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Hello and welcome to the reversing climate change.
Pastime, Ross, Kenyan, we have a bonus episode with an alumnus
dr. Brian Vaughn hurts in, you are
back on the show executive director of the climate
foundation and globe-trotting for marine permaculture all over
the place. Exciting things, afoot, and I
recently saw you in a movie, I didn't expect to I was watching
2040 by Damon Guillermo. I believe is how you say it?
Brian. Damon Gamo.
Damon game. Oh yeah.
Greetings from Earth. It's great to be here and we
love working with Damon on the 2040 film.
That was such a great opportunity, to showcase our
chance to draw down in the soils and the Seas and be able to work
towards a healthy climate by 2040.
I heard about it through the drawdown, Seattle group, the
organizer reached out and said, hey, you want to watch this.
We're doing a live screening, I said, sure.
And I was wondering ahead of time if any familiar faces would
appear lo and behold Brian Vaughn Hartson out there on a
boat looking like a real nada. All professional out there.
Very, very cool. So yeah.
How did that happen? And what exactly were you doing
with Damon? Well, you know, I'm reading this
book and podcast right now by Amanda Palmer called The Art of
asking, and this is all about, you know, leaning into the
change that the earth needs and we asked our friends, my friend
had a 39-foot, Hinckley sailboat, beautiful boat.
He spent like 12 years restoring the hall and building the whole
thing and getting it out. We got Damon down in Woods Hole.
Our home town in Massachusetts. We Got out on the sailboat and
we shot this and it was just so much fun to capture that, you
know, my partner, Rebecca got a picture of that sailboat on the
on the front cover of wooden sailboat magazine and it's just
one of these classic Hinckley 39s.
You know, it's just, it was so much fun being part of that but
that's it, you know, it's this sustainable Marine culture
permaculture, if you will, that is where it's at, it's about
using renewable energy sources, whether it's Marine solar near
the equator, wind energy at the higher latitudes or wave One we
can to effectively provide the energy, we need to provide Deep
Water, Irrigation to our kelp forest and our seaweed Farms 24
hours a day and that's what we're testing from the
Philippines to Tasmania. Yeah, you're on in Australia
right now is you just got out of quarantine on arrival?
Yeah, we're just getting out of quarantine.
We just, we had half a year and Singapore, we managed to get a
visa from Australia. And we're going to set up our
International headquarters for the climate foundation in
Queensland, and we're going to be doing engineering test with
our Our key Partners hash limited out of Toronto Canada,
they've got 10,000 professionals working with deployments in 150
countries. And for the second year they've
signed up for a major pro bono initiative to design the Marine
permaculture at the 100 square meter scale.
The thousand square meter scale, and the commercial ha, and we're
thrilled to be working with Partners like that and Minter,
Ellison, Law Firm out of Australia.
Who's really helped us on permitting on IP development and
ultimately on building the future that we need to see.
Apply it across the Pacific, Ocean to enable regenerating
life in the ocean feeding. The billions of people that rely
on the ocean for food and ultimately measuring that carbon
export of these regenerative interventions to see how this is
part of getting us back to a healthy climate, how much of
your choice of Australia is you paying homage to Bill Mollison?
Bill is huge, you know. I'm working with Bill and with
Dave Holmgren to really lean into permaculture.
You know, Dave Holmgren told me me that bills original
inspiration for permaculture was actually from the Tasmanian kelp
forests on the east side of Tasmania it was that connection
to the Sea and watching the sea birds and the Sea Life, the
seals and the sea lions and the fish all interacting below, the
water and above the water that was bills, original inspiration.
And so, you know, I missed meeting bill by just a few
months before he passed away. But this idea that bill got
Started with the whole idea of permaculture really from
watching the Marine ecosystem and then taking it to the
terrestrial Forest. But now we've gone full circle
and say Marine permaculture is critically important to our
survival as a species to regenerate life in the ocean.
Make sure we've got enough food for billions of people and
ultimately getting our carbon budget back into balance.
Someone listening, if you're not familiar with what permaculture
is. We've done a couple episodes one
of which is with Brian that you should definitely listen to to
get up to speed. Speed.
But Brian, how would you introduce someone to concept as
broad as permaculture in a little bonus episode?
Like this can you help someone get up to speed really quickly
about how you're thinking about this?
Well, Dave Holmgren is written on the Dozen design principles
of permaculture and it's really about living in equilibrium with
the forest and sustainably harvesting from that Forest to
sustain life. But furthermore to identify the
gaps that may exist and to Address those gaps as needed to
ensure a healthy and thriving ecosystem, that can support
humans and other animals. I mean, it's really where we are
part of Nature and we should not divorce ourselves from nature.
