30:06,275
most frequently we get. And plus, kind of have fun with it with

474
00:30:06,476 --> 00:30:09,857
using something like the zany questions or things.

475
00:30:10,197 --> 00:30:13,998
So we can make it fun and yet very informative.

476
00:30:14,579 --> 00:30:17,880
And having 26 nieces and nephews, I get a lot of zany questions too.

477
00:30:18,953 --> 00:30:22,735
Wow, 26 nieces and nephews. That's awesome. That

478
00:30:22,795 --> 00:30:25,837
is, let's make family functions a lot of fun. That's a

479
00:30:29,219 --> 00:30:33,501
Field hockey. Weather. Weather, yeah, exactly. I

480
00:30:33,541 --> 00:30:38,044
love it. I love it. So now, you know, laying out this book, Dave,

481
00:30:38,244 --> 00:30:41,486
I know Ellen, you've obviously written quite a number of books. Dave,

482
00:30:43,493 --> 00:30:46,776
Well, this is so so here's the thing. I'm really excited about this one

483
00:30:46,796 --> 00:30:50,420
because it's it's I know it's going to be my bestseller yet. And okay,

484
00:30:54,383 --> 00:30:57,726
I love it. Well, it must have been nice to because you had Ellen to help you out with

485
00:30:58,127 --> 00:31:01,330
the process, right? Like in terms of like, what? Oh,

486
00:31:02,711 --> 00:31:05,928
Careful there. She's great. She's awesome. I

487
00:31:05,968 --> 00:31:09,215
mean, you know, she would say, hey, I need to learn about thunderstorms and stuff like

488
00:31:09,235 --> 00:31:12,462
that. So I'd write something. I'd give her six paragraphs. And she said,

489
00:31:17,101 --> 00:31:20,724
We collaborate very well because we both recognize

490
00:31:21,125 --> 00:31:26,289
that the other person has expertise that we don't have.

491
00:31:26,309 --> 00:31:30,553
We have the same sense of humor, which is really helpful. We

492
00:31:30,633 --> 00:31:34,417
can put in places where we know that they have to be more serious.

493
00:31:35,037 --> 00:31:40,762
Whenever we can inject a little humor, we'll put that in. We

494
00:31:40,782 --> 00:31:44,386
tend to collaborate very well in that sense. There

495
00:31:44,406 --> 00:31:48,170
are things that we each knew a little bit about, but we needed to do some homework

496
00:31:48,310 --> 00:31:51,914
on, so that was good too. And between

497
00:31:51,934 --> 00:31:56,599
the two of us, we have this amazing network of colleagues that

498
00:31:56,639 --> 00:32:00,242
we could go to for questions. We had folks at NASA

499
00:32:00,342 --> 00:32:03,766
on space weather and heliophysics that we actually could

500
00:32:03,846 --> 00:32:06,989
contact and we talked to, we sent some sections to. We

501
00:32:07,029 --> 00:32:10,453
know this amazing climatologist who reviewed a

502
00:32:10,994 --> 00:32:14,237
lot of the science in the book. So that, and they

503
00:32:18,602 --> 00:32:22,164
I think that's awesome. Now, were you each the source of the questions

504
00:32:22,284 --> 00:32:25,886
for ocean and atmosphere? So Dave, did you ask ocean questions?

505
00:32:28,808 --> 00:32:32,069
Well, you know, we might have questions came from, you know, during, we

506
00:32:32,110 --> 00:32:35,331
might have just shared questions. But I think one of the neat

507
00:32:35,351 --> 00:32:38,833
things that we did is we, we did talk to colleagues, and we invited

508
00:32:39,594 --> 00:32:42,995
colleagues to tell us what are some of the, you know, wacky or

509
00:32:43,015 --> 00:32:46,617
zany questions are most frequently asked questions that you get. And,

510
00:32:46,737 --> 00:32:49,959
you know, I have a a network of probably, like Ellen

511
00:32:49,979 --> 00:32:53,839
was saying, probably 1,500 broadcast meteorologists, you

512
00:32:53,879 --> 00:32:57,060
know, and say, hey, send me some of your, you know, wacky questions. If we

513
00:32:57,140 --> 00:33:00,221
use them in the book, we'll tell a little bit about you and

514
00:33:00,261 --> 00:33:03,662
stuff like that. And, you know, we work with NASA and NOAA, like

515
00:33:03,742 --> 00:33:07,202
Ellen said, so we can turn to some of those, you know, folks that

516
00:33:09,723 --> 00:33:13,065
I mean, we got people from the Weather Channel. We got the director of the National

517
00:33:16,246 --> 00:33:19,508
You know, we, you know, some people that we know, we got them and to tell

518
00:33:19,548 --> 00:33:22,809
us their favorite questions. And so, you know, there were questions that we've

519
00:33:24,750 --> 00:33:28,172
And that was, that was, it was really fun to be able to go out and ask people those,

520
00:33:29,852 --> 00:33:33,154
That's amazing. And now when you, when you get to the answers to those

521
00:33:33,234 --> 00:33:37,056
questions, you use your backgrounds, you use your colleagues' backgrounds

522
00:33:37,116 --> 00:33:40,350
and, and and the work that they've done and all the papers that have come out.

