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Michael is on a quest to get his environmental footprint as low as humanly possible. So he built his own off-grid Tiny House. But downsizing and minimizing weren’t enough. He had to take more drastic measures, altering his lifestyle in some extreme ways, all in the name of saving the planet. But when it comes to his goal, he still feels in over his head. He doesn’t know if all the downsizing, minimizing, reducing, reusing, recycling, and sacrificing make a difference. It’s time to bring in the experts.
Join Michael as he sits down with scientists, policymakers, industry leaders, and environmental experts to figure out how to effectively reduce his footprint in all aspects of life. From food and fast fashion to cars and caskets, he gets into what the worst culprits really are and how we can all make more informed choices when it comes to the impact we have on the planet.
If you have feedback or would like to be a guest on In Over My Head, please email: info@inovermyhead.com
(00:00):
Well, I'm in over my head. No one told me tryin' to keep my footprints harder than I thought it could be.
I'm in over my head. What do I really need? Tryin' to save the planet, oh, will someone please save me?
Trying to save the planet, oh, will someone please save me?
(00:24):
Welcome to In Over My Head. I'm Michael Bartz. Recently I've been busy working on an ocean-related
podcast series with Ratana and her team from Memorial University, who you may remember from last
year's connecting to the Ocean season. This series will be produced independently of my show, but
through it I had the opportunity to interview Holly Hogan, an accomplished seabird biologist who over her
30-year career has worked in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans and every latitude in between. She's also the author of Message in a Bottle, ocean Dispatches from a Seber Biologist, which is all about plastic
pollution in our oceans. After reading her book, it was clear to me that Holly's message would resonate
with my listeners. So although this series isn't out yet, Rutzen and her team kindly gave me permission to
share this interview with you, which I very much appreciate. I hope you enjoy it. And so, Holly, you're a
seabird biologist. Tell me about the work that you do.
(01:15):
Well, I've been working largely on seabird colonies or at sea for about the last 35 years. But in more
recent years, I've been doing seabird surveys at sea for the Canadian Wildlife Service, and also doing
expedition trips to the Arctic and the Antarctic as their seabird biologist expert. So particularly with the
Canadian Wildlife Service, I've been working with them for over a decade doing surveys, mostly in
Canadian waters. And over that time, I've noticed changes in plastic waste that I've been seeing in the
ocean, even though I'm just seeing a hair's breadth of the ocean as the ship travels through it. So that has been a growing concern. It's not so much the amount of plastic I've seen, because as you probably know, most of the plastic is below the surface. But it's the strange places that I've been seeing plastic like smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a JX bottle or a freezer off the Grand Banks floating. It's just bizarre things. And also, one of the other things I've been seeing more and more are these Mylar balloons, those helium-filled shiny balloons. The last trip I was on the Georgia's Bank, I saw six of them in three weeks, like 200 kilometres offshore. So it's the increasing volume of plastic that has started to stir. First, it was a curiosity, but having seen some interactions, it's grown into a really serious concern for me.
(03:01):
Yeah. And then you decide to write a book about it. Tell me about Message in a Bottle.
(03:07):
So message in a bottle and what follows the colon is ocean dispatches from a seabird biologist. So
especially when working in Antarctica, I had this growing concern about whether I should even be there,
whether these trips to Antarctica are worth it for the carbon footprint it takes, and the disturbance to
wildlife. Although Antarctic wildlife really don't seem to mind humans at all, it's kind of refreshing
actually to see curiosity from animals rather than fear. So it was mostly the carbon footprint aspect, and
people rationalize their behaviours, of course, and I was rationalizing mine thinking, well, maybe it's worth it for the educational aspect of it. And if that's the case, then I decided I'm going to prepare a talk on ocean plastics and what they're doing to the environment. And strategically, I have to admit, I added a
section on impacts to human health. I figured if people aren't all that concerned about the ocean, they
should certainly be concerned about their own health.
(04:17):
And I didn't know a lot about it. I'd been hearing bits and pieces, but when I delved into the research, I
became extremely concerned, legitimately and authentically concerned about it. And so this talk that I
prepared for ships, you have a captive audience on these expedition ships. Everybody shows up for
everything. And I got some really great feedback. Some European soap maker said he was never going to use plastic for his products anymore. And I thought, well, maybe this can make a difference. Anyway,
when I came home, then I had this talk prepared and I had written and said, on Facebook, on social media, I have a presentation on marine plastics. If any school groups or community groups would like me to present it, I'd be more than happy to do that.
