Field Notes from the Maine Coast, News and Media Notebook Dump, and an ASPN Update!

Peter Ravella  0:00  
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the American shoreline podcast. This is Peter Ravella. co host of the show and this is Tyler Buckingham, the other co host data it's the middle of the year. And occasionally on ASPN and our on our show, we do check in to talk to the audience all of our great listeners around the world on the American Shoreline Podcast Network. And, you know, I just got back from Maine, we got a really cool show we're gonna put together gonna talk a little bit about Maine. I'm excited to hear about it. Yeah. And I think we're going to talk about ocean and coastal media, some of the big stories blowing up on the internet that are related to the coastal rule. I'm excited to check in on that. Yeah, yeah. There's a couple things. I'm interested in your take on what we're seeing, drawing a lot of attention on Twitter and around the internet on coastal issues. Likewise, likewise, and, you know, it'd be great if we can I can't wait to tell people you know, we've really done some, some big new additions to the American shoreline Podcast Network that I'm just thrilled about the hosts that have come on and I'm want to, I want to acknowledge them and talk about them a little bit.

Tyler Buckingham  1:03  
Absolutely. Me too. It's gonna be a great show. Peter, we are doing our big kind of download just one on one.

Peter Ravella  1:09  
Yeah, mid year. Just a little one on one hoops, meeting. You thrown it back in some buckets. That's right.

Tyler Buckingham  1:17  
And it's gonna be a great one. Ladies and gentlemen, come along with us. We have a really packed show for you today. But first, a quick word from our sponsors.

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Peter Ravella  2:17  
Tyler I just got back from Maine. I slipped out the back door while you held down the Florida coastal news today in aspm. Which is a hell of a lot of work. Well, very much recovering for 10 days you needed the vacation. I really did and and you know it's hot down here in Texas. We're in the middle of summer right now. We're breaking 100 every day probably for the next week. And you know, my wife and I decided to slip the hell out the back door and get up to Maine where it was a little nicer.

Tyler Buckingham  2:45  
Yeah, well, you know, Maine is a favorite. A favorite place here on ASPN. Yeah, we hear a lot about Maine. We talk a lot about Maine. Yeah. And you actually got I believe in the all of our time doing coastal news today in ESPN. This is the first time that one of us has actually been to me.

Peter Ravella  3:01  
That is true. That is true. I went to Maine many years ago probably 10 years ago with my law school buddy, Michael Nessie shout out to Michael Nessie from whole Massachusetts and we climbed Mount Katahdin. Now this time I went up with my wife I wasn't married when Michael and I did that trip but we wanted to go up and get out of the heat and and see a part of the coast of America that we hadn't seen so it was it was fabulous. Well can you tell me so you you fly into Boston we understand Yeah, we flew into Boston because you know my law school roommates in Boston so we were going to drop in and spend some capital coastal airport they're low Yeah, you know he lives in Hall right on the bottom Boston Harbor he's got a boat old vacate this is interesting home Massachusetts was a summer cottage home for wealthy people in Boston who want to get out of the city and they built these summer cottages which are you know two or three stories and big old houses rambling things around the late 1800s 1900s and he bought one of these things no way see right not really conducive to full time liquidity so Hall is an amazing place we hung out in Hall on the way back coming up on the way back but got it on his boat and very nice went out to the the main at the Boston Harbor lightweight the sir we starting the tour at the end of the tour yeah we're starting it was a lot you know the lighthouse he took us out to see the lighthouse he says the only man the lighthouse on the American shoreline. Oh really? Yeah. Yeah. So that you You came you went to the lighthouse on the last day? Yeah, we trip Yeah. They port last year but that is almost a poetic ending. It was good. You know, we to wrap it up. It was a very good ending to the trip. Michael and his wife maley tremendous. People have known him forever and just could not be better. But main, you know, we were on the mid coast is what it's called. We weren't down East which is further down lower in the state we're on the mid coast around Camden is the town we were near. We actually spent a couple days in Camden, delightful, beautiful coastal town with a really great harbor. And up inland on Lake Michigan to tuck is I believe how you pronounce it in Atlanta indian names. And we spent the first four days at really cool cabin on Lake. So we had a great, great trip. Love it.

Tyler Buckingham  5:29  
Well, I've got to ask so you know, Maine, we've we've paid special attention to Maine from kind of a gentrification perspective along the shoreline, you got to spend some time as a tourist passing through what is what is what was your assessment? I mean, I realized as a tourist, but passing through of the working waterfront and let's just start with that. I Well, we could go further. Did you talk to a lobstermen? You know, I've got just so many quotes.

Peter Ravella  5:56  
Well, I you know, I did talk to the people in Camden Camden about the, about the waterfront and it is gentrifying, and the main coast, a lot of people leaving New York City, the other more densely populated areas, buying second houses. So there's a transformation going on on the main shoreline. It's becoming much more expensive, and a little more difficult for working waterfront folks. But the thing in the local paper while we were there, and I read it every day, was a there was a proposal by the mayor and the city manager, I believe in a consulting company to install a boardwalk around the harbor of Camden. Now, this is not a huge Harbor, it's a recreational harbor. There's some two mastered barks and sailing ships. And there are some lobster boats there. But it's, it's hanging on is a little bit of a working waterfront. But it's becoming more and more touristy, right? So the proposal is to is to put a boardwalk all around the interior of the harbor, and it would take access away from some of the existing businesses that work on the harbor. So in the newspaper, it's just flying. I mean, that people are pissed off that the waterfront owners are upset about this proposal, the mayor and the I bet, yeah, no, it was a classic coastal management problem. And to read it in the local paper, and to talk to the folks down on the waterfront about it. I just felt like, you know, this is a microcosm of what's happening on American shoreline.

Tyler Buckingham  7:28  
What do you think? What are your thoughts on that in terms of? I mean, would you if you were the mayor, would you do that?

