Jump to content

The importance of the Ocean

Prof. Henrik Österblom

Play
Episode 56
1 hr 59 min / Published

The ocean plays an important role in our life without us realizing. To keep a sustainable relationship with the ocean is not easy, especially when profits are at stake. To see how we could tackle this challenge and draw connections with many others outside of the ocean, I interviewed Henrik Österblom.Henrik is a professor of environmental science at the Stockholm Resilience Center. He developed the concept of biosphere stewardship to tackle the challenge I mentioned. But as you will hear, he has many other contributions to sustainability outside the ocean.

[01:10] Chapter 1 : The importance of the ocean
[03:07] Chapter 2 : The biosphere stewardship
[1:08:18] Chapitre 3 : Work on marine ecology
[1:16:46] Chapitre 4 : Sustainable science
[1:31:38] Chapitre 5 : Personal questions 

URL pour les notes de l'épisode : https://www.podcastics.com/podcast/episode/the-importance-of-the-oceans-278250/
Inscrivez-vous pour les dernières updates du podcast exergie: http://eepurl.com/hVeLPz

 

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Show notes

Réseaux sociaux & liens utiles :

 

[01:10] Chapter 1 : The importance of the ocean

[01:20] Could you describe the ocean system ? Could you give a few figures ?  

[03:07] Chapter 2 : The biosphere stewardship 

[03:07] What happened in the fish industry in 2015 ? 

[0:11:44] What was the problem with the fish industry in 2015? 

[0:13:59] The goal of your work was not to be angry but to extend a hand, right ? 

[0:21:15] What were the key aspects for them to agree to meet you ? 

Gunhild Stordalen : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunhild_Stordalen

Johan Rockström : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Rockström

[0:23:25] How was your first meeting with the different NGOs ? In your papers, why do you talk about this idea of stewardship ? 

Transnational Corporations, Biosphere Stewardship, and Sustainable Futures : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0978-z

[0:26:54] How many companies came to the first meeting ? What happened ? How did you lead this meeting ? 

Jonathon Porritt : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathon_Porritt

Princess Victoria of Sweden : https://www.undp.org/press-releases/hrh-crown-princess-victoria-sweden-appointed-goodwill-ambassador-united-nations-development-programme

[0:30:25] Why do you feel bad for the Japanese companies ? 

[0:31:44] Then, you don’t know how the discussion with the Japanese CEOs went ? 

[0:32:00] The cultural barrier is also a huge deal for Japanese, right ? It seemed like setting goals for Japanese or Norwegian was totally different things. Is that correct ? 

[0:38:24] You mentioned SeaBos. It looks like a club that could give you some strategic advantages if you have concrete goals. Who is responsible for checking those goals and deadlines ? 

SeaBOS : https://seabos.org/

[0:42:23] So, it looks like you set a standard, is that correct ? 

[0:43:21] We mentioned greenwashing, how do you make sure that they are not using you as a tool ? 

[0:48:58] You still connect with NGOs, why ? 

[0:52:08] Trust is an important factor when dealing with NGOs, how did you build that trust ? 

[0:53:49] Why are there error bars on the graphs of revenues on the classifications of companies in your study : Transnational Corporations as ‘Keystone Actors’ in Marine Ecosystems  ? 

The study : https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127533

[0:54:54] Why was it important to put a network map in this paper ? 

[0:56:29] You wrote a book ; ‘the sounds of science’. Retrospectively, what would be some of the things you would advise ? 

The Sounds of Science: https://g.co/kgs/Hsv2Jzh

[0:58:39] How risky was your initiative ? 

[1:00:40] You also had permission to fail, is that correct ? 

[1:01:43] Could you use the same approach with oil companies ? 

[1:03:27] Do you think it is a good idea to push big companies away ? Or should we use their power ? 

KeyStone species hypothesis : https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/keystone-species-15786127/

[1:05:51] Could you tell me more about your study on ocean services and equities ? 

Towards Ocean Equity : https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00842/95392/103165.pdf

[1:08:18] Chapitre 3 : Work on marine ecology

[1:08:18] Could you tell us more about seabirds and their relation with the decrease of forage fish ?

Global Seabird Response to Forage Fish Depletion—One-Third for the Birds : https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1212928

[1:12:32] What happened in the Baltic sea ? 