523
00:33:41,712 --> 00:33:45,377
You're probably having to search around for new information because obviously

524
00:33:45,397 --> 00:33:49,215
everything's being updated as we speak. How

525
00:33:49,295 --> 00:33:52,397
do you put all that together in, you

526
00:33:52,437 --> 00:33:55,619
know, a succinct and like, as you mentioned, a little

527
00:33:55,659 --> 00:33:58,881
bit of humor at times, a little bit serious at times. How do you put all that

528
00:33:58,921 --> 00:34:02,483
together? So it's not one long drawn, you

529
00:34:04,825 --> 00:34:08,447
I mean, the good thing about Ellen is from the ocean, she knows everything. So

530
00:34:12,950 --> 00:34:17,414
So we, we very purposefully, made

531
00:34:17,454 --> 00:34:20,656
sure that the answers are not that long. In fact, in the beginning of

532
00:34:20,696 --> 00:34:23,898
the book, we have a little note from us and

533
00:34:23,979 --> 00:34:27,241
tells us a little bit about each of us. But we also say this book is

534
00:34:27,281 --> 00:34:30,563
not meant to be a comprehensive encyclopedia about each

535
00:34:30,583 --> 00:34:33,645
of these topics. And then what we do at the end of

536
00:34:33,725 --> 00:34:37,127
the book for every chapter, we have reference material that we

537
00:34:37,367 --> 00:34:40,629
used. And so if people want more detail, they

538
00:34:40,669 --> 00:34:44,092
wanted to learn more, they could go there. We just wanted to include

539
00:34:44,112 --> 00:34:47,414
in there the essence of the answer. What's the essence of

540
00:34:49,936 --> 00:34:53,419
Yeah, yeah. We didn't want all the professors around

541
00:34:53,439 --> 00:34:57,062
the world contacting us, telling us we didn't use the Clausius

542
00:35:01,002 --> 00:35:04,244
And then with the illustrations, we had a lot of fun. We would come up

543
00:35:04,284 --> 00:35:07,725
with an idea for, you know, an illustration that fit

544
00:35:07,765 --> 00:35:10,907
within a topic. And then we would send them to illustrator and we say,

545
00:35:10,947 --> 00:35:15,709
here's what our vision is. And she's done it back. We'd be like, she

546
00:35:15,749 --> 00:35:19,210
was, she was great. And then her name's Elise Burnbach. And

547
00:35:19,250 --> 00:35:22,512
we'd send it back and we'd ask her, can you do this? And she, it was great working with

548
00:35:22,552 --> 00:35:25,934
her. And so we got where we wanted on each of them. And

549
00:35:25,954 --> 00:35:29,805
I think there's about 20, 21 illustrations. And then we have some, color

550
00:35:34,547 --> 00:35:37,928
Yeah. I mean, most of my questions to Elise were, could I have some muscles?

551
00:35:38,568 --> 00:35:42,069
Could you give me some hair,

552
00:35:42,109 --> 00:35:46,371
perhaps? That looks like my teeth, but it's really my mustache. So

553
00:35:48,812 --> 00:35:51,873
Very deep, very deep. But it's interesting. I've had the

554
00:35:51,893 --> 00:35:55,334
opportunity to talk to a lot of authors where they put together, they

555
00:35:55,354 --> 00:35:59,597
collate a lot of information, and they want illustrations to be done. Can

556
00:35:59,617 --> 00:36:03,039
you talk about how important it is to have a great working relationship with

557
00:36:03,099 --> 00:36:07,641
also a great illustrator to understand the message

558
00:36:07,661 --> 00:36:10,763
you're trying to portray? This one seems like you guys have a

559
00:36:10,783 --> 00:36:14,545
great sense of humor, seems like a lot of fun, some of the illustrations sound like

560
00:36:14,605 --> 00:36:18,587
they're a lot of fun as well, but it also has to be pertinent

561
00:36:23,132 --> 00:36:26,235
Not only do you have to have somebody you can work with, but you have

562
00:36:26,255 --> 00:36:29,398
to be able to go back and forth. And she was really good,

563
00:36:29,438 --> 00:36:33,042
because I think in our contract it says you have one redo.

564
00:36:33,442 --> 00:36:36,705
Right. And I'm like, oh, that's going to be tough. And that was not

565
00:36:36,765 --> 00:36:40,168
the case. I mean, there were a couple at three or four. We

566
00:36:40,208 --> 00:36:43,892
have one about lenticular clouds, one of Gay's favorites,

567
00:36:44,232 --> 00:36:47,647
that people often think are UFOs, but they're really clouds. And

568
00:36:47,727 --> 00:36:51,090
she had the illustration. We just were like, that's

569
00:36:51,150 --> 00:36:54,252
not really what they look like. And so we'd say, can you

570
00:36:54,272 --> 00:36:58,155
draw them more like this? And we would send her photographs. And

571
00:36:58,195 --> 00:37:01,577
we'd say, here's, can it look more like this? And so

572
00:37:01,958 --> 00:37:05,400
it's very important. And again, part of it, and this is also in writing,

573
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,883
and when you get to the point of editing things, you have to take your ego out of it.