Peter Ravella  7:34  
Um, you know, there were a couple of problems. The interesting thing was the local paper did an editorial because the mayor and the city manager called hearing to explain to everybody what they thought needed to happen and why this was important. Right now, they did that outside of their jobs as city elected officials and managers. So as I said, we're going to set up a discussion, and we're just going to tell you what we think is private citizens. And when people interrupted and tried to object to what they what they were laying out, Wow, really, the newspaper said, basically, this is highly questionable process. You can't as the mayor, get up and speak about an issue central to the city's future, and declare yourself a private citizen and shut off opposition. So I thought it was I was good. Good to see the local paper take the

Tyler Buckingham  8:27  
position. I was for local journalism. Yeah, it was great. Right there a waterfront issue, we should have ran that.

Peter Ravella  8:33  
Well, I thought about doing I thought, you know, I was sitting in a bar having a beer talking to the bartender about this. And I said, you know, this would be a podcast, we would interview the business owners that are being affected and the proponents of the of this board rock proposal and it would be a perfect microcosm of the kind of economic transfer tape transformation we talked about all the time.

Tyler Buckingham  8:55  
You know, what, what I have really been thinking about a lot lately is the importance of vision and leadership, but vision in particular and you know, community visioning when we were talking with our last on last week's show, we were talking about this community workbook. That's right. And kind of this ground up approach, which I really believe climate

Peter Ravella  9:15  
and the climate, gration network people that was a good show, it was a great, interesting discussion.

Tyler Buckingham  9:19  
Well, and it gets at this idea of how do you merge the vision for the shoreline? Yeah. When there are so many stakeholders,

Peter Ravella  9:26  
yep. competing interests, competing interests

Tyler Buckingham  9:29  
that are historically inclined to just put a wall around their little zone. Right and and not bother with their competitors. I mean, as long as everyone is eating, yeah, economically, it's not it's not broken. Yeah. And, but with climate change, and with the pressures of also just more people, you know, in the case of Maine, there are economic pressures that I think are just as forceful and powerful here. I mean COVID I know drew a lot of people out of Boston out there who are now remote working. That's right. Like Like we hear from Erica Sears from big tourism on the Oregon coast people coming down from Seattle. Yeah. Who are now permit basically permanent Oregon coastal residents that resume working

Peter Ravella  10:19  
Yeah, transforming these little codal

Tyler Buckingham  10:21  
to what is their vision for what these coastal towns will look like? What kind of working waterfront or not? What does the coastline look like? How is it developed? Man, that's difficult to say.

Peter Ravella  10:32  
It's a constant discussion on the American trail. And it's not clear how it's going to go. Obviously, it depends very much place to place is different. But it

Tyler Buckingham  10:42  
does depend on a willingness to communicate. So I'm interested in your take when you're in Maine, I know that you got to talk to some people was where people? Did they have a vision of their own where they were they wanting to talk about? Let's see,

Peter Ravella  10:55  
I think you know, I'll tell you the thing that it's not exactly what you're asking. But we were in sort of doing the walkthrough of Camden and go and shop to shop and poking our nose in and you know, buying a thing for a family member or whatnot. I told Genevieve I said, the tourist economy requires that we're out and about we buy a few things that's that I'm telling you. They're measuring everything. So let's go What do you want to get for your mother? So we went, but I was talking to the shop owners and I said what's the what's the business like and they said, It is never been this busy at all, we can't keep things in stock, we are having a hard time getting a hold of inventory. There are so many people here it is higher than before the pandemic. So a lot of people getting out trying to get out of the city maybe take advantage of this window in the pandemic and the COVID outbreak. So it was interesting just to see the intensity and the boardwalk proposal is in line with the fact that the economy is becoming more tourist orient no question. And they do have a section. You mean they don't want to put cranes in mayor's not calling for heavier quitters moving in, you know, the shipyard and the in the ship repair business that's on part of the harbor, like that's all going to get torn down. And that's going to be turned into some great restaurants and some condos and some, and you would be able to walk along the waterfront, which you can do in a section, probably about 25%. And I gotta say, it's beautiful. There's really fine restaurants right on the harbor, you're walking between the restaurant in the water, you can look at the boats, you can sit at a table have this beautiful view. But these are working spaces, and having none of it available for the water men and women and the businesses that require access doesn't seem like a good idea to me. That's my personal opinion.

Tyler Buckingham  12:45  
Yeah, well, I would agree with that. And I would just say that the community needs a diversity to it. And and I mean that in all senses. And what we see in a lot of coastal communities is when you go when the pie gets overly tourist oriented, you lose a segment of the workforce, you lose a segment of the community, the character of the town. Well, it impacts that. I think it does impact that but but I mean, we're talking about I believe that a well rounded, yeah. community has a well rounded economic kind of profile in an ideal land, you know, and, yeah, and the shining city on the hill is not a monoculture situation. I

Peter Ravella  13:36  
want to see that stuff. I mean, we we took a drive south of Camden down to meet Billa Byrne, who's a host on a ESPN worked at NOAA for 30 years and and the state director of the Maine coastal program, so we were gonna go sea kayaking with Bill and Kathleen would really great trip but we went through bath, Maine. Now you're coming. We're coming from Canada. So we're driving south and crossing the Bay Bridge into bath Maine in the bath Iron Works were there. And in that which is a major shipbuilding, government procurement. Yeah, for the US Navy and has been for 100 years or more. Yeah, and some of these naval ships under construction are along the waterfront right in front of the bath Iron Works. And I was fascinated I wanted to stop and go there. I don't want to do this pod. I don't want to stop the restaurant I want to go over there and seek now we did not have time but I was able to see they're doing these these new littoral ships these close in water You know, we're gonna have to have the destroyers. I mean, the ships you can it's like wow, you know, the and this is the major employer in the state of Maine is bath Iron Works is I think in the private sector is the largest single employer in the state. So yeah, we want that kind of diversity and that kind of excitement on the shoreline and you tillett II in the in the economics of that are critical. So, you know, it can't all be condos and and restaurants, I don't think

Tyler Buckingham  15:10  
well, and I mean, my main thing is that pardon the pun, but that a diversified community will take a more diverse, you'll get more perspectives on how the coastal space Yeah, can can be utilized in the most effective and healthy ways. And when you have a monoculture of interest you get Yeah, you know, you get a heavy industrial port or you get a really like fake beach or, you know, like a Waikiki or something like that when you have just like pure tourism or pure. And what I prefer to see is what you're describing actually Camden where you actually have a stack of things happening in the same space. It's actually just educational to be there.

