Advocacy for Scientists: How to Speak Up for the Ocean

0:00 This episode is for any of you who want to know how to become more of an advocate for science, for conservation, for the ocean. It doesn't matter if you're a scientist or not a scientist. This episode is for you. And today I'm gonna be talking about an article from Melissa Varga from the Union of Concerned Scientists. She wrote an article showing scientists how to become advocates. You can be anybody who to do this, but especially scientists. We're gonna talk about why it's difficult for scientists to transverse over into advocacy and some of the hesitations that we might have, but also how a lot of us become advocates and we don't even realize it, but it's usually later on in life. We're gonna talk about all this on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

0:43 Let's start the show. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. Now this podcast is really an example of how a scientist can become an advocate because as any of you who have listened to this podcast, like whether it's this episode or a number of episodes or all 1800 episodes, which by the way, I hope that's not the case, but if it's this, that's pretty cool. It's essentially a product of me wanting to stand up and speak up for the ocean for a number of different reasons through my personal life and my professional life that I felt that I needed to do as part of being a scientist.

1:27 'Cause let's be honest, for all the scientists who are listening out there, and I know there are quite a number of you, I know some of you have been on this podcast. Some of you have been guests, some of you have been my friends for a long time. Others have just gotten to know me through this podcast. We know that as scientists, we just want to do science in a lot of ways. Like when I first started my career, I was like, I want to be out on the ocean. I want to use cool technology. I want to discover more things about the ocean. I want to have an impact on the ocean. At the beginning though, it wasn't necessarily about conservation. It wasn't necessarily about having a legacy where I'm convincing people or trying to tell people about the ocean so that they can lack for a better ocean. It was more of, I just wanna discover new things about the ocean.

2:08 I wanna find new species. I want to learn new things about sharks, marine mammals, you know, penguins, all these different types of cool species that I grew up watching. I want to know more about them. I want to like travel the world. I want to do all that kind of stuff, but I want to stick to the science. It's all I wanted to do. I just wanted to stick to the science. No politics, no advocacy, no activism. I didn't wanna be seen as one of, quote unquote those people or those organizations like Greenpeace, like Sea Shepherd, like Ocean Conservancy, like Oceana, a lot of different places like WWF. But what I soon realized as I started to mature within my career in my field, those organizations are based in science. A lot of them are based in science and some of them have even become more based in science.

2:49 Greenpeace has taken a major shift, not away from activism, but the way they do activism and advocacy is more with science, you know. Some can argue that Sea Shepherd have done the same thing. I haven't followed them as closely as I have Greenpeace because I know some people who work there, but it is a lot different now, and I find it's an evolution as a scientist. If you've noticed, if any of you have been to conferences or any of you have spoken to people within your work space, whether it's older individuals that have been working in this conservation field or in the science field for like 30 years plus, 20 years plus maybe even 10 years plus. You see a lot more people getting tired of being rejected, getting tired of putting out the science and not being listened to or putting out the science and people ignoring that science and doing the opposite of what's been happening.

3:36 We see it in every field, especially these days. The medical field. But now, we've seen it happen in conservation time and time again. Every once in a while we'll get a win and something has changed, be based on the science and it works out and it's wonderful, but it doesn't happen as often. And a lot of the times when we're younger, as we're coming through, and this is not to blame anybody 'cause we've all been through it and I'll talk about some of the reasons why we don't become advocates sooner. We're just getting like our feet wet, so to speak within this career field. We're trying to get a full-time job, get paid normally, live a proper life, but we're just trying to do as much as we can within the field of marine science and marine biology so that we can enjoy what we've always wanted to do. Live the dream, right?

4:17 Now when I hear people say, Hey, ask people how you doing? They're like, I'm living the dream. And it's kind of sarcastic. So it's not really like, oh, I'm living the dream, but I'm not really, it's kind of a bit of a nightmare. And when things happen, where you see drastic reductions in funding, drastic reductions in the rhetoric that comes out against marine science, marine conservation, and so forth, it becomes really heavy on everybody because no matter who you are, you could be scientists who do really non-political, very unbiased work, which is what science is, and all of a sudden that becomes biased. People designate that that's a bias, that's a political leaning. And if you think this way, you are, you know, leaning one way or another.

4:57 And because one party is in government and not the other, we're just gonna cut that entirely because we don't agree with that. And that, again, that's happening across all fields, especially in the US happening in Canada. About 15 years ago, 10, 15 years ago. Not as drastic as what's happening in the US but it's happening. This is not like a political thing at all. This is more of how scientists need to become more advocates. Now I did just read an article, really great article by Melissa Vargas. I'll link to it in the show notes. She works for the Union of Concerned Science. She's a science network senior manager at the Union of Concerned Science, a great organization. She wrote an article called New to Advocacy? 3 Tips for Early Career Scientists, and it's called The equation.