574
00:37:09,163 --> 00:37:12,485
You have to have a good relationship with an illustrator, a good relationship with

575
00:37:12,505 --> 00:37:15,914
an editor. It's not about, what you want

576
00:37:15,934 --> 00:37:19,095
or what you personally, it's what works the best. What's going to

577
00:37:20,636 --> 00:37:24,218
Yeah. And the first, the first time, uh, I

578
00:37:24,298 --> 00:37:28,120
met or saw Elise was at a natural hazards conference

579
00:37:28,300 --> 00:37:31,802
in Colorado. And it was really amazing because she, there

580
00:37:31,842 --> 00:37:35,064
was a session going on. She was in the,

581
00:37:35,324 --> 00:37:38,725
on the side of the room, sketching out in

582
00:37:38,846 --> 00:37:42,387
real time, uh, the conversation. And

583
00:37:42,447 --> 00:37:46,190
by the end of the session, there was an entire summary

584
00:37:46,590 --> 00:37:50,432
with sketches of what we talked about. And

585
00:37:50,593 --> 00:37:53,875
it I mean, she drew ecosystems, she drew, you know,

586
00:37:53,935 --> 00:37:57,077
the sun and fish and birds and people interacting with

587
00:38:00,259 --> 00:38:04,281
Think about this. Think about like the speed and accuracy of the

588
00:38:04,442 --> 00:38:07,784
way she's able to do that. Yeah, in that time frame.

589
00:38:07,844 --> 00:38:11,207
It's it's crazy. That's insane. Yeah, I love, I

590
00:38:11,287 --> 00:38:14,511
didn't realize how important it was to have an illustrator, I thought having an

591
00:38:14,531 --> 00:38:17,955
illustrator, you just have to have an illustrator, you know, but having

592
00:38:17,995 --> 00:38:21,779
that working relationship is so important, so it's great

593
00:38:22,220 --> 00:38:25,743
Yeah, and to understand your vision, I mean... Yeah. If

594
00:38:25,823 --> 00:38:29,244
she thought we just wanted straight illustrations, it probably would have been difficult.

595
00:38:29,284 --> 00:38:32,486
But when she figured out that we were looking for the humor bent in

596
00:38:32,586 --> 00:38:35,747
it, it changed it. The illustrations changed a

597
00:38:48,651 --> 00:38:51,912
So we have a lot. But one of our favorite ones, and it gets back

598
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:58,761
And so, you know, you want to make sure that the expert you

599
00:38:58,801 --> 00:39:01,962
have is really the expert in the topic that you're talking about. So we

600
00:39:02,002 --> 00:39:06,543
have an illustration of a cow. There's a veterinarian with

601
00:39:07,003 --> 00:39:10,324
a glove, you know, and

602
00:39:19,747 --> 00:39:23,028
So the vet Yeah, what do you think? And the vet

603
00:39:25,930 --> 00:39:29,374
Yeah. No, climate change isn't real. You know, he's

604
00:39:29,414 --> 00:39:32,838
got his arm up there. Yeah. And so it's like, wait

605
00:39:32,898 --> 00:39:36,101
a minute. You're not a

606
00:39:36,241 --> 00:39:39,505
scientist or environmental scientist. Yeah.

607
00:39:43,026 --> 00:39:46,207
For sure. I love that. I love that. Speaking of

608
00:39:46,267 --> 00:39:50,088
that, who is this book designed for?

609
00:39:50,608 --> 00:39:54,209
We talked about people who have curiosity, but everybody has curiosity at every different

610
00:39:54,750 --> 00:39:57,970
age group. It's always good to – these books tend to target a

611
00:39:58,010 --> 00:40:01,492
specific age group and demographic and just audience.

612
00:40:03,152 --> 00:40:06,974
Ellen, typically your books in the past have done more like tween

613
00:40:10,755 --> 00:40:14,316
Yeah, so I kind of have a range of books. Okay. So I've written young

614
00:40:14,356 --> 00:40:17,858
kids books, which are four to seven illustrated. I've written some middle schooler

615
00:40:17,878 --> 00:40:21,799
adventure novels, but I've also written quite a few books that are popular

616
00:40:21,839 --> 00:40:25,341
science. And that's what I would call this. It's popular science, which typically

617
00:40:29,214 --> 00:40:33,142
It's also there are some very ambitious middle

618
00:40:33,182 --> 00:40:36,355
schoolers who would like it too. One of

619
00:40:36,435 --> 00:40:39,638
the best audiences will be educators and

620
00:40:39,799 --> 00:40:43,002
science communicators, like informal educators, because we

621
00:40:48,126 --> 00:40:51,530
So, you know, the target audience is really,

622
00:40:54,572 --> 00:40:58,236
I think it's good, nice

623
00:40:58,296 --> 00:41:02,269
and narrowed down range. I like that. But

624
00:41:02,289 --> 00:41:05,671
these are questions, I mean, these are questions that are asked by everybody

625
00:41:05,711 --> 00:41:09,393
within that age group, right? These are common questions where

626
00:41:09,493 --> 00:41:12,675
sometimes like for us scientists, we're sometimes like, well, how

627
00:41:12,695 --> 00:41:16,136
do you not know that? But a lot of people don't know this kind of stuff. That

628
00:41:16,176 --> 00:41:19,378
information is not available and they need to know the

629
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:26,141
Here's the thing, too, is that I would get asked this all the time, and

630
00:41:26,181 --> 00:41:29,502
it's actually not in this book, but I

631
00:41:29,542 --> 00:41:33,363
would get asked all the time, how did you become