That's the root cause of most of the problems.
And so, by being part of nature, we can live in equilibrium with
nature. And what we are doing is taking
those 12 permaculture design principles and applying those to
the marine environment, so that we can have healthy Seas.
And healthy soils that will result in a healthy Planet.
I see, I usually introduce people by saying something, like
creating systems that feed themselves such that there are
not Reliant upon external inputs.
Especially synthetic ones. You have this sort of like
closed loop or they call them guilds often in permaculture.
But things that just work well together, such that you have
what's the one straw Revolution? Line about lazy man's farming,
it just sort of comes together without you having to actively
manage, like steer inputs into it.
Is that kind of how See it or am I missing something.
There the fewer inputs the better.
The beauty about kelp for us is that they don't need any
fertilizer, they don't need any fresh water and they don't need
any land area. And we realize that there's this
little sliver of life on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.
That was actually the most productive ecosystem on the
planet. You look at a tropical
rainforest, like the Brazilian Rainforest can fix maybe two
thousand two hundred grams of carbon per square meter per
year. But did you know that the kelp
forest just offshore Seattle or just Offshore California, could
do 15 percent more than that per square meter per year, in terms
of carbon fixation, it is the highest productive ecosystem on
the planet. And if we can identify what's
needed in terms of substrate and irrigation to enable that kelp
forest, ecosystem to thrive further offshore u.s. eez goes
out 300 km. And if we can effectively enable
that entire exclusive economic zone, Opened up to doing
sustainable Marine permaculture. We can in fact, rescue the life
on the planet. When we've got Marine heat
waves. When you have El Nino, when the
upwelling shuts down and we lose Shoreline kelp forests, these
Marine permaculture is offshore can keep the sardines alive.
They can keep the sea lions alive.
They can keep the sea birds alive.
Regenerate, those ecosystem Services offshore even during
times of climate disruption. And that's what it's all about
is having that equilibrium and the amazing thing is Is with
sunlight and some deep water. You've got a thriving kelp
forest, that's all it takes. What's been the hurdle for
getting this mainstream? It seems like you're doing a lot
of the research saying. This works at 100 M2.
Let's try it at 1,000, and it seems like a big part of your
research. In this trailblazing is about
the commercial viability of these systems.
Is that what you're working on? Basically?
Yeah, it's about Crossing, from the science in the basic
science, we know through to the commercialization and we call
that Passing the valley of death and quite frankly, it takes like
10 million dollars to get from the R&D to a successful and
growing industry. And that's what we're doing
right now. And so we've had some help from
foundations. We've done a crowdfunder down in
Australia, with Intrepid foundation, and we've raised two
thirds of a million dollars for a kelp forest deployment off of
Australia that will demonstrate this at maybe 100 M2 scale.
We're fundraising right now in the US with a climate
foundation.org website and R t to do crowdfunder centered on
the US. And the idea is that in the
Pacific Ocean. We're going to raise a million
dollars to deploy a thousand square meters.
In the Pacific Ocean that will demonstrate that that's critical
scale at 1000 square meters, which is our funding Gap right
now. And then we're looking to
develop the commercial scale. Ha, that will be the basis for
the family kelp forest farmer stretching from Australia, to
the states. And in fact, the subsistence
seaweed farmer in Pins, there's a quarter million subsistence
seaweed farmers, who are each allowed to farm, one hectare of
tropical Red, Sea weeds and enable those to grow.
And that we've developed a cash-flow positive economic
model for that one. Ha and you know, each member of
those families can can do a ha. And then once we get that
working in the Philippines, there are two million
subsistence seaweed farmers in Indonesia that need this
technology. Because those folks, they're
living on the front lines of climate disruption.
The waters too warm. The Nutrient levels are too low.
We are having to deal with this and fill those nutrient value
chain gaps so that we can regenerate the productivity of
the kelp forest and the seaweed farms and make sure that nature
has what she needs to enable us to get back on track with our
carbon balance. I believe this is the same
technology. You brought up last time you're
on the show but it involves taking cooler water.
That's deeper down and pumping it up to where the Farms
actually are growing seaweed is that right?
Yes. That's right.
We'll use in the tropics Marine. Or energy in the higher
latitudes. Like temperate zones, there's
plenty of wave energy off the coast of the West Coast of the
US and across, you know, around the world in temperate
latitudes. And I was just on the phone
today to some of our colleagues and University of Tasmania who
are looking at wave energy to enable the upwelling of water to
actually provide the irrigation that the kelp forest need.
And that's exactly the kind of Technology we can use because
it's local, use of energy, it's easy to harvest energy there.