(05:13):
And the editor from the literary review of Canada, who is a Facebook friend of mine, said, well, would
you send that along to us? We might be interested in you writing an article for us. And so I wrote an
article, but honestly, who reads the literary review of Canada except other literary types? And lucky for
me, Margaret Atwood read it, and she's a very, very active environmentalist. So she tweeted it, and that
basically was what brought the article to the attention of many people, including publishers. And so I was
offered a book, and I'm almost 60. Writing a book was really never on my radar, but I firmly believe that
people want to do the right thing, but most people aren't 600 nautical miles offshore. They aren't seeing
the things I'm seeing. And I just feel like knowledge is power as we know. And so I wanted people to
understand what's going on out there, how it works, what's happening, what it's doing to our bodies so
that people can make informed decisions. And I have to say, seeing the plastic, as I was saying earlier,
was disturbing. But it wasn't until I saw a direct interaction, which was on Valentine's Day off of the New
York City.
(06:44):
We were cruising past the city, and the ocean was littered with these Mylar balloons. They were deflated
on the ocean surface with their long ribbon trains. And for animals that feed on soft-bodied marine
animals like jellyfish and squid and octopus, these things are a dead wringer for jellyfish. And I had read
that I knew that these animals were vulnerable to undulating plastic in the water. But as I was doing my
survey, I caught a glimpse of something moving in the corner of my eye and I looked, and it was a
loggerhead turtle that was lumbering toward these Mylar balloons, one in particular. And I knew that it
was trying to catch up with it in order to eat it. And that would've just been a devastating consequence for the turtle, and not just because it would fill up the stomach and not allow any other food in, but turtles
become really bloated when they're full of plastic. They become quite gassy. And for turtle, that's death
right there because they can't dive to secure prey, and they also can't dive to get away from predators. So they're just floating turtles instead of sitting ducks to see it with my own eyes, it ratcheted up my concern quite a bit.
(08:07):
Absolutely. Yeah. I think, yeah, you're in a unique position that you're going to places that people don't
often go to, right? And so you're able to witness that and to kind of bring back that information.
(08:18):
And so through the personal stories as well, like my time on seabird colonies and things I've seen at sea, I really wanted to bring the reader with me so that they could see what I was seeing and smell what I was
smelling, and enjoy some of the endearing experiences to become invested, to know what is out there and what we have to lose and what we should do to protect it too.
(08:46):
And in the book, you also cover the ocean currents as well, right? That's kind of an important aspect of
the plastic problem. Could you kind of maybe talk a little bit about that, about why you included details
about the way that the ocean currents move and things like that in your book?
(09:03):
Yeah, I mean, ocean currents ended up being a really important part of the book. And I had Brad De
Young, who was the head of the physics department here at Memorial University and is a professor
emeritus now. I had him on speed dial because as you know, I'm sure oceanography and ocean currents is really quite complicated, but so crucial to life on earth. So understanding the importance of currents and that Arctic and Antarctic ice drive all the ocean currents, basically, they're sort of considered the, well, Brad DeYoung said, oceanographers are moving away from this. But in terms of a description, the
conveyor belt, when Arctic and Antarctic waters ice sea ice melts, it forms this really heavy, very super
chilled water that sinks to the bottom and travels along the ocean floor and rises in different places under
different circumstances and causes all of these incredibly strong ocean currents.
(10:16):
So the reason I discussed ocean currents so much in the book is because they are what distribute nutrients, oxygen, and plastic around the globe, and why it shows up in such unusual places that you wouldn't expect, why, for example, ocean currents carry fibers from washing machines from Europe and
northeastern North America all the way up into the Arctic Ocean and all the way across to the western
Arctic, into the bearing sea. So your impacts are felt everywhere, and you are also receiving the impacts
of places from far away. And this is why the Gray Pacific garbage patch exists. It is one of the five ocean
gyres, and it just happens to be concentrating plastic from a very highly populated and polluted region of
the world.
(11:13):
And you mentioned earlier that there are negative health implications to people with this plastic problem.
What sort of concerns are there for human health?
(11:22):
Well, there are so many. For one thing, a number of plastics, I don't know if you remember BPA. When
BPA was taken off the market, they were quite popular. So BPA was an additive to plastics that made
them hard and clear and very much like glass. And so a lot of water bottles, the Nalgene bottles, a lot of
things were made with BPA. And then it was accidentally discovered in a lab where the female mice were
developing all of these reproductive abnormalities and were having deformed young. It turned out, the
researcher, Patricia Hunt, started to investigate what's happening to these mice because it wasn't part of
the experiment, but they were eating plastic off of their cages, and it was causing these deformities. So as it turns out, a lot of plastics are endocrine system disruptors, which means they either mimic hormones or interfere with normal hormone production.