632
00:41:33,523 --> 00:41:36,884
interested in weather, and how did you figure out it

633
00:41:36,924 --> 00:41:40,605
could be a job? Right, yeah. Okay,

634
00:41:40,625 --> 00:41:43,906
yeah, it is in the book, but people would say, I

635
00:41:44,346 --> 00:41:47,507
love the weather, I just never knew I could

636
00:41:47,547 --> 00:41:51,495
make money at it. And so what

637
00:41:51,655 --> 00:41:55,138
I realized early on was

638
00:41:55,178 --> 00:41:58,800
that everybody at some point in their life probably

639
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:02,183
wanted to be a meteorologist. Yeah. You know, because

640
00:42:02,203 --> 00:42:05,745
they're watching the weather. There's

641
00:42:07,827 --> 00:42:11,289
Yeah. It's really they want to be marine biologists. Well,

642
00:42:11,330 --> 00:42:15,043
maybe. Maybe. possible. They

643
00:42:19,205 --> 00:42:22,768
I have to admit, when I tell people I'm a marine biologist

644
00:42:22,788 --> 00:42:26,050
at like parties and things like that, they're telling me, Oh, I always wanted to be a marine, but

645
00:42:26,070 --> 00:42:29,732
I didn't know you can make a career out of it. Exactly. So they're very

646
00:42:37,677 --> 00:42:40,939
And then I go into my speech

647
00:42:40,979 --> 00:42:44,863
about dolphins, and then they're like, oh, oh, no, I don't want to pay for

648
00:42:45,503 --> 00:42:49,226
But you know, it's also really interesting. So we have some wacky questions

649
00:42:49,306 --> 00:42:52,829
which we could talk about, but there are also some really important questions in

650
00:42:52,849 --> 00:42:56,152
this book. And I'm going to give you an example, too, that's so related to

651
00:42:57,533 --> 00:43:00,816
It just came out that there was a storm in St.

652
00:43:00,836 --> 00:43:04,519
Petersburg, Florida, and a group of teens sheltered

653
00:43:04,699 --> 00:43:08,181
under a tree. tree got struck by lightning

654
00:43:08,301 --> 00:43:12,603
and one of those teens very tragically passed away. People

655
00:43:12,723 --> 00:43:16,264
have this misunderstanding that a tree is a safe shelter

656
00:43:16,365 --> 00:43:19,646
in lightning and we have a whole chapter on lightning and

657
00:43:19,686 --> 00:43:23,328
a lot of it is about safety. One of the things we very clearly

658
00:43:23,408 --> 00:43:27,129
say is do not shelter under a tree because

659
00:43:27,369 --> 00:43:30,531
it conducts lightning and it threw the ground and you do not want to be there.

660
00:43:30,551 --> 00:43:33,872
So in addition to the wacky and the fun questions and you

661
00:43:33,892 --> 00:43:37,095
know, just some other, you know, things I think

662
00:43:40,138 --> 00:43:43,942
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, regarding lightning and trees. I mean, I think, I

663
00:43:43,962 --> 00:43:47,365
think a lot of people run under a tree to stay dry.

664
00:43:48,086 --> 00:43:52,133
Right. And they don't want to get wet. But unfortunately, it's

665
00:43:52,433 --> 00:43:56,054
a thunderstorm and lightning likes to strike the

666
00:43:56,094 --> 00:43:59,535
tallest objects. And, you know, we've

667
00:43:59,575 --> 00:44:02,736
seen it. We saw it several years ago, just outside of

668
00:44:02,756 --> 00:44:06,537
the White House in Washington, D.C. Four people went

669
00:44:06,657 --> 00:44:10,358
under a tree to get away from a storm. Lightning struck

670
00:44:13,259 --> 00:44:17,019
And that should not be happening. And it's all about education

671
00:44:17,119 --> 00:44:20,746
and awareness. And so that's, you know, we hope We're

672
00:44:20,986 --> 00:44:24,189
answering some fun questions and things that people are curious about,

673
00:44:24,229 --> 00:44:29,494
but there are also some really important things about hurricanes, lightning, climate

674
00:44:29,514 --> 00:44:32,758
change, all of that. Again, we always say we have

675
00:44:32,778 --> 00:44:35,861
a lot of fun, but we also have some really important topics in

676
00:44:36,581 --> 00:44:39,984
I think that also goes to what you mentioned earlier, Ellen, was

677
00:44:40,085 --> 00:44:43,448
to meet people where they're at. That's a common thing.

678
00:44:44,989 --> 00:44:48,452
Right when you said that I think about you know a soccer

679
00:44:48,472 --> 00:44:51,995
field usually there's multiple soccer games going on you're in an open field

680
00:44:52,035 --> 00:44:55,358
there may be a few Trees that around a few large

681
00:44:55,398 --> 00:44:58,821
trees around you get the downpour people are running they're panicking they're

682
00:44:58,841 --> 00:45:02,104
either going to their cars or if they're not like You know they go under a tree

683
00:45:02,124 --> 00:45:05,367
and they wait under a tree and then you have some people don't stand on that tree no no it's

684
00:45:05,407 --> 00:45:08,930
fine to stand on that tree no no don't and then you get the sort of the

685
00:45:09,050 --> 00:45:12,633
local lore of yes it is good or no it's not and these kids

686
00:45:13,114 --> 00:45:16,557
are gonna listen to their parents one way or another because that's

687
00:45:16,597 --> 00:45:20,701
their That's their safety net, right? That's what they go for. I agree

688
00:45:20,721 --> 00:45:24,766
with you. It's really important that these questions come out again and again and again, even

689
00:45:24,786 --> 00:45:28,590
though we think, oh, that's a simple question to answer, but people

690
00:45:28,610 --> 00:45:33,196
don't know, just based off a couple of examples. That could be life-threatening

691
00:45:33,256 --> 00:45:37,260
at times, and we don't want to see that, obviously. That's

692
00:45:37,980 --> 00:45:41,461
Well, we have, we have sharks are in there. Jellyfish are in there.