5:38 The publication was September 3rd. So this is for this month. It's part of like an early career scientist month. And it's really recognizing like there's a lot of added stressors that are facing new scientists. You know, we're looking at federal funding reductions in the US. Immigration and visa hurdles are happening, like a lot of scientists have come from outside the US, outside of Canada where I live, and have really contributed an immense amount of knowledge to science in general as well as marine science in this case because it's a marine science podcast. But there's also a lot of problems with that because now with this rhetoric going on, immigration and visa hurdles, there's threats to deportation. And of course, widespread attacks on science, it forces a lot of researchers to leave the US, forces teams to be broken up, forces labs to be broken up and that is devastating to science.

6:25 That is devastating to the research that is happening within these labs, within these science teams, whether it be collaborators or not. A lot of times science is done based on collaboration, even though there's problems within that. But there's a lot of things that are really harming the work aspect and the funding aspect of doing science in today's world and that is a lot politically driven. Again, I don't want this to be politically, but it is politically driven. There's this mindset that the less science we know, the better, and so we're going into a very different direction, which is stressful in a lot of other ways than just, you know, having a career or becoming an advocate. But what it does drive people to do, especially early career scientists, is to kind of like, bring their head up from working so hard and trying to just find regular paying jobs.

7:12 Like in marine science, so a full-time salaried type jobs, which, let's be honest, there's not a lot out there. And it becomes difficult. They kind of bring our heads up and be like. Well, hold on a second here. Like, I didn't even have a chance to work for NOAA. I didn't have a chance to work for the EPA, you know, all the funding's cut. I was brought on. I thought I was, you know, starting with these great organizations that have a history of doing really great marine science and then all of a sudden I get cut outta nowhere just because I was on probation. And so that is really difficult. And so you become a little bit more of a, we need to start talking about what's going on here. You become more of an advocate, not only for your own job, but also for the field in which we work, in which we love growing up, seeing and watching and going to school for.

7:54 It inspired us to go to school, spend, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars just to be able to be paid adequately or not even at all, because now there's something going on and it feels like a war against science, whether it's marine medical or what have you. It's become a real problem. It's forcing us to move in a different direction. It's forcing a lot of scientists, whether we wanna become advocates or not. It's forcing us into a new direction. So Melissa Varga some tips, and I really think these are great tips. I might have some to add on, but I wanted to go through this. I want to highlight what these tips are because I think this is really important. The one thing is, is you're not alone. We can build a community of scientists who could become advocates, right?

8:37 One of Melissa's points is advocacy is a marathon. It's not a sprint. You have to find people who have shared values. There might be some point of advocacy, which you don't agree that, you know, you need to follow, and there might be other points that you could follow. It's a wide field when you get into advocacy. There's certain policies that you may want more than others, or you may find that you can add the most quote unquote expertise or want to add the most effort on. So find that community. Find the people who want to know more about a specific policy that you want to advocate for, or like, if it's something in general, find that community of like-minded individuals of shared values. And work with them to make some changes, right? There's a lot of just ocean centered groups, as she suggests.

9:19 There's marine conservation organizations, like local chapters or global groups like Surf Rider Foundation and Oceana. There's also Ocean Conservancy. There's WWF, there's Union for Concerned Scientists. There's a network such as the 500 Women Scientists focusing on marine policy. That would be a great one if you're a woman or you are an ally to women rights and women in science. University and local campus environmental clubs, those are really great because a lot of times people in academia or university students tend to have a lot of passion when it comes to this 'cause they will be advocating for their own marine fields and their own marine jobs. And eventually, like, you know, that's what's really gonna happen. But emphasize like how communities offer the emotional support that you need, the training, the shared resources and the accountability, especially when you're looking at funding cuts and uncertainty.

10:06 So there are organizations out there, whether they're societies or whatnot, they offer training on how to become an advocate. They may offer training on something completely different that might offer you more of a job when you get outta university, or if you just got outta university, it might be a more impactful. Like conservation marketing. Behavior change and how to get people more into conservation. There might be like an MBA program that you can go into or go back into grad school and there might be training on something specific that has maybe a little bit more resiliency in times that we're facing right now. So look at those groups, look at those aspects. And there are people out there, there are organizations out there, there are funding and helping people out. Balean, which is a friend of the podcast, Bart Oor and Saunders Brienen.