(12:25):
So all of our systems from reproductive to breathing to growth behavior are all regulated by our endocrine system. So when you have endocrine system disruptors interfering with these normal pathways to the brain, there's a myriad of issues that arise. And there's also evidence of increased breast cancer, testicular cancer, and inflammatory disease, autoimmune disease, and now plastic is actually becoming part of our bodies. The plastics break down into microplastics and then into even smaller units called nanoplastics. And now they're in our bodies and such and so small that they can cross well, they can cross the blood-brain barrier, so they can basically be anywhere in our bodies wreaking havoc. Microplastics are a huge problem, but also off-gassing from plastics. So the chemicals that are found in plastics like benzene that is in expanded foam, that it's not technically styrofoam, kind of like Kleenex is a brand, and styrofoam is a very specific thing, but these expanded foam food containers, and they off gas benzene, which is a carcinogen. So you don't have to actually be consuming the styrofoam to be affected by the chemicals that are leaching out of it. And that's true of many plastics.
(13:57):
One thing I was thinking of, Holly, when I was thinking about our talk today, a lot of people know that
plastic is a problem. They know that it's in the ocean. This is not a new kind of conversation. What sort of
new things does your book bring to the conversation? New ideas or perspectives that might be unique that people haven't heard before?
(14:16):
Well, one thing, and I haven't discussed it yet, that is a really important part of plastic, is that plastic is
produced from, it's a petrochemical, so it's produced from fossil fuels oil. And that's something that a lot
of people don't realize, but even if they know that, they don't realize how huge a component the plastic
industry is to climate change. And so just to put that in perspective, if the plastic industry were a country,
it would be the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world after China, India, Russia, and the
us. So it is a major contributor. And the oil industry, as we are finding greener solutions to energy use,
they are pivoting. They're pivoting their business plans to increase plastic production so that they can
continue to produce oil and profit from it. So that's a really important aspect of plastic that most people
don't realize.
(15:21):
Yeah, no, yeah, that's a very good point. And yeah, actually, it makes me think of actually one of the most
impactful part of your books for me was the whale margarine kind of goes along with that, right? Yeah.
Tell me a little about that.
(15:32):
Yeah, so he's a sociologist economist, Richard York, his name is, he's a researcher. And these are not the
kinds of papers I normally read, but it had a catchy title. I was doing research on whales, and it was
entitled, why Oil, or Why the Oil Industry or The Discovery of Oil Did Not Save the Whale. And so I
thought, well, that's interesting, and I don't know the answer. So I read the paper and basically, so in the
beginning, whales were hunted for their oil, for kerosene and for various fuel reasons. But then when oil
was discovered, you would think, oh, well, that's much easier, cheaper, less dangerous, and so on. So you would think that the petroleum industry would have taken the pressure off of oil, but instead, as these things go, it actually, oil was used to fuel ships, and then factory freezers were produced, and harpoon guns were developed to be all because of oil.
(16:40):
So it made the hunting of whales faster and more efficient, and it made whales that were previously
inaccessible because they moved too fast for slower ships, made them huntable. And so rather than using them for oil now or for fuel, they were making up reasons. And so this was one of them. It was, well, we don't need whale fat, but they homogenized it and turned it into butter. There was whale butter sold in England or Europe in general, I guess, when there were cows in the backyard. It sounds ridiculous, and it sounds idiotic that you would buy whale butter when you had real cow's butter within arm's reach when it's presented to you like that logically. But then I would say the same thing about buying bottled water. When many parts of the world, you cannot drink local water, but that's not the issue. In most parts of North America and other Western countries, you turn on the tap and you have your free source of water instead of buying bottled water that you're paying for, and you're actually eating a lot more plastics, and God knows what else.
(17:57):
And the plastic industry has created this illusion that we need it. I mean, plastic has some really great
applications, particularly in research and medical applications, but under no circumstances should all
those plastics be thrown away. This is where some solutions come into play. But also in terms of this
driving the need for plastics, this is an interesting point, is that a couple of years ago that federal
government added plastics to the toxic substance list of the Environmental Protection Act regulations,
which in and of itself doesn't do anything, but it allows mechanisms for creating regulations. So it was
added to this toxic substance list. And then the federal government had a tiered approach to banning a
bunch of single use plastics that was supposed to come into force at the end of 2024. And I'm not sure
where that stands now, because the oil industry, Imperial Oil sued the federal government for listing it as
a toxic substance. And that suit was supported by the Alberta government and the Saskatchewan
governments both big oil producing provinces, and they were successful. So now countersuits are
happening, but the whole thing is being held up because those premiers, governments know the
relationship between plastic and oil.
(19:36):
Yeah. Now I feel in over my head, Holly, I'm thinking,
(19:41):
Oh, no, no,
(19:42):
I'm not feeling good now.
(19:43):
No, no. There's breathing room. There is.