Peter Ravella  15:56  
If you're more interesting, if you want to promote tourism, I think it's more interesting to go to a place that has, and there are working lobster boats in Camden harbor. And then there's the these 100 year old schooners that are totally the guy told me he said, Look, we have we have two of these barks are schooners. They're about 100 feet long to me. Wow. And they you know, you can you can take crews, they run it out every day. And he said these are the only Coast Guard certified total sailing ships where there's no backup engines at all that are still sailed for. For for fair for for paying customers. There are sailboats that are not don't have motors, but and I was like, wow, that's kind of interesting. Like now these are these are the these are the last three are right here in Camden. So Wow, that could have been a sales pitch. We thought seriously about taking it, but we didn't. But nevertheless, I loved Camden. And and I'll tell you we The other interesting thing from the trip to Maine is we went that we did the C kind track trip, a trip with Bill O'Byrne, and the director of the state coast program and we had a chance to meet with the state geologist Who is this who's a coastal geologist and walked the beach and talked about the geography and geology of man. And that was all cool. But we did the sea kayak trip and we we stopped for lunch on this little island smidgen Island. And there was a boat there. And there were some people on shore and they were from the coastal, the main coastal Heritage Foundation, I believe it is what is called a nonprofit that purchased the island. And so we got to talk to the the preservation folks from the heritage and kind of the trust. And it used to be an African American owned Island after the Civil War was probably one of the few African American communities in Maine. And by about 1915, they'd all been run off and the island was possessed by the State of Maine. Yeah, and in I haven't, I would this is another thing we could do a story got to do some research on Yeah, I'd be very interested. We got to get hit up with that organization. Yeah, I got her card. And, you know, it's an interesting story. And they're, they're working with the descendants of the owners of the the island, the African American community, because it's only as good as 100 years ago. So there's a lot of kids right around. And there's something to know about the equity to access at Shoreline access, something that's happening, not just in Maine, but you know, la just returned a big piece of property to an African remote African American owned resort facility that the state had dispossessed them of, and they after, you know, 100 years, they decided to give it back to the family and that just it'll be that'll be in coastal new state tomorrow, in fact,

Tyler Buckingham  19:00  
yeah, I mean, this is a, I think that we're gonna see a lot more of this. And I'm blanking on the name of this policy, but there is a a kind of federal land management concept about returning land to tribal organizations and tribes as a policy,

Peter Ravella  19:26  
yeah. And it has done some huge givebacks Yeah. To the indigenous culture and some tribal lands in Oregon have been recently returned to the tribe, I believe.

Tyler Buckingham  19:39  
Yeah. And anyway, it's it's interesting and of course, super important, and we will be covering these stories as they emerge, right. What a cool encounter they're on your ocean kayaking trip they're absolutely around these major an island.

Peter Ravella  19:54  
Yeah, I think it was called. I'm gonna get the name wrong. Genevieve handed me the pamphlet my wife because said for your show. Here's the pamphlet. And of course I left it, but I think it's called magdala. small island, but it was great. And we also had some superb lobster. And I had a long conversation actually with a New York tugboat captain who lives in Maine. And he goes down to New York Harbor, and he captain's a tag and has been doing this for a couple of decades. And then he comes back to Maine, and when he's not on board and hangs out, and it lives a really nice life. But he's talking a lot about New York Harbor and what's happening in the harbor. And we were talking about the lobster industry. And I said, you know, that it's, it's, it's pretty good. He said, they're completely, you know, these regulations are really hurting him. I said, Well, you know, they're they're making more money now in the last five years than they have 25 years ago, by far their the the harvest tonnage is are doubled from, you know, the 1970s 1980s, even maybe the 90s. Yeah. I don't think the global marketplace is Yeah, way bigger now. Yeah. And I don't think that regulations are a problem for the, for the lobstermen, really, and my take, they seem to be doing very well financially. And we talked about climate change, and they're very aware, he said, looked at that. When I was a kid up here, we had snow from basically from October to March. And he lives on the lake we were at, he was a neighbor on Lake. And he said, This lake would be frozen all winter. And we'd go ice skating on it. And we'd we we'd go ice fishing, and we'd be out. And like you said last five years, there's not any snow at all. It's not the leg isn't freezing at all. He said, so we can tell. It's changing. And we know the the lobster fishery is changing. And so they're very aware of it up there is interesting, and you know, you pick up the vibe, and though I didn't hear anybody tell me climate change wasn't true. And I asked several people and conversations in 10 days were up there. Interesting. Yeah. Well,

Tyler Buckingham  22:03  
it doesn't surprise me given how Maine, is it? I mean, we're talking about that lobster fishery is such a changing. I mean, it has been changing on the American shoreline now for decades. Yeah. I mean, it has been migrating north. Yeah. And Maine has found itself in the sweet spot. Yeah, late. And everyone can see clearly that that's not going to last forever.

Peter Ravella  22:30  
Joe coding to Joe Cocker. Cool. We've had on a couple times, he said, this is a this is the peak before the crash, and that the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery is likely to significantly decline as the population migrates further north. It's happened, you know, since it was down in Virginia, and then in Long Island Sound, and as its migrated, the lobster fishery has migrated northward over the last, you know, 100 years. Absolutely. I think they know that. I think that I think the lobster fishermen know that things are incredibly good right now. But there's, it's not going to stay this way. And the insecurity of that change, which is not their fault. Is is really freaking people out.