10:48 They were just on the podcast. They are creating an organization, a foundation that is there to support individuals and individual projects who may not get the same equal attention from funding groups or may not qualify from those funding groups, or there's just not enough funding around. They're bringing funders and those projects together because they think these projects are important and they want funders to be able to also see that these are important to help fund these types of projects. So that's an important aspect, looking out for these different groups. Now, when you're networking, when you're looking for these groups, go on Facebook groups. Be careful of the types of Facebook groups. You can get some bad players in some. There's LinkedIn groups that are really great or just even on LinkedIn and just be able to put that option out there. Be like, Hey, I'm looking for a group that is interested in sea turtle protection policy, or I'm looking for a group that wants to get the manatees back on the Endangered Species Act.

11:36 You know, I'm looking for that. Or water quality in Florida or something like that. There are a lot of different groups out there that could help and you can find them online. There's some Reddit groups that are always great. I'm not familiar with Reddit, but I heard that they offer some really great things. There's also a lot of people writing about this type of stuff and where you can meet or where you can aggregate online as a community. So those are always great as well. So that's something that's important. So look out for those types of groups. Those are something that you're gonna want to do. Know that you're more than just a scientist. You're also a constituent. Melissa really puts that home on this article and I think it's really important. One of the things that you do is you have this expertise. I've been guesting on other podcasts like they're environmentally focused or just like world changing focused, where they're looking at people who are trying to change the world.

12:19 And I've been trying to spread the word, not only my podcast, but also others, and types of stuff that's going on in the ocean. It's really interesting how when I speak to somebody that is not familiar with Ocean, they will come tell me and they'll be like, I didn't know any of this, and I feel like it's a simple thing. You know, I was just on a podcast the other day. Even before we got on the podcast, I was just talking about the Shark Meat episode I did earlier this week. We talked about how people are eating shark meat. They don't even know it. Not just in Brazil with kids or people in prisons or at elderly care facilities, but also, you know, people who are buying fish that don't even realize that those fish are fraudulent. It's actually shark meat that's carcinogenic or has arsenic or mercury levels and then just don't even realize it.

13:02 And the host was like, her mind was blown that they didn't know this kind of stuff. Sometimes explaining the stuff that's going on in a way where you're like, yeah, research showed this and I can give you the articles if you really want. They don't really want to see the articles. They want to hear the stories, they want to hear what's going on. And maybe some of it is doom and gloom, but sometimes like I did not know that. How can I help? And then you can just do it on an individual basis. So talking to not only policy makers government agencies, and your government representatives, but also talking to just people in your community. One person I really respect and admire, Dr. Andrew Thaler, who's been on the podcast a number of times. He was talking about being the chair and joining the sort of a climate commission for his town and he put in a tide gauge. We did that episode where he put it into tide gauge just to kind of measure the tides in St.

13:45 Michaels in Maryland and that's like an important thing. It's a small local scale, but there's an education part of it for the town and for the kids that are in that town. But also there's a application to it to find out like what's gonna get flooded when things flood and how often is it gonna get flooded, let's get the data behind it because they don't have it. And I thought that's really interesting to just take part in your community and be able to engage with those communities. And also, you know, start a podcast, start a social media channel, and be able to talk about the things that you know about. Not necessarily in a scientific way, but also in a way where people can understand. It really helps everybody out. Recognize and also resist the overwhelm. There is a lot of disinformation and information overload that can cause fatigue.

14:27 I do a lot of work in terms of putting stuff out, like consuming information and it's a lot and I have to take breaks sometimes. Sometimes my voice needs to take breaks. This summer, I had a lot of problems with my voice. But there are times where you need to just kind of sit back and digest some things and just relax and just understand that there are bad actors out there and they have strategies that are really, really great all the way from the fossil fuel industry and providing huge misinformation campaigns to the point where it's like people just don't wanna listen or they have their own facts and their own sources and stuff like that. and that could be really bad. So limit your exposure to some of those parties. You're probably not gonna convince them of anything that you want to convince them of or provide facts for.

15:08 Recognize that there are emotional tactics that people try to do. There are times when I post about climate change and immediately I will get somebody in being like, climate change's not real. This is all just a hoax. Look at this YouTube video, blah, blah, blah. And you know it's, all bias so don't fall for those things. And sometimes I do, I have to admit, sometimes I do. But try and get out of that kind of way of doing things like that. But also don't make it stop you from posting. The way I look at things I post for people who want to know more about the ocean. These are people who are looking for information. That is my audience. I'm not posting for people who are hell bent against me getting this information out and trying to tear me down at any point in time. That is not what I'm about. That is not what I'm doing.