693
00:45:42,961 --> 00:45:46,502
So is the question about jellyfish, you don't need to pee on somebody's foot

694
00:45:48,463 --> 00:45:51,684
Is that, that is a major question. In fact, we even have

695
00:45:51,724 --> 00:45:55,044
an, we even have an illustration in there and about that

696
00:45:55,104 --> 00:45:58,945
question. And we explain the science behind why

697
00:45:59,005 --> 00:46:04,999
the answer is no. So

698
00:46:15,106 --> 00:46:18,408
Well, speaking of questions, like you seem to have a lot of really interesting questions, some

699
00:46:18,789 --> 00:46:22,031
fun and some, you know, obviously a serious, uh, Dave, I'm

700
00:46:22,051 --> 00:46:25,714
going to ask each of you this, but Dave, I'll ask you first, what was your favorite question

701
00:46:28,259 --> 00:46:31,661
Oh, gosh, well, I did like them all. I think one

702
00:46:31,681 --> 00:46:34,923
that's really quite popular now, and

703
00:46:34,963 --> 00:46:38,345
it has been for a number of years, when people

704
00:46:38,425 --> 00:46:41,927
go outside and they look up and they see jet planes fly

705
00:46:42,027 --> 00:46:46,610
over and they see the contrails coming out of the jet plane. Well,

706
00:46:46,670 --> 00:46:50,552
there's a certain group of people who think that they are chemtrails.

707
00:46:51,317 --> 00:46:54,800
and that the government is spraying us

708
00:46:55,541 --> 00:46:59,305
so they can alter our minds to think a certain way. And

709
00:47:00,005 --> 00:47:03,689
of course that's not true. Contrails are

710
00:47:03,849 --> 00:47:07,072
condensation trails out of the back of a hot

711
00:47:07,372 --> 00:47:10,775
jet engine and it's very cold up there. So

712
00:47:10,815 --> 00:47:13,957
you're immediately having the temperature meet the dew point, it

713
00:47:14,017 --> 00:47:17,298
creates a cloud, becomes a cirrus cloud made of ice

714
00:47:17,378 --> 00:47:20,860
crystals, and sometimes an airplane will fly

715
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:24,802
through a pocket of dry air and so the contrail doesn't

716
00:47:24,882 --> 00:47:28,763
form. because it evaporates that moisture right away. But

717
00:47:28,823 --> 00:47:32,064
then when it hits air that's more moist and can support a

718
00:47:32,124 --> 00:47:35,386
cloud, it will re-show up, right?

719
00:47:35,466 --> 00:47:38,667
And so some people say, aha, they're not spraying there now, but

720
00:47:38,727 --> 00:47:41,888
look, they are spraying over here. And so if they would

721
00:47:41,908 --> 00:47:45,450
just take a little bit of time to understand some science,

722
00:47:46,530 --> 00:47:50,292
then, you know, it might not be so pervasive.

723
00:47:50,672 --> 00:47:53,974
So would it be safe to say like a question that I just got from that, I mean, you could probably

724
00:47:54,014 --> 00:47:57,316
answer these questions like all day. You know,

725
00:47:57,336 --> 00:48:01,038
you look at areas, say like Arizona, very dry

726
00:48:01,258 --> 00:48:04,599
area, is it still dry at those at the

727
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:08,642
sort of the 35,000 feet of a jet that would that

728
00:48:11,569 --> 00:48:15,873
That's a great question. So Arizona is very dry at

729
00:48:15,913 --> 00:48:19,156
the surface, but the atmosphere, you can

730
00:48:19,196 --> 00:48:22,479
think of a whole bunch of layers, like a lot of layers. And

731
00:48:22,639 --> 00:48:25,923
each one of those layers can have moisture in them. And

732
00:48:26,003 --> 00:48:29,186
so that's what determines levels of clouds that you see

733
00:48:29,226 --> 00:48:32,609
during the day. As a matter of fact, how moist is that layer

734
00:48:32,649 --> 00:48:36,252
of the atmosphere to produce a cloud? And

735
00:48:36,292 --> 00:48:40,096
where you don't see clouds, where it's clear, it's too dry,

736
00:48:40,556 --> 00:48:44,199
or the air is pressing down.