Tyler Buckingham  23:18  
Well, I can, I can absolutely understand why I mean, you get you you rely you get built into like this economic model where you are priced into it. Yeah. And the if the underpinnings are shaking, that is an anxiety inducing, right, conditioned to be operating in. And it's like they're not alone. I mean, we we talk a lot about them because they're an interesting community on the American shoreline. But yeah, in truth, what I think we're realizing particularly with this heatwave in the Pacific Northwest and the floods in Europe and just the acceleration of climate events, seems to be solidifying the fact that what we what we thought we might be able to count on. I mean, even this summer we're having here in Austin man is bizarre. Yeah, it's a bizarre summer.

Peter Ravella  24:13  
It's been a really strange last six months where we went from deep freeze temperatures, snow on the ground for a week to a ton of rain and now up to our, you know, 105 107 degree dads.

Tyler Buckingham  24:29  
I don't want to step on. Jackie Baron Simone molars and their upcoming Delta dispatcher show it comes out on Tuesday. But I learned that New Orleans has already reached their annual rainfall. Oh, wow. So far this year? Well, and hurricane season hasn't really even now we have ranked it we haven't had any storms. That's normally when most of the rain falls. Right this next part of the year. That's interesting. So it's been a gnarly year, I think, from a climate perspective for a lot of people. And I think regardless of whether you're a lobstermen or you just live in New Orleans, or you live anywhere, frankly, I mean, I think that this is kind of it's a global thing. Yeah. But it feels real shaky.

Peter Ravella  25:16  
It does. And I do think people, you know, somewhere deep down, understand that that, like, you're saying, there were certain assumptions about how the world operates that we've been working off of a certain equilibrium, not totally interrupted, you know, that kind of thing. But, but people knew where you could build a house, they knew where the water's gonna be this sort of blue sky flooding and water coming into places it shouldn't be and, and all kinds of infrastructure being impinged by sea level rise, and then the movement of living organisms that are commercially important, shifting location. I mean, this is not stuff people thought would change. And it is, and I think, I think we know it's important. I think most people, even people who are denying are a little bit like, you know, a little bit of OSHA,

Tyler Buckingham  26:09  
I just think that's over. I mean, this might be a generational thing, but I really do feel like it's over. Yeah, but let me let me just ask because we, I want to, what else would you like the audience to know about your main trip?

Peter Ravella  26:21  
Well, you know, it's, of course, beautiful. It was absolutely fantastic. I would give it a 10. I'm, we're looking forward to going back, we need to go back for a longer period of time. We just scratched the surface. We didn't get to Acadia National Park. We didn't do so many things. It's an extraordinary place. And I gotta tell you, it's, it's really nice to be in a place where it's, you know, in the 60s at night in the middle of this. Yeah. I'm not complaining. No, it was fantastic was trained pancit trim. But let me ask you. So you know, we on coastal news today in SPM. We're, we're on the edge of what's happening in conversations around the American shoreline. And you record every podcast that the American Trucking Podcast Network puts out, which I've got to think we're over 600 by now. Yeah, we are clearly a lot, Tyler. But so what what's jumping out at you? I mean, you're tracking the news and listen to the conversations. And we're putting out the news on coast news today. There's a couple things like I've been really interested in this coastal barrier resources act discussion that's been kind of popping on social media. You know, I wanted to actually ask you about that, because

Tyler Buckingham  27:36  
I've noticed that in my network, but certainly on LinkedIn, this has been there's been quite a bit of buzz about this. Yeah. And since you are our news guru, I wanted to ask you, I mean, what's going on? First of all, what is going on? Okay, what has happened?

Peter Ravella  27:54  
So I think the coastal professionals out there, certainly in city, government and coastal government, state government, will now the coastal barrier resources act of 1982, which was an attempt to put it in the vernacular to kind of zone the American shoreline. And set aside areas where no federal fund or federal support could be invested. So if you were trying to get if you were trying to put in a sewer system, you could not get any federal money for a sewer system water system, you couldn't build a beach, you couldn't get federal money for a port. what they were saying trying to say is their coastal barrier areas that are high risk that are in pristine condition, we don't want them to be developed. So the law said, no federal support allowed to go into a cobra area or a cobra unit, and they're all maps. And this is all managed, kind of, interestingly, by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. But Cobra has been a bit controversial over the years because developers are going there's all this beautiful, undeveloped land right on the shoreline, how bout it? Let's build the roads, put in the infrastructure and put the houses and we'll make a bunch of money. The law doesn't allow it. So what's happened lately is Donald Trump, President Trump when he was in office, changed policy that related to Cobra That said, if you're nourishing a beach and an area that is developed, and you want to go into a cobra unit, where there's a lot of sand near the shore and suck it all up and move it out of the Cobra unit, the undeveloped area, to widen the beach in a developed area that the Trump administration said we're changing the policy on cover and we're going to let you go into a covering and take sand now previously, you could not do you could not do that. You

Unknown Speaker  29:42  
know, what was the reasoning for why you couldn't?

Peter Ravella  29:45  
Well, I mean, the whole notion of Cobra is that coastal development can be irresponsible and dangerous and costly and where there are areas that are highly vulnerable and are undeveloped. We shouldn't do any To put structures in there, so they were basically set asides. And the sand is a dynamic part of the of the shoreline as we know, so they want people to mine it, you don't want to mine the pristine area. It's called the coastal barrier resources resources.

Tyler Buckingham  30:17  
Yeah. And that sand strikes me as being an important piece of the coastal barrier resource. So basically, what the Trump administration was allowing is the rating of that coastal barrier resource for the purposes of protecting Yes, non Cobra areas.