15:48 Also, the small steps matter. You know, so start now. Doing local things, talking to your local city council, talking to local business people, just having those conversations. That's really good. Small actions today matter, even if it's just with a friend. Providing that information is so good for a scientist to do. 'cause people actually care about what you do. They are genuinely curious. And if you try and stay away from some of those topics that are triggering politically, you can get away with a lot and say a lot of great things, factual things that people will be like, it doesn't matter which way they lean. People are like, oh, I didn't know that. Oh, that's kind of cool. Like, your job is so cool. That's really nice. And even if it's not part of your job, you can talk about the ocean the way you know it, and I think that's really important to do.

16:33 So share science not only locally and with friends and family, but also through social media that really helps. Volunteer with beach cleanups or community workshop. If there's a committee or there's a meeting or something, you can always volunteer, say with that government agency and say, Hey, you know what? I'm a local scientist here and I know a lot about this type of subject. I'd be happy to answer any kind of questions people might have or help out in any kind of way that might help. You know, But reinforce the idea that every ocean advocate started with a single step. And that is like small things. You gotta start small. Before I started this podcast, I was having like so many conversations. I was gonna say hundreds and thousands. I don't know if it's a hundreds and thousands, but I was having a lot of conversations about what's going on in the ocean and I was surprised that people didn't know.

17:15 So I scaled it up and I went to a podcast and now I am where I am. And so now I'm talking to thousands of people every episode, and that's important to me. That's nice to know that people are listening and people want to know more and more about what's happening in the ocean. So this is something that we need to do as scientists all the time. I'm not saying you have to go out and protest each and every day, but there's advocacy to be had. There's information to be shared, and it's up to us. It's the responsibility of the scientists to share that information. Now, you also have to be careful how you share the information, who you share it with. Like I said, you don't want to be going to people where it's just triggering for them and they're not gonna listen and they don't want to know. That's fine. You know who those people are, you don't have to engage with them if you don't want because that's emotionally draining sometimes, and it can be dangerous in certain situations.

18:00 So what I would suggest is you put out information where you know the person is going to take it, and is looking forward to knowing more about it and wants to do something better for the ocean. And so if you can speak to the people that are doing that, which I believe are most of the people in and around the world and in around your community, then I think that's a great thing. It doesn't matter, like try and stay away from saying politics. You can criticize a government, whether it's a democratic government or Republican government, or leaning like liberal leaning or left or right leaning. You can criticize a government. That's fair to do, but criticize it without emotions. Don't just say, this person's a douche and I don't like this person, so I'm gonna criticize this stuff. You can say that, Hey, by taking away this regulation, it puts this animal at risk, or it puts this coastline at risk or it puts water quality at risk, or just conservation in general at risk.

18:47 You can say that. Because you're a scientist and you say it based on like, this is what the science is saying and this government is going against that. There's nothing wrong with criticizing a policy. There's governments that I voted for where I still criticize their policies 'cause I don't agree with everything. We're not supposed to agree with everything that they do. And sometimes, and a lot of times governments mess up. You know, whether it's individuals of that government and in power or on the opposition or whatever, people mess up, politicians mess up all the time. That's what makes politics so difficult. But you could vote for something and still criticize their policies if you don't like what they're doing, if the environment is important to you. All governments are bad for the environment in one way or another. You just have to look at which one's the least harmful to the environment.

19:29 But this is what I wanted to cover today because I feel like a lot of scientists, we try and stay outta that. Like, I'm not an advocate, I'm not an activist. I'm not gonna stay outta that. I just want do the science. Oftentimes we have to not only advocate for ourselves, but we have to advocate for the environment. We are in the environment all the time. We see the degradation that's happening. Some scientists, and maybe that's why the scientists who have been in the field for 10, 20, 30 years will see a big problem and then start to say, Hey, this is really degraded over my lifetime and I don't want to see that, so I'm gonna start talking about it. But if we do that throughout our, like when we see the small things happen before it gets too big and too negative, maybe we can have a difference when we advocate as we go through our career. It's important that scientists speak out.

20:10 It's important that scientists speak up, whether it's through a podcast, TikTok, Instagram, Discord, Reddit, whatever it is, even just locally, it's important that we speak up, speak out, and protect the ocean. I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know. Leave in the comments below, if you're watching this on YouTube, or you can contact me in a couple of different ways through Instagram at how to Protect the Ocean, just DM me. at Speak Up for Blue on TikTok, and of course you can go to the website, speakupforblue.com/contact and you can just leave me a message there. It goes right to my email. I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True nor Strong and free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.