(19:48):
And yeah, I guess it can feel like it's very doom and gloom, and it's like, yeah, there's a lot of money,
interest, and maybe politics, and that can be very frustrating sometimes. But part of your book is also
about a bit of hope and solutions, right? Yes. Yeah. Let's talk a little about that.
(20:05):
Yeah. So again, when I found out that there was this countersuit going on, I thought, I feel pretty hopeless
here, but I can send some money towards Environmental Defense Fund, which supports these kinds of
legal actions. So throwing a little money their way, but the important things that we can do on a larger
scale is talk with our vote voting for parties that support environmental action, positive environmental
action. Also talking with your dollar because business wants your money. And if you're not going to buy
that are frivolously using or wasting plastic, they're going to stop using it. I'm starting to see that myself
in the marketplace. I, for example, stopped shopping at Costco because everything was double and triple
wrapped in plastic. So now sometimes I go out there for very specific things that are not plastic, have no
plastic involved with them, and I'm seeing changes in packaging. And the reason I bring up Costco is
because these are the kinds of places where the masses shop. Boutique shops are great, but they're more expensive. And when you're trying to do things economically, especially with a family, you need to see those changes in the mainstream. Yeah,
(21:32):
I appreciate you sharing that. Absolutely. That's good to know you're doing that. I've stopped buying
whale margarine.
(21:36):
Oh, yeah. It's bad for cholesterol too. Yeah, no, but there's so many things we can do in our own lives.
And what I have done personally, I make crackers and I make yogurt and I make granola. Those are the
three things that I eat in life mostly that are easy to make because I am not a good cook or I don't really
delight in it either. But these are three really easy things to make, and that eliminates all kinds of plastic.
But I just size things up and go, if something has plastic on it or around it, is there an alternative? Do I
need it? And if the answer is no, which it is increasingly, then I just don't purchase it. But I'll tell you
another thing that gives me a lot of hope is the response to the COVID-19, the global response to the
COVID-19 pandemic.
(22:34):
We were in a global crisis and solutions. Once we took that crisis seriously, solutions came quickly.
Countries worked together. They pooled resources and minds and research and technology, and came upwith vaccines, and things were turned around really quickly. And the other really cool thing about whenwe were all in lockdown is how wildlife was returning to places where it hadn't been because of human presence. And so it was just a glimpse into the fact that natural systems can recover if we just lay off the pressure. And actually, Antarctica is another really great example of that. We were talking about the whale hunt, and before the whales, the seals were almost completely eliminated from Antarctica and the islands in the southern ocean, and then they turned to whales, and almost all of those were decimated as well. But right now, when you go to old whaling stations in Antarctica and in the Southern ocean, the beaches are smothered with fur seals and sea lions, and they're using these old buildings as shelter.
(23:53):
So they're reclaiming the space and using the things that were used to render their fat as windbreaks andsafe places to have your pups. And so there's hope in lots of ways. And also reading about solutions, the fascinating and incredible research that is going on in so many different fields, ways of creating products that make them convenient but don't involve plastic. So I'll just give you an example of one. I saw these things for athletes that were water, that were encased in a seaweed dissolvable substance. So you could just pop it in your mouth. The seaweed would dissolve. I mean, seaweed, that's a very, very basic term. It was made from seaweed, but it dissolves in your mouth and you get several ounces of water that way. I just thought that was really cool and so simple, and also very hopeful for other solutions.
(24:56):
And the other one that really stuck out in my mind was a researcher that took plastics from all kinds of
sources, plastic bread bags, things that are used all the time, and subjected it to a process that involved
microwaves. And it was of the same energy level as your domestic microwave oven, and just applied an
iron catalyst. So with the plastic. And the other end came these carbon nano tubes, which are solid carbon that can be used in producing steel and batteries and hydrogen, so in another source of energy. And so in this way, the carbon is sequestered into this solid, and you have the byproduct. So if plastics that have been recycled and reused and just get to a point where their usefulness, at least to this point is limited, maybe that could be the end result that it gets converted into something else through these chemical processes. And that's just one guy in one lab, in one place. And as I say in the book, just because I don't know about it doesn't mean it's not happening lots. I don't know. I'm learning every day about this and so many other things. So all of that gives me a lot of hope.
(26:18):
And yeah, it seems like reading the book, yeah, it's very complicated with whether it's policy, whether it's
what you buy, things like that. But it seems like what I got from your book was just kind of a greater
appreciation for these spaces and the wildlife in them and the importance of the ocean. And it seems like
that would get people to care and to take action, right.
(26:42):
And to protect themselves and their children and grandchildren forever.
(26:49):
Yeah. Well, I really enjoyed the book message in a Bottle, ocean Dispatches from a Seabird biologist.
Thanks for chatting with me, Holly. It was a good conversation.
(26:57):
Thank you for inviting me, Michael. It's been a real pleasure.