Oceans Summit Makes Waves

On Friday, a large sculpture of the hashtag #OUROCEAN stood in front of the Healy Hall. Inside, students and leaders gathered to discuss the state of our oceans as part of the “Our Ocean, One Future: Leadership Summit.” The event was co-hosted by the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, the U.S. Department of State, and the Sustainable Oceans Alliance, with the support of the Georgetown Science, Technology & International Affairs Program and the Georgetown Global Futures Initiative.

The event began with a panel that included Her Excellency Isabella Lövin, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for International Development Cooperation and Climate of Sweden; Her Excellency Susana Malcorra, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship of Argentina; and Her Excellency Segolene Royal, President of the COP 21 and Minister for Environment, Energy and Marine Affairs of France.

Following the panel, Dean Hellman of the SFS moderated a conversation between Secretary of State John Kerry and Adrian Grenier, an actor best known for his role in the television show Entourage. Secretary Kerry spoke about the growing consensus he has seen firsthand in recent years in the international community on the importance of protecting the oceans. Adrian Grenier drew a stark contrast between the consumption-centric lifestyle his character led in the television show Entourage and his own holistic, environmentally conscious one.

The event’s focus is part of a broader movement to bring the ocean into the center of the fight against climate change. The oceans’ critical roles in the global ecosystem is not well understood by the public. For example, mainstream environmentalism emphasizes trees and other photosynthesizing plants as our principal source of oxygen. However, about half the world’s oxygen is produced via phytoplankton photosynthesis in the oceans. The oceans also absorb carbon dioxide via difference in pressure between the air and the ocean.

However, the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide may be nearing its limits. The “Our Ocean, One Future: Leadership Summit” brought attention not only to the ocean’s environmental roles but also to its influence on global health and the economy.

The Caravel sat down with Mimi Troxel and France Farrell, the current presidents of the Sustainable Oceans Alliance, a student organization that helped make the event possible.

What significance did this event have for your organization?

Mimi: “The mission of the Oceans Alliance is to engage millennials, college students, young professionals, and even high school students in ocean issues, because they are vast. This conference was a parallel event to the one hosted at the State Department, but since this one focused specifically on youth leadership, it spoke exactly to what our organization is trying to do. By partnering with the State Department, we were fortunate enough to have so many incredible speakers, including Secretary of State John Kerry, Dr. Sylvia Earl, Dr. John Holden, Dr. Pershing - so many incredible people engaging with that age group. And we had incredible participants, 150 participants, who applied to attend and were handpicked to attend from over 50 countries, starting their own nonprofits, doing incredible work in the ocean advocacy field. These people are going to be the future leaders of this movement, so to be with them, have them listen to these speakers, and have them engage in breakout sessions where they talked to the speakers shared ideas, collaborated – that’s our goal.”

Was there a particular moment yesterday that resonated with you?

France: “We had been so busy leading up to the summit managing the conference on Thursday and Friday morning. We were spread too thin and didn’t have a chance to embrace the day. Then, after we met Secretary Kerry and entered Gaston Hall, we sat down to watch him speak, and I looked at Mimi and said, “Mimi, we did it”. We looked around Gaston to see all of the students, not just the participants, but all the students from campus who were engaging with the issue, interested in being there, and listening to Secretary Kerry talk about the ocean and all its issues. That’s what we’d been working months and months for, so that specific moment when we saw everyone attentively looking at Secretary Kerry with the Our Oceans sign up there – it was incredible, everything we could have hoped for.”

What innovative solutions have you heard of to help our oceans?

Mimi: “We’ve heard a lot of them, our summit last April focused on solutions. We had Boyan Slat, CEO and Founder of The Ocean Cleanup, which developed a mechanism to help take trash out of the oceans that specifically targets the 5 gyres. The coolest thing I’ve ever heard about, which was at our summit last year, is Rachel Miller’s Rozalia Project. Every time you wash synthetic clothing, there are microscopic fibers pulled out of the clothing into the water. They look like spider webs and you can just barely see some them with the naked eye. The fibers get pulled out, get into water drains, and make it to the oceans. These tiny plastic fibers have been found in fish, in the fish you eat, which clearly damages not only the ocean’s creatures but also degrades your own health. In April, Rachel previewed a prototype of a 3D ball with spikes that goes in the washing machine and is designed to capture those microfibers. When all the microfibers roll up together in the ball, you can see it and touch it in your hand. It will be commercially available in the near future once they’ve made it more affordable.”

What can the average Georgetown student do to help the oceans?

Mimi: “Georgetown students have a resource in the Sustainable Oceans Alliance and we have a general interest coming up this Monday. Other than that, make small lifestyle changes like not drinking out of plastic water bottles. Have a reusable water bottle. When you travel, avoid buying plastic water bottles by taking it with you through security empty. If you do use a plastic water bottle, recycle it. A lot of trash goes into storm drains leads to the ocean, so keep that in mind and reduce, reuse, recycle. It’s also important to know where your fish comes from – look for sustainable fish and avoid buying illegal fish. We’re going to try to organize a beach cleanup, so Georgetown students can get involved with that or look to their community at home to help out, raise awareness, and engage with this issue.”

France: “A way to engage the general public on this issue is to frame it as a global issue that affects every single person – whether you live on a coastline or you don’t, whether you love the ocean or you don’t, it affects your health. People who do live on the coastlines are going to have to move from the coastline to landlocked areas and then it’s going to become overpopulated in the center of the country. So, those people who think that the ocean don’t affect them because they don’t live near it – it’s going to impact them. Framing the issue around the environment in a way that shows it affects us all as a global issue is really effective and important.”

Nicole is a senior in the School of Foreign Service majoring in International Politics with a Concentration in International Security. Raised Swiss-American, she is constantly on the search for the perfect chocolate.