Peter Ravella  30:40  
So if you're a beach nourishment fan, and I know many in our audience are in local governments who depend on beach nourishment. The new Trump policy was like, oh, wow, maybe we could do our projects less expensively. We have a new source of sand available to us. The Biden ministration came in and has now reversed that policy. And they said, No, we're not going to allow authorize in any federal permit the use of sand sources within cover units. So if in the coastal crowd that we're reading in, and that recounts the news today and listen to ESPN, let's just say there's people on both sides that this is definitely gonna be a controversial one with with the ESPN audience. I know. Yeah. Yeah. We have people on both sides of the fence, no doubt. And, you know, so there's been some tweets, and there's been some, you know, people complaining about the ballot Biden policy. And there's been fun poke folks strongly supporting the Biden policy and saying, we should not be number one, damaging these covered unit areas. And number two, we shouldn't do anything to encourage more development in the developed areas or so they're looking in what's

Tyler Buckingham  31:50  
your read on this as kind of an early Biden administration policy move?

Peter Ravella  31:55  
Well, I you know, the the cover statute was passed in 1982. It's, it's it's almost, that's 40 years ago. So until Trump fiddled with it, these areas were considered somewhat, I wouldn't say sacrosanct but highly protected. And so going back to the original principles of the law, and the and the understanding of the statute and situation, pre Trump, at least is arguably the standard that you're trying to get to this exception that was built may be a good idea. But here's the deal, why not go to Congress and see if you can get a law passed that says we want to be able to do things differently? I think? I don't know. My personal take is certainly there are advantages to being able to get less expensive sand from Cobra units. But I got to think that the potential for for long term negative consequences of allowing that near short sand acquisition. I'm not for it.

Tyler Buckingham  33:03  
Well, what did you think about the media response to it because I noticed some of these headlines. The press release that the US Fish and Wildlife Service put out was very different than headlines that so many of the Yeah, the local papers that we cover. I mean, this story went kind of viral, if you will, around local journalism,

Peter Ravella  33:26  
it did along the American shoreline, and we ran several stories. Yeah,

Tyler Buckingham  33:30  
absolutely. And it's definitely newsworthy for a lot of communities. Certainly, if you were banking, if you were planning on this.

Peter Ravella  33:36  
Well, it is so new policy. I doubt any of the sand sources had been written into a permit at this point. It takes a while. Yeah, I don't think that it really started happening yet. But yeah, that the the local press headline messaging was along the lines of Biden administration shuts down beach restoration for American it's the terrible thing in the world. It was that kind of skies falling. Yeah. stuff. It really was. It was it was and i think that's that's an overstatement. And and I would say, you know, Rob young, who we follow and has been a guest on our show several times over the program for develop shorelines, Western Carolina University. You know, he commented on LinkedIn a couple of times during this little uproar, and pointed out that all of the claims that this was going to shut down beach restoration in America were untrue, because this hadn't even happened yet, and had not happened in the past. And lots of beach nourishment. It's done in America without using sand sources from Cobra units. It's not true that it would make it impossible.

Tyler Buckingham  34:45  
What do you think it means from a policy perspective that Trump did I mean, that this was kind of a bit of a controversial area of policy. You know,

Peter Ravella  34:57  
it's interesting, I think in General, if you know if you look across the board, the Trump administration was definitely trying to drop the regulatory hurdles to exit actions that they thought were needed to occur. So this is was an important one for coastal people. The other major one they did was they change the definition of waters of the United States, and change the jurisdiction of the courts for for wetlands permitting program to eliminate, you know, streams that were not hydrologically directly connected to, you know, enter interstate waterways. In other words, isolated wetlands and ephemeral streams and ponds and things were going to be excluded. That was the biggest policy shift they attempted to make that's relative to coastal issues. But of course, it applies nationally. And he and that Biden has reversed that the implementation of that rule change, they actually did that through a rule change. And in the agriculture press, if you read, you know, farmer, or agricultural news sources, they're very unhappy about this retreat from the Trump policy, but the fans of the of the status quo, you know, before the change, and the the way waters up, the United States was interpreted to include ponds and ephemeral streams and in the past, are all in favor. So the attempts to really loosen up some environmental regulation by Trump has obviously been reversed by Biden, and you know, you're going to like it. If you're on the environmental side of the equation, you're going to hate it if you're not and, you know, a little bit like America today. It's pretty polarized.

Tyler Buckingham  36:45  
It definitely. It's interesting. It is polarized. Yeah. And I mean, I think fundamental to it, Peter, is that on the one hand, you have the dems, in particular Biden, you know, I'm generalizing here, but the Biden ideas on infrastructure and climate, and he is wanting the United States to guide the United States into this kind of maneuver where we're using climate change almost as a, as a new frontier of economic opportunity. Yeah. And what part of that what that what that entails is that we're going to have to change. When we change these rules, it will present new opportunities and unusual new frontiers.

Peter Ravella  37:37  
Do you think he's right about that? When he says that climate change creates new economic opportunity? by that? Oh,

Tyler Buckingham  37:43  
100%? Of course I have. I mean, I'm, yeah, I'm 34 years old. So I'm, I'm my generational read on climate change is that the if like denialism by now is just sheer theater. It's not. It's not and it's purely theatrical. Yeah. And I'm just like, and I'm going to change the channel. Yeah. And so but the serious conversations that we have are like, how are we going to use the sea floor? And what will remote sensing technology and you know, advanced computer learning and AI? And yeah, our abilities to monitor the environment in ways we never have. These are all going to allow us to do things better to have more sophisticated economy. Oh, man, I'm

Peter Ravella  38:29  
it's true. Yeah, I definitely see the glass half full. I'm with Joe on this. Yeah, I mean, drinking that, Joe coolit? Well, there's a bunch of, you know, it's surprising in the 21st century, we think we've conquered the planet. But right now, there are whole new territories of the sea that are opening up to economic exploitation that have never been used before by mankind, or should I say humankind. And that's the deep seabed mining issue and the fisheries in the Arctic, and the oil and gas development in a territory of the planet that really has not been exploited in the western way. It has been home to indigenous communities for 1000s of years who have used the space for their livelihoods. But we're talking now about the industrialization of the Arctic. And that's never happened. And so I'm hoping that that, you know, your generation Tyler as a, you know, just that we don't make the same kind of mistakes we've made in the last 150 years and, you know, coming across the North American continent, as the, you know, the

Tyler Buckingham  39:36  
I don't think there's any question that we're just that our attitudes have changed. We're just not the same culture, and we don't have the same attitudes toward the environment and the planet that we did in the 1860s and 70s and 80s. And, you know, during certainly the 20th century, but also I And you know, Brad Warren talks about this are great host of changing waters. That, you know, the reason why we are why I feel so confident that week we as a society of human beings can survive climate change and adapt and to achieve all of this opportunity that I'm talking about, is because we possess the technology in the in the understand the technical know how currently exists but doesn't exist as the cultural know how, like, we know, we know how to manipulate the invite, we can move the earth, we can do all this stuff.