737
00:48:44,279 --> 00:48:47,923
That's why high pressures are good, because they're pressing down air

738
00:48:48,143 --> 00:48:51,706
and vertical motion creates clouds, descending motion gets

739
00:48:54,288 --> 00:48:58,392
So you can have different layers over Arizona and you can see those contrails

740
00:48:59,730 --> 00:49:04,093
I got to get this book, because even I'm learning things off of this. Ellen,

741
00:49:04,714 --> 00:49:07,936
I'm going to ask you, and Dave, I apologize before, because

742
00:49:07,956 --> 00:49:11,698
I asked you what your favorite question is. Obviously, there's going to be a lot of questions in

743
00:49:11,718 --> 00:49:15,061
there that you probably liked, as you mentioned. So Ellen, I'm going to change this

744
00:49:18,323 --> 00:49:21,565
So the jellyfish one was one of my favorites. But one of the others, you

745
00:49:21,605 --> 00:49:25,608
already actually mentioned it, is Megalodons. I

746
00:49:25,648 --> 00:49:29,049
do a lot of public speaking, and I know you and my colleagues get,

747
00:49:29,249 --> 00:49:32,391
you know, well, how do you know that they're not still alive in

748
00:49:32,411 --> 00:49:35,712
the deep sea? We've only explored less than 10% of the ocean. You just said that.

749
00:49:36,092 --> 00:49:39,294
How do you know they're not down there? And so I go

750
00:49:39,394 --> 00:49:42,555
through the scientific evidence as to how we know they are

751
00:49:42,575 --> 00:49:45,817
not still alive. And one of my favorite, you know, there's several lines of

752
00:49:45,877 --> 00:49:49,358
evidence, but one is that, as you well know, sharks produce

753
00:49:49,398 --> 00:49:54,234
about 40,000 teeth during their lifetime. 40,000 during

754
00:49:54,254 --> 00:49:58,276
their lifetime like a conveyor belt. If there were giant

755
00:49:59,357 --> 00:50:04,079
sharks with teeth seven inches long producing 40,000 teeth

756
00:50:04,219 --> 00:50:07,561
a year, and we know that they liked

757
00:50:07,902 --> 00:50:11,143
productive waters in the subtropics, so they're probably pretty close to

758
00:50:11,163 --> 00:50:14,472
shore, we would find some. The

759
00:50:14,612 --> 00:50:17,834
only teeth we find are fossilized teeth, millions of years

760
00:50:17,974 --> 00:50:21,656
old, so we know they're not still in the modern ocean. And

761
00:50:21,716 --> 00:50:25,218
so, you know, giving the actual scientific evidence how

762
00:50:25,258 --> 00:50:28,560
we know they're not still alive is really important. So that

763
00:50:31,101 --> 00:50:34,203
So the movie The Meg is not real, is what you're trying to

764
00:50:36,405 --> 00:50:39,627
It is not. It was fun though. It was fun though. I

765
00:50:39,687 --> 00:50:43,029
watched it. I'm not against... It made a lot of movies. I'm not

766
00:50:43,069 --> 00:50:46,211
against those kind of movies where they are so kind of

767
00:50:46,271 --> 00:50:49,653
outrageously fun and they're not supposed to be taken

768
00:50:49,733 --> 00:50:53,916
as real science. Now, the other kind of things there are the mockumentaries

769
00:50:57,464 --> 00:51:00,687
Disclaimer, this is not real three point font going.

770
00:51:00,707 --> 00:51:04,571
Yeah, exactly. Nobody can Of course, yeah,

771
00:51:04,591 --> 00:51:08,095
cuz there was a famous one. I think we're probably thinking of the same one It was during shark

772
00:51:08,155 --> 00:51:11,679
week. They had like, you know, quote-unquote Noah scientists on

773
00:51:11,699 --> 00:51:14,822
there and they weren't real They were just actors and I think

774
00:51:14,842 --> 00:51:18,326
they try to play a spoof on everybody and I just remember that the comments

775
00:51:18,446 --> 00:51:21,929
after on social media back I'm never going in the ocean again. I can't

776
00:51:21,969 --> 00:51:25,393
believe we haven't heard about this before. It's amazing the

777
00:51:25,513 --> 00:51:29,257
power of communication and what that can do from

778
00:51:29,837 --> 00:51:32,980
an advantageous point of view in education and

779
00:51:33,020 --> 00:51:36,564
then what it can do is just put the living fear in everybody from

780
00:51:39,647 --> 00:51:42,810
The power of visualization. The more real you can make something look, the more

781
00:51:42,870 --> 00:51:46,373
believable you know people think it is and

782
00:51:46,413 --> 00:51:50,316
it's the same thing with with weather if you can we're

783
00:51:50,356 --> 00:51:54,480
work doing some work right now trying to make flood levels be

784
00:51:55,020 --> 00:51:58,403
as realistic as possible so people understand not

785
00:51:58,663 --> 00:52:02,226
their house might be above the water but the road and

786
00:52:02,246 --> 00:52:06,009
the critical infrastructure is all going to be messed up so they better evacuate you

787
00:52:09,752 --> 00:52:13,177
What I find really interesting to me, and I think this happens a

788
00:52:13,297 --> 00:52:16,542
lot of places, not just in North America, but the amount of the

789
00:52:16,602 --> 00:52:19,767
lack of information when people buy houses or move into an area. We

790
00:52:19,807 --> 00:52:22,952
have people moving all over countries and halfway across the

791
00:52:22,992 --> 00:52:26,536
world now where you can work anywhere in the world. and you

792
00:52:26,596 --> 00:52:29,838
don't know where those floodplains are, that were