[1:13:30] In one paper, you talk about junk food in marine ecosystems, is this related to the Baltic sea ?

Junk-food in marine ecosystems : https://nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0030-1299.2008.16501.x

[1:14:49] In another paper, you studied aquaculture and its link with resilience. Could you tell us more about resilience in aquaculture ? 

Does aquaculture add resilience to the global food system? 

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1404067111

[1:16:46] Chapitre 4 : Sustainable science

[1:16:46] I preach sustainability but I’m not sure I’m sustainable. And I loved the way you started the paper title “Unsustainable science”. It started like this …..”Good, but busy. Many among our peers in the science community would respond in such a way to queries about how things are going”. How would you respond to me asking you how you are doing ? 

Unsustainable science : https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdf/S2590-3322(19)30017-X.pdf

[1:20:27] What triggered that paper ‘Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time’ ? Do you think that acceleration is a cause for the innovation being less disruptive, or a consequence of the innovation being less disruptive ? 

SARAS Institute : https://saras-institute.org/

The study : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05543-x

[1:24:56] Do you think you took that leap of faith because you were established ? Or were there other important actors ? 

[1:26:33] Do you think it is a problem of metrics ? Should we spend more time thinking about better metrics or should we discard them ? 

[1:28:10] This paper is actually a testimony for interdisciplinary research, is that right ? (many illustrations from artists and references to Richard Scarry’s books with Busytown) How important is that ?

[1:30:41] Do you think the issue comes from misunderstanding each other ? 

[1:31:38] Chapitre 5 : Personal questions 

[1:31:38] You work with artists of different arts, could you tell me more about that ? 

Principles for knowledge co-production in sustainability research : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0448-2

[1:37:44] I feel like working with an artist is a one way street, what does an artist take away from this relationship ? 

[1:40:57] Learning to draw is actually learning to see. This is mainly an opportunity to see the world with another set of eyes, right ? 

[1:42:57] You are part of the Stockholm resilience center. Why is it so famous? What is this center ? 

[1:49:20] If you could write the user guide for the Stockholm resilience center. What would be the first thing they need to know ? 

[1:50:50] Do you have a favorite mistake ? 

[1:52:59] What is the threshold you need to reach to convince those philanthropy foundations to fund your experiment ? 

Wakao Hanaoka : https://www.linkedin.com/in/wakao-hanaoka-9692a7101

Sarah Hogan : https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-hogan-6621875

Packard foundation : https://www.packard.org/

[1:55:50] What food reports, books or documentaries have you often advised in the past 6 months ? 

Jorge Luis Borges : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges

[1:56:45] If you could write a message on all the blackboards of all universities, what would you write ?

 

Note : 

You might wonder why the title mention the Ocean (singular). Thanks to Henrik we better see it as a system. He provided me two links if you are interested:

https://www.oceanprotect.org/2019/09/19/drop-the-s-campaign-implementing-principle-one-of-ocean-literacy/

https://worldoceanday.org/drop-the-s-2022/

 

Remerciements :
Emilie Malcourant
Monxage
LLL
UCLouvain
Louis Gayina

Episode ratings
Average rating: 5.0 / 5 (2 ratings)
Please log in or sign-up to rate this episode.
This episode is part of the Exergie series
Regards croisés sur l'énergie sous toutes ses formes
Exergie
About Exergie
A podcast by UCLouvain
Regards croisés sur l'énergie sous toutes ses formes
Episode comments

An exciting and crystal clear podcast about the key issue of seafood. But some other important features are also related to the ocean such as heat source or sink, CO2 buffer and should perhaps be addressed more extensively in a later podcast because all the ocean functionalities are strongly linked to each other.
Beyond the biosphere stewardship, the main message to me is the constructive approach developed by Henrik Österblom to get industrial powerful parties on board with the aim to develop a positive dialog beyond the cultural barriers. Because "The logics of politics is not the logics of scientists" I would suggest the Henrik's approach to cope with the different challenges related to the energy transition in Belgium under the lead of a moderator issued from a third party like the human sciences or the artist world. This could be a way to get out of the today trench warfare between the different lobbies.
Congratulations to all of you for those fruitful ideas.

 

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
What do you think about this episode? Leave a comment!

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×

Important Information

By using this website, you accept the use of cookies in accordance with our Privacy Policy.