Peter Ravella  40:36  
That's what we did the last 200 years. Yeah, we're pretty good at all that and that's true. We could, you know, we know, if the political will was there, the idea of producing massive amounts of electricity with solar and wind are is available right now. There's nothing technologically out of bounds on that. And it's only going to get better, like iPhones in terms of efficiency and things. But yeah, like cultural preparedness in our political state. Not in a problem solving mode right now.

Tyler Buckingham  41:06  
Well, I think that we're getting there. I mean, I, I think it's a, you know, I

Peter Ravella  41:11  
don't want to be negative, I'm not trying to be negative

Tyler Buckingham  41:14  
i and I'll tell you something, these these big events, these big heat events, and flood events and fire events that are impacting people for real. I mean, it's one thing for us to read about it, right. But like many, many, many 1000s, and 1000s of people are being impacted by climate events each year. And that's ultimately as you say, Peter, reality is the best teacher.

Peter Ravella  41:39  
And it seems, that's what it is. It's like, Oh, this is this is just awesome.

Tyler Buckingham  41:44  
This is really awesome. Yeah. Are we live? Yeah, and if you're living in this is just really Portland, Oregon, or remain?

Peter Ravella  41:50  
It's true. It's absolutely starting. Remember, we talked we kind of joke about this a little bit if, after a massive hurricane like hurricane Michael, the Florida coast that just devastated. A complete, it just wiped out to the foundations, a community. The they get on CNN, they interview the landowners, and they said, Hey, listen, that was a terrible sermon. And we are looking for it, we're coming back bigger and better and stronger. It's almost part of the the iconography of Hurricane coverage in America is there's always that person with, you know, the flag or on their rebel saying we are going to come back and and we all appreciate that. As Americans, we I think we respect that. But now I'm starting to see in the press and in interviews, people who have been in California in the wildfires and had to evacuate more multiple times and have their lives threatened in their property threatened or in multiple floods and hurricanes along the Gulf Coast. And the interview somebody and they say we just can't get we can't do this anymore. This is really important. It's emotionally impossible. You know, we can't deal with it. So you're starting to hear people say we're not going to stay. I'm actually starting to see people in the press say the opposite. I don't know if we're gonna stay. This is too much to handle. That's new.

Tyler Buckingham  43:19  
No, I think I think that's I agree. And I mean, yeah, this is good, because we're on our list of things to talk about is kind of the media, the media landscape, kind of check in. Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, I do think that the mainstream media is making his covering a different type of coastal story, and ocean story. And there's no question that the major publications like the New York Times, and The Washington Post in Los Angeles Times have really invested Yeah, like millions of diary Herald Miami Herald is really rewarding. Yeah, they have designated climate reporters. They are doing extremely excellent deep dive work, long form work. Also multimedia work, where they're using videos and animation, and they are, they are messaging to their audiences, a nuanced understanding of what's happening in there in Miami or in LA or in New York. That's really, and I mean, people are aware, I mean, yeah, people in New York are aware neighborhood by neighborhood. I mean, they lived through Sandy, they remembered if they flooded or not, and yeah, oh, you have a basement with a boiler in it. You had to buy a new boiler and that, you know, it was really, they remember that and yeah. So I think just I do think that we are entering into a new age of the coverage where they're going. I think I said they mainstream media is now going to be just talking about climate. Change as a matter of fact,

Peter Ravella  45:01  
okay, let me ask you this. That's very interesting observation. And if you look at say why, if you took a poll of coastal state opinion on climate change and the interior of the country, one of the reasons there could be a difference is because of what you said. And this is true that coastal newspapers New York Times LA Times Charleston papers down in Miami, the Miami Herald especially, and on the coastal cities, they're talking about climate change and sea level rise a lot. And they're doing lots of long form journalism, and people are seeing it vividly with flooding in Miami or in Key West or, you know, hurricanes, right. So even if your politics is that you don't think the government should interfere or that you think the cause is beyond human of fact, you're at least educated about what climate change is, and aware of it and seeing if you're in the Midwest of the United States, you'll see a story because it's reported, these stories are shared. But I don't know if you pay attention to it at all. And I doubt it registers very much because it's just, you know, over there. What do you know, I that? No,

Tyler Buckingham  46:19  
I mean, I I do think that I think that the coastal I mean, for one, the fact that these big papers, big city journalism, there's a lot of people on the American shoreline, and there's a lot more journalism on the American shoreline than there is in the interior. But I definitely think for one, you know, Elon bro would have to talk would probably disagree with you about the upper Midwest and Great Lakes region where there are plenty of coastal issues in air quotes that are not necessarily on the Great Lakes shoreline. But on other water related issues, as Yeah, flooding has been a major issue. It's good argument, blue, green algae, algal blooms have been major issues up there, right water quality and industrial. Chemical stuff is a major issue up there. And of course, you know, we know about the environmental hot button issues like pipelines and stuff like that it's right remains to this day,

Peter Ravella  47:22  
right, which are climate oriented. Absolutely.

Tyler Buckingham  47:24  
So, but I mean, you know, yeah, so in Iowa, I, the is the Des Moines Register, covering climate change the way that the San Francisco Chronicle is No, I don't think so.