793
00:52:29,858 --> 00:52:33,200
either built over or they're still there, but there's infrastructure there, like

794
00:52:33,240 --> 00:52:36,783
you mentioned, Dave, that will get flooded, that's expected to

795
00:52:36,823 --> 00:52:41,066
get flooded. Usually the people who know are the insurance companies or

796
00:52:41,106 --> 00:52:44,608
the government, but a lot of residences who buy certain

797
00:52:44,648 --> 00:52:47,790
land plots or houses or apartments or whatever that

798
00:52:47,830 --> 00:52:51,033
might be, or businesses, and all of a sudden they realize, hey,

799
00:52:51,593 --> 00:52:55,674
All of a sudden, my place

800
00:52:55,855 --> 00:52:58,896
is being flooded by five feet, or even if it's just a

801
00:52:58,916 --> 00:53:02,257
little bit of wet basement. We had a storm

802
00:53:02,297 --> 00:53:05,778
here where a storage place, the office got flooded five

803
00:53:05,798 --> 00:53:09,079
feet, like insane amounts, and that had never happened

804
00:53:09,099 --> 00:53:12,261
before because those are designed for 100-year storms. But those

805
00:53:12,301 --> 00:53:15,664
are happening more and more now. So I find it really interesting

806
00:53:15,704 --> 00:53:19,207
how we don't get that. So having a tool like that would

807
00:53:19,247 --> 00:53:22,790
be really, really great for that availability for everybody

808
00:53:23,971 --> 00:53:27,254
And then you have a husband and wife and kids. They buy a house. They

809
00:53:27,274 --> 00:53:30,576
move in. The kids are playing in the backyard. They bring back a whole bucket full

810
00:53:30,616 --> 00:53:34,359
of seashells. And they say, look, Dad. Look at all these seashells. He's

811
00:53:34,380 --> 00:53:38,223
like, we don't live near the ocean. What are they doing here? It's

812
00:53:43,409 --> 00:53:46,752
Now, this is a book that answers, how many questions do you answer? Do

813
00:53:46,792 --> 00:53:50,828
you know the number? we actually have never counted wow no

814
00:53:50,988 --> 00:53:54,351
i assume it's quite a bit i assume it's more than a lot there's a

815
00:53:54,752 --> 00:53:58,195
lot yeah that's our answer a lot a lot okay so now obviously

816
00:53:58,255 --> 00:54:01,318
this is not like a finite amount of questions there are a

817
00:54:01,378 --> 00:54:04,701
lot of other questions that you can answer i know this is you know we're talking about

818
00:54:04,741 --> 00:54:08,104
releasing this as the as the first edition do you think you

819
00:54:08,144 --> 00:54:11,606
know is there a will and a want to do Another edition

820
00:54:11,646 --> 00:54:14,928
and obviously it'll make make sure that after a lot of people buy this you'll probably

821
00:54:14,948 --> 00:54:18,949
like yes Let's do this again, but do you think there will be opportunities to follow

822
00:54:19,009 --> 00:54:23,872
up this with answering more questions? Well my thought in the beginning

823
00:54:30,623 --> 00:54:36,427
Since I'm not the main writer, I think we should do a whole bunch of

824
00:54:36,747 --> 00:54:40,430
them. In all seriousness, I think the

825
00:54:40,510 --> 00:54:43,712
book will kick off, hopefully, a

826
00:54:43,772 --> 00:54:47,675
lot more curiosity and a lot more questions that people have. And

827
00:54:47,835 --> 00:54:51,978
I think that our networks between marine

828
00:54:52,018 --> 00:54:55,801
and ocean and atmosphere, I anticipate getting

829
00:54:55,861 --> 00:54:59,423
contacted by people saying, you should ask this, or

830
00:54:59,463 --> 00:55:03,024
you should ask this. And so hopefully, the

831
00:55:03,064 --> 00:55:06,545
momentum of the book will just kind of drop

832
00:55:06,645 --> 00:55:09,746
the second volume in our laps. And we just have to say, well, let's

833
00:55:10,407 --> 00:55:13,468
We'll see. But the publisher will come back and say, you have to do a

834
00:55:19,763 --> 00:55:22,984
After my last popular science book, I said, Dave, I

835
00:55:23,004 --> 00:55:26,185
was exhausted. I was like, it's a lot of work. I was like, if I ever say

836
00:55:26,205 --> 00:55:29,446
I'm going to do another one of these books, smack me over the head. Then

837
00:55:29,466 --> 00:55:34,029
it was like two months later, hey, I think I have this really good idea. Didn't

838
00:55:34,049 --> 00:55:37,351
you say I should smack you if you ever said

839
00:55:42,075 --> 00:55:45,177
OK, now let's do it. I'm in. I'm in. Well, I love it. I think this is

840
00:55:45,237 --> 00:55:49,840
great. And it's available for pre-sale. It's coming out in October 2024. It's

841
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:53,203
available for pre-sale right now. I'm going to put the link to

842
00:55:53,523 --> 00:55:56,665
the Amazon link for everybody so that they can go buy

843
00:55:56,705 --> 00:55:59,968
it. I highly recommend to buy this. I know I'm going to be buying a

844
00:56:00,028 --> 00:56:03,470
few copies and giving them out to some people because I think it's really interesting

845
00:56:03,490 --> 00:56:06,732
if you're a like I would say if you're a teacher if you're