There's copious amounts of it and this is exactly what we need
in order to make those kelp forest Thrive off shore.
So in this future where there is family's farming, like I ha out
in the Pacific right off the coast of California or whatever,
if that's a future lifestyle as possible, are they imitating
permaculture? In the sense that there is
multiple income streams that are interacting, are they farming
oysters and scallops at the bottom of these kelp forests?
What is happening in between all these various creatures in
there? Well, near shore in The Harbours
and Bay's. It's eutrophic enough.
It has enough nutrients that the kelp forest can have a
sustainable Harvest and you can have shellfish as well and
they're eating the microalgae and some of the macroalgae.
It turns out as you go further offshore, we're very
enthusiastic about having a sustainable seaweed Harvest and
a sustainable fish Harvest. You know, each morning, I love
to eat celery and sardines because that's a great
combination of one of my favorites, but we plan to grow a
trillion. Instead of going to regenerate
the base of the food web for the entire oceans and getting those
sardines back, it's all about build it and they will come.
Because if we build the kelp forest we create enough fish
habitat that those sardines will live in the kelp forest be
protected by the habitat of the kelp forest and then we'll grow
to such populations that. They'll start spilling out of
the kelp forest and the game Fish, and the apex, predators
will get involved, and we'll have this thriving kelp forest
protection. Around which the sardines will
grow and grow. And so this is really the key is
the sardines. Anchovies, the small, salmon
heads. These are the forage fish that
will regenerate life in the ocean.
I love it. And I also love eating sardines
and I have to try it with celery.
It's a very I can imagine that tastes combo seems very good to
me. Is the problem here, Finance or
property rights or is it something more biological in the
sense that it's temperature or biochemical?
I should say? What is the reason?
This doesn't already exist. What's blocking it today?
Well, they're two gaps. We have to address, we have to
address nutrient, value chain gaps in the ocean.
When the appalling fails, when we get the big warm blob coming
down from Alaska. When we get the next El Nino,
these increasingly frequent climate disruptions disrupt.
The nutrient value chain that the kelp forest needs in order
to thrive the nitrate. The phosphate the
micronutrients, that's all from upwelling water.
We've got to ensure that we can keep that up.
Well and going now, Now the second Gap is capital formation
Gap, right now. It costs a million bucks to do,
you know a fraction of a hectare and probably, our first ha will
be two or three million but the benefits are we could be looking
at a million dollar Revenue stream when we get this right
and get it cost reduced. So that's really the chance that
the opportunity is to cover that initial development funding
develop the technology license. It broadly through our marine
permaculture Alliance and really build a Global Network of folks
that want to go and build. Those ha sighs farms and make
them Work. We're developing food feed, and
fertilizer markets that are going to enable this industry to
thrive and that'll fill the economic value chain Gap.
That will help people do good while doing well, and I think
it's building an entire Army of these.
That really is a key. Now, on the regulatory side
today, if you tried to do an acre, a kelp on the coast of
California, you'd be dealing with 17, state and federal local
agencies, and against federal agencies to try to get a permit,
and it could take decades, which is really a long time.
But ultimately, Ultimately we're looking at developing a new
model and that is we register with the US Coast Guard Armory
in permaculture vessel which is a barge, it's a ship that's
allowed 500 years of admiralty law and that precedent of 500
years of admiralty law is an incredible.
President to say this is a ship, it's allowed safe passage and
the safe passage means that we register with the Coast Guard
and we're allowed to sail. The seven seas were allowed to
it, has some biofouling on it, it's got a bit more biofouling,
the next ship. Qualitatively, it is exactly
identical to the ships that sail, the seven seas and these
Marine permaculture vessels, vastly simplify the permission
that's needed. Basically a coast guard
registration of a marine Vessel to operate a c and so those are
the Regulatory and capital barriers that ultimately can
address the nutrient value chain gaps that are happening due to
climate disruption. All of those are interesting to
me. Do you have to fly a flag?
I know, plenty of vessels register in Liberia, and fly
Liberian flag. I'm sure there's other
jurisdictions that are friendly for things like this.
Are you having to fly an American flag or register here
or some other combination? How does that work?
Well, we're in favor of working locally and thinking globally.
And so I think whenever possible use a local jurisdiction, the
intent of marine permaculture is to enable local and Regional
thriving seaweed for us and Industry and Fin fish as well as
occasionally the shellfish. So I think whenever we can work
locally we do, we have Many countries like the Philippines,
we were able to get a permit to do the upwelling Marine
permaculture system in eight weeks, you know?