Peter Ravella  47:39  
But they are covering it. And I think they're talking about crop production, and they're talking about growing seasons and harvesting levels and what's happening in, you know, in the commodity industry, also affected by climate change. Yeah, that's good point. So, okay, let me ask you this, because, you know, every year what the Discovery Channel has been doing Shark Week for how long? 20 years? Is it 2020 years? And back in the old days, they say, you know, Night Watch it in the early days, and it was it was very sciency. You know, there were, you know, they were they were it was very educational stuff. And, and, and it seems like it's evolved a little bit. And that seems like there's a lot of people in the, this is one of the hot button issues on coastal social media is Shark Week. Well, look, we have to do what, you know, what do you think?

Tyler Buckingham  48:28  
Well, thank you, I'm gonna just use, we have a podcast for a reason. And sometimes, I got to use the platform to call a spade a spade. And with regard to the modern media landscape, and specifically the Pop Culture, Media, around science, communication, and ocean science, content. The quality, ladies and gentlemen has not over the not across the board. There's a lot more content available today. There's a lot of great stuff that is produced. And we all know what that is. There's the David Attenborough stuff and many others, but shark week has really kind of de botched this corner, and it's it's sad to see really Oh, absolutely. I mean, they've turned it into a like a jackass television week. Where it's it's kind of pho science. Right? And I'm not gonna go into there's gonna be a story I understand this week on coastal news today about a new study about that kind of analyzes shark week actually uses looks at transcripts and looks at the hosts and looks at their gender and their race and kind of really studies it and it's Yeah, so I would, I wouldn't I'm not going to go into that okay at all, but what I would say Is that what's driving the media discussion, we need to really focus on what the drivers are here. And of course, when you're dealing with the Discovery Channel, you're dealing with a, like huge conglomerate media empire, and they're looking at dollar signs

Peter Ravella  50:16  
and are to Disney now aren't right. Oh,

Tyler Buckingham  50:19  
I think I think they might be a part of the Turner group. It doesn't matter. The point is that they, these are driven by analytics and ratings, they're chasing numbers, okay. And they know that when they do this, they're gonna get a certain audience. And that audio, they're getting feedback from that audience because this audience is really loving it. But there isn't a real duty there to, to actually educate or generate an appreciation for these animals or for the planet. Or

Peter Ravella  50:53  
it's, it's like, how about this? It's the mech rib of science TV, they Trump it out once a year, it sucks. I used to look forward to the McRib for many years. And I go get it right. And I think what the hell, why have I I get away, I'm like, Oh, my God, it's back. Right. And it's just trash. It's a trash sandwich. And this has become kind of a fast food. Nature show. It's sensationalized. And

Tyler Buckingham  51:22  
it's just bad. I mean, like, honestly, the fact that it gets great ratings is or, and I don't even know, I can't say that it gets great ratings, I imagine that if they made better content, they'd get much better ratings. I think that they're locking out a great deal of their potential audience. And there's no reason why it needs to be this way, which is kind of why we can do a little bit of what we do. But between Shark Week, and of course, the other big one that ruffled a lot of feathers was c spear C, which was a Netflix stock documentary, that was just really terrible.

Peter Ravella  51:57  
And mad about, what, two months ago, three months ago, were somewhere around what April May Well,

Tyler Buckingham  52:03  
I'm gonna say came out five months ago. Okay, so earlier, this, you're really late to be talking. Okay. But that's, that's my point. Well, we ignored it deliberately, because it was trash.

Peter Ravella  52:11  
And I want to Yes, it's been out in a while people probably heard it was widely covered in the international press. And the discussion went on for some weeks about what this film meant. So what's your take on that whole situation?

Tyler Buckingham  52:26  
Well, it's just it's, it's a terribly oversimplified discussion about sustainable fisheries, and the first of all the existing regulatory structures and kind of abuses that exist, but then basically offers a offers a vision of the future, whereby the only way that we can save fish is to go vegan. And it which,

Peter Ravella  52:58  
again, was a it was a criticism, I have not seen it, but I you know, from, from what I've read, right criticism of the commercial fishing industry, and basically it's

Tyler Buckingham  53:09  
it's a criticism of what of not only the commercial fishing industry, but of the government oversight of the nonprofit's that that they would say, quote unquote, claim to be working on behalf

Peter Ravella  53:22  
sustainable certification that our efforts Yeah, are part of the

Tyler Buckingham  53:26  
they think that they're saying are just part of this cabal, this this kind of evil empire that's just sucking fish out of the ocean, okay. And they're making their own rules, and that sustainable fisheries, they would say, are a myth. That, that they're just there's no such thing. You're, you're just killing the fish, you

Peter Ravella  53:43  
know, certainly there must being Well, I mean, if you and I went up, we were the fishery and we went and caught some bluefin tuna and Li Atlantic. It's a sustainable fishery. So I know it's true. Whether if, you know, you can feed the human population. I don't know about that. But you can absolutely fish sustainably.

Tyler Buckingham  54:00  
Well, it can be done. And there's a long history of, of our successful history of regulating fisheries that tanked and then fishery rules were put in place. Yeah, and those fisheries were expanded and eventually reinstated and are now being managed healthy in a healthy sustainable way. Correct. And are like producing and there's real fishermen making gone into Mexico.

Peter Ravella  54:25  
Red Fish is Robert Jones explained to us many times he was one of our old hosts in a fisheries expert was Yeah, there are. Yes, I think that's true.