846
00:56:06,772 --> 00:56:10,115
an educator and any kind of so these are great to buy not just one but by

847
00:56:10,195 --> 00:56:13,737
four students give them away share them with people because

848
00:56:13,777 --> 00:56:16,979
I think this is a book that's really really necessary I'm so

849
00:56:17,059 --> 00:56:20,521
happy that both of you uh... wrote this book and answer

850
00:56:20,541 --> 00:56:23,822
these questions i know it it definitely you look at that range i

851
00:56:23,902 --> 00:56:27,404
was think all kids need to learn about this but here i am a scientist

852
00:56:27,424 --> 00:56:30,665
of forty five all turned but turned forty six be like now i gotta get this book

853
00:56:30,706 --> 00:56:34,708
i gotta read this kind of stuff i think this is uh... this is definitely

854
00:56:34,768 --> 00:56:38,250
needed, as I mentioned, and I'm really happy that you all decided to

855
00:56:38,290 --> 00:56:41,673
do this. And so thank you. Thank you for coming on and sharing

856
00:56:41,713 --> 00:56:44,816
this. The energy between you is awesome. I love having you on.

857
00:56:45,176 --> 00:56:48,659
Feel free to come back. Let us know how it goes and

858
00:56:48,679 --> 00:56:51,761
other projects as well. I'd love to chat with both of

859
00:56:51,801 --> 00:56:55,144
you again. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

860
00:56:57,606 --> 00:57:00,769
Thank you, Ellen. And thank you, Dave, for joining me on today's episode of the How

861
00:57:00,809 --> 00:57:04,251
to Protect the Ocean podcast. The energy that these two bring

862
00:57:04,471 --> 00:57:08,235
to the table and to this podcast is electrifying. No pun intended,

863
00:57:08,595 --> 00:57:11,857
but it is electrifying. You know, you have to admit if you've listened to

864
00:57:11,877 --> 00:57:15,200
that entire episode and you listen to that interview, you realize you're

865
00:57:15,240 --> 00:57:18,543
like, wow, these people are quite entertaining, but

866
00:57:18,583 --> 00:57:21,886
they have the knowledge to help you get

867
00:57:21,966 --> 00:57:25,408
educated on a lot of these questions that people have. You yourself

868
00:57:25,469 --> 00:57:28,550
might have, other people you may not realize these questions needed to be

869
00:57:28,630 --> 00:57:32,052
answered or you didn't know the answer to them maybe and that's something

870
00:57:32,172 --> 00:57:35,473
that is really handy about this book so with that said

871
00:57:35,613 --> 00:57:40,056
I am going to put the link to this book which comes out in October 2024 but

872
00:57:40,076 --> 00:57:43,317
you can pre-order it and I highly recommend that you pre-order a

873
00:57:43,377 --> 00:57:46,499
couple because you want to give some of these away some of them

874
00:57:46,599 --> 00:57:50,060
maybe to some you know nieces and nephews maybe

875
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:54,082
you want to give away to your kids maybe you want to give away to your grandkids but

876
00:57:54,182 --> 00:57:57,504
if you have any child or anybody at any age

877
00:57:57,524 --> 00:58:00,947
who's curious about the ocean and the atmosphere, one

878
00:58:00,967 --> 00:58:04,330
or the other or both, I think this book is for them. So

879
00:58:04,390 --> 00:58:07,513
I'm gonna recommend it to everybody to go out and buy that book. The

880
00:58:07,593 --> 00:58:10,796
link is in the show notes or in the comments below, depending if

881
00:58:10,816 --> 00:58:15,059
you're listening to this on YouTube or audio-wise or on Spotify. It

882
00:58:15,099 --> 00:58:18,582
doesn't matter. There's gonna be a link in there for you to pre-order. I highly recommend

883
00:58:18,642 --> 00:58:21,945
that you pre-order a couple and hopefully there'll

884
00:58:21,985 --> 00:58:25,047
be more books coming out in the future. There is an

885
00:58:25,107 --> 00:58:28,568
audiobook coming out too and you're going to love that as well. So

886
00:58:29,128 --> 00:58:32,409
lots of ways to purchase this. I can't wait for you to purchase this. Let me know what

887
00:58:32,449 --> 00:58:35,970
you think of the book and how excited you are for the book and please review it.

888
00:58:36,590 --> 00:58:39,791
But this is going to be one of those books that I feel is going to be

889
00:58:39,871 --> 00:58:43,133
a resource for a lot of people in the future. So that's

890
00:58:43,173 --> 00:58:46,595
it for today's episode. You know, if you want to stay in touch, please follow, subscribe on

891
00:58:46,615 --> 00:58:49,698
your favorite podcast app and leave comments. I'd love to hear what you

892
00:58:49,738 --> 00:58:52,920
thought of the episode, whether you're on YouTube, Spotify, or if

893
00:58:52,940 --> 00:58:56,063
you want to get ahold of me, you can do so by going to

894
00:58:56,103 --> 00:58:59,446
my Instagram at howtoprotecttheocean, all one word, and

895
00:58:59,466 --> 00:59:03,048
just DMing me. Love to hear from you. And I want to also thank Ellen

896
00:59:03,309 --> 00:59:06,591
and Dave for joining us as well, of course. And thank you for joining us

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on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you