So it's just, we go to the right countries and it works really,
really well as the industry grows, we'll see, increasing
pressure to enable these regenerative Technologies to be
accelerated because this is the change that the earth needs.
And this is what we need to do, to restore overturning
circulation. You know, the Permian mass
extinction happened, because the ocean stratified and there's
More and more peer-reviewed literature coming out on this.
And so what we're doing with Marine permaculture is really
staving off the Permian mass extinction, one kelp forest at a
time and we're doing it in an economically sustainable way.
This is our chance to do good while doing well.
And this is the change of the earth needs on a time scale that
the earth needs and that's why we're working so hard on it.
Wow. Well you're talking about doing
good while doing well, are you also working with a non-profit
mentality to it? Seems like there are grants
being issued and In crowdfunding, but it seems like
maybe the intention longer term is to license and be a
for-profit entity. What's the relationship between
these different Financial models?
Well it's really a hybrid, I mean the research that we're
doing now enables tax deductible contributions in year, zero to
The Climate foundation in the u.s. our counterparts in
Australia, Canada and the UK. So most of the Commonwealth
Nations these days we can enable this tax deductible Rd to occur.
Now, hybrid is needed and so weird.
In the process of developing a marine permaculture alliance
with our for-profit partners, see commentator who are based in
San Francisco and are working to valorize excess seaweed in the
Caribbean area and ultimately build the capital that will need
to go beyond a hectare of marine permaculture towards dozens of
ha and even 100 hectares that can be done very far offshore.
So there's a real opportunity to build an industry here, and our
vision for the Marine permaculture Alliance is a broad
licensing program, where we've got reason All the
non-discriminatory licensing and the improvements in the
technology are copyleft back into the Marine permaculture
Alliance. So we can accelerate the
dissemination of improvements and intellectual property across
the industry and enable rapid adoption that the earth needs to
really scale this on a global scale and literally we have
Marine permaculture architecture.
That works from the equator to the Arctic.
So any open ocean area can be amenable to this kind of seaweed
development and kelp forest. Generation and it's really the
time is right to demonstrate this at scale to build the
capacity to show it works cost reduce it and build the Marine
permaculture industry on a broad basis.
So it's really a hybrid that starts with the nonprofit
development and moves into launching an industry that can
generate jobs. Ensure sustainable livelihoods
and enable us to measure the carbon drawdown that we're going
to need in the years ahead to really balance our civilization.
Wow. That is really, really exciting.
Amazing. We're so happy to have
volunteers around the world helping us to build capacity.
And I think there's a huge opportunity that we can vote
with our feet in terms of the work that we're doing the
projects were working on. And furthermore, you know, when
we can't vote with our feet to vote with our dollars, we're
doing a regular fundraiser. We hope to raise a million
dollars to do the thousand square meters and whether it's
time or money or other resources that's really a chance to spread
the word to get this out and really I helped launch these
critical Grassroots industries that are going to be the change
that the earth needs in order to regenerate life in the ocean and
ensure we've got an earth worth saving.
And the years ahead, that's got a biodiversity in the Seas.
Biodiversity in the soils. And that's the key to keeping
our own civilization productive and alive and well fed.
Yeah. Well said, what is your current
thinking on the I know you call it carbon export or carbon
removal or however you want to frame it.
What do you think the potential is for marine permaculture?
It's huge. You know, we just got this great
coverage last week in an op-ed in the Washington Post, and it's
it was done by Sir David King who really helped launch the
and, and seal the deal on the Paris agreement years ago into
2015. And so the opportunity now.
And so David wrote, very eloquently about how the
director of capture technologies will get us to a certain point
in terms of cost performance, it raises attention and awareness
and then sir, David went on to talk about Brent constants and
the blue planet initiative to actually build aggregate.
That's made out of calcium carbonate and effectively turns
grains of sand into gravel. That you can put into roadways
and two airports into every concrete building you can
imagine and effectively freeze out and sequester the carbon for
a long time and that's a very sustainable industry at several
Giga tons. And it's one that I just did a
lecture on a sovereign yesterday on our Stanford.
Or and Leslie Fields course on engineering and climate change.
And I think that's a great opportunity as well.
Then sir, David King went on in this op-ed to talk about the
potential for Technologies like Marine permaculture to
effectively you know Feed the World regenerate life in the
oceans and draw down carbon and amazingly effective prices.
We're talking about, we like to say the first Giga tons on us
because as we grow food feed and fertilizer, we're going to be
fixing Carbon and measuring that carbon export.
And effectively, we can do it at a negative cost of carbon on the
first gigaton. Once we're past that, even if we
need to fix more to restore a healthy climate will be able to
do. So at really amazing cost
points, you know, hopefully, well below a hundred dollars per
ton and that means at a cost of $80 per ton or less that we've
got a very sustainable approach to enabling the Earth to be
healthy to ensure. We've got the food security to
ensure Have political stability around the world for years to
come and and that we can actually draw down potentially
gigatons of carbon as we develop this sustainable industry around
the world in a distributed way. Well, if someone's listening and
they want to keep up with, what you're doing in your progress,
where might you direct them? I would direct them to our
client Foundation website. We've got updates that occur
regularly with our newsletters. We have an ongoing crowdfunder
there, we're really interested in building capacity and
building a network with a marine permaculture.
Ants that will enable the whole world to benefit from ring
permaculture technology and ensure we've got the food
security to ensure that we can have our civilization continued
in a healthy way even during times of marine heat waves and
climate disruption. So we're really looking forward
to that, we've got an info Channel there, they can email us
at info at climate foundation.org.
And we're looking forward to really building capacity to
ensure that the ocean has what she needs to regenerate life to
staying healthy and to ultimately help.
Humans balance their carbon budget.
Great. And also you should watch 2040
and you can see Brian being a sailor man.
Living that Life. Aquatic us just being jealous.
Watching you out there Brian seems like you're having a lot
of well we're looking forward to having you come out.
Ross. You know, there's nothing I love
better than snorkeling on a marine permaculture.
Their millions of fish is beautiful kelp forest moving
around and they're just, I've got to tell you Nature has voted
with her fins. You know, we've got on our
marine permaculture. In Philippines, there are
millions of sardines. There's these tuna fish, I just
got off our phone with our team this morning and there's like
hundreds of tuna fish, cruising around enjoying the abundance.
That is on the, on the Marine permaculture, we've had a family
of dolphins, spend more than a month with us hanging out.
We've got some videos of these Dolphins frolicking and jumping
into the air, and even this whale shark swam, 200 kilometers
to hang out with us for three days and eat some of the bounty
thats coming. An author Marine permaculture.
So nature is voting with her fins, that's got to be the
greatest validation and being able to see that up close, if
you actually go snorkeling and check this wonderful island of
life, living in the deep ocean. It's just so heartwarming
experience. I look forward to sharing that
with so many of your listeners and with you because you know
it's really a chance to witness upfront and close and personal
the the way that we're able to regenerate life in the ocean
What kind of potential you think there is for ocean
entrepreneurship, for lack of a better term?
I'm sure there's people listening who are looking for
their next step and a lot of people are looking at climate
Tech right now but I don't see the ocean getting a lot of love.
Where should they be looking? Well, it's early days, but I
think having that Marine engineering experience, getting
in the ocean, going snorkeling or swimming or surfing, that's
the kind of hands and feet in the water that are really
important. And so I think building that
comfort with the oceans is great.
And as people see Seems like 2040.
Inevitably, you know, we fall in love with the ocean, with the
kelp forest with charismatic megafauna that lived there like
the Leafy Sea Dragon. And the, you know, the wonderful
lobsters and there was this octopus film that we just saw my
octopus teacher at it just like, okay, I'm just going to fall in
love with this ecosystem. That's what drives people to, to
be the change that the earth needs, and that's the kind of
fulfilling Doing good while doing well that I think makes
such a huge difference. And so I think it's that
connection to the ocean, that's really critical.
And as we build our capacity and basically grow, this industry
will have exponential opportunities.
I think to, you know, to really enable these Marine careers to
take off Peter teal invested a bunch in in seasteading some
years ago. And we'd like to say Marine
permaculture is the reason for seasteading to exist.
In other words, this is the irrigated farming that Oils.
The communities on the sea to thrive and ultimately, it's all
about building. The tribe of abundance and
moving from the economics of scarcity, towards the tribe of
abundance, the where we have enough to share with ourselves
and our neighbors, and that's a completely different mindset.
It's a completely different world and it's really moving
from Fear to love and that's what we'd love to see happen.
One kelp forest at a time. That's a lovely sense of Well,
thanks for being here, Brian. My pleasure, Ross is great to
talk with you and catch up again is so great to be back on the
Nori show and podcast and we're looking forward to working
together towards building that regenerative future that we all
need absolutely definitely on the same team here and would be
happy to have you back on when there's more progress.
It sounds like you have a lot of irons in the fire so maybe won't
be nearly so long. Next time, we're looking forward
to bringing in regular reports on the Western Pacific hanging
out here during the pandemic. Gemma canned bringing that
technology across the Pacific as soon as it's safe to do so.
Terrific. Well let's do it again.
And thanks again. Brian, I'll thank you Roz.
Take Care. Thank you so much for listening.
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