Tyler Buckingham  54:36  
So my point is, is that the media landscape is really I would say it was a bad year. Honestly, there were some some really big time. opportunities here to talk about climate change to talk about fisheries. I mean, the content is so important, whether it's climate change, you know, coastal adaptation claim whatever the case may be, but the delivery devices that we're seeing the actual content that we're seeing produced is just reacting. And do you

Peter Ravella  55:12  
think it's sensationalistic? Or what I told me? Yeah,

Tyler Buckingham  55:15  
no, it's it's totally sensationalistic. And it's just, it's just, it's just not great. It's just bad content. I mean, watching, if you have an eye for this stuff, it's the same footage over and over and over and over again. They know that like a chomping biting mouth will get eyes to look at it. I guess it's just in our mind that that's really compelling to watch. Yeah, and so you're gonna watch that happen during Shark Week, like hundreds of times true. And I gotta say, that's just not that great is from from entertainment perspective.

Peter Ravella  55:51  
I there's more, so much more, so much more on so this

Tyler Buckingham  55:54  
is really a shout out to content makers to Okay, make some good shit.

Peter Ravella  55:58  
Yeah. So move past. I mean, Shark Week, there was that I think the story comes out in coastal news today. When this broadcast comes out, there's a story. And I believe it was Science Magazine, you said that someone had done a review in a criticism of Shark Week. This was the scientific review and criticism of shark week, and they're lamenting the fact that this this show, this media property, which has become you know, it's it's 20 years, since we said it's worth a lot of money and gets a lot of attention, could do so much more to educate people about sharks and change their opinion, and do something that makes it it can still be interesting and fascinating yet, but and they're just like, you know what, you guys are just screwing everybody, by being so simplified. And well, there's a there's a history there criticism.

Tyler Buckingham  56:56  
Well, I just think that there is a rich history in this space in the Marine communication video space, but from Jacques Cousteau on down the line of really inspiring generations to come with this content. And I will say, as someone who grew up watching the original shark weeks, I was I was captivated. And I might be, it might have contributed to me being on the show right now with some little

Peter Ravella  57:29  
Jacques Cousteau. I mean it. I mean, I've I think I've said this on a couple. Absolutely. But you know, my dad was an Air Force pilot, and I never in my entire life growing up lived anywhere near the ocean, nor until I went to college when I lived in Galveston. And so I'd never lived near the sea. And I wanted to be a marine biologist from I was 10. And it was only because I watched flipper, and I watched Jacques Cousteau religiously and read everything the guy did. I mean, those shows were important in who I became, and it wasn't because I grew up near the sea. So you would want these things to the shows and these up in Bob Ballard. Does this kind of work? Yes, who stuff Of course, did this kind of work and other? Attenborough Of course, the things that he does are superior quality to anything, but it's a powerful tool. And I think people are frustrated that they're just kind of not taking advantage of it.

Tyler Buckingham  58:22  
It's cheap, it's cheap, and it lacks it's not it's not doing justice to any of the stories that we cover and that we know exists, right? Be they personal about the individual shark scientists and those people and who they are and the real people, not the stage people the real human beings Yeah, who have really interesting lives all the way to the actual science and questions that they are answering. Yeah, new techniques of you know, this is not chomping mounds though, this is you got to really, you got to reach into your bag, as a craftsman as a crafts person of of a documentary and like make a more interesting thing. And they don't have the chops for that. So I'm saying just don't tune in. That's what we are doing here. This is probably the only time we're going to talk about this.

Peter Ravella  59:15  
We're not what Yeah, we're gonna boycott it.

Tyler Buckingham  59:17  
We don't really talk about when we don't really a lot of this stuff happens. And we we know that like on Twitter blow up with cease piracy for

Peter Ravella  59:27  
days. Yes, it was for day

Tyler Buckingham  59:28  
and we just decided, you know, we're not going to feed that beast right. Let's just ignore it and focus on the Yeah,

Peter Ravella  59:35  
no, I think that's worth mentioning. And it's kind of why we brought this one up is when it became a big story right of way. We decided we weren't going to do anything with it on coastal news today, nor were we going to do a podcast on the subject and their work podcasters doing see spirits, the podcasts and really following it. And we just felt like it was an unwarranted controversy that the quality What was produced was not very good. And we didn't want to expound expound on it.

Tyler Buckingham  1:00:04  
Yeah, and we have so much I like that there are so many other good stories, you know, rich stories to tell that we don't need to waste our time, you know, bitchin too much about the bad stuff. But it's worth pointing out, ladies and gentlemen that, you know, we, we really could use better stuff out there. We need it a particularly on television, particularly on a mass. You know, a big pop culture phenomenon like Shark Week, that should be done more responsibly. And if it's not, we should just stop watching it. And I would encourage everyone to tune out until advised otherwise,

Peter Ravella  1:00:44  
now speak a tune. Yeah, the other part of that is tuning in. And there's a lot of good stuff on ESPN coming up that people ought to be tuning in to. and Tyler, I just gotta say, it's been a great year on ESPN with some of the new shows we've got coming, that have come out and others under development, but there's just I just I love listening to the network. You know, you and I do one show on this network. And there are there are 14 others or so and I just you know, I learned something every day when I listened to the house on this network. I love it.

Tyler Buckingham  1:01:19  
Well, Peter, you're right. This month in August, there will be 18 episodes released on ESPN. Wow. 18 episodes, we will account for only five of those. Well, five asbs, including the one you're listening to right now. Yeah, so only four more to go for us. Yeah. But a total of 17 more shows across the network. And it's the core, it's always been about bringing in the other voices or when I say the other voices, it can't just be you and I on this thing. No, we don't you know, come on, if you're still listening to this. And you're

Peter Ravella  1:01:55  
Well, it's true that because the you know, perspective matters. And the truth is, is is more completely understood if you listen to a variety of tags. And that's what I love about the network because we have a variety of people you know, talking about subjects that matter to coastal Americans.

Tyler Buckingham  1:02:13  
That's right. And let's see I do have our shows for this coming week. I'll run through them yeah. Before I do that, let's let's go through some of the big ones for the year because we don't get to do these shows. But Peter we added Admiral Tim guy you that show the American blue economy podcast.

Peter Ravella  1:02:29  
Yeah. What a cool show. He's done three I believe are we on? episode five is

Unknown Speaker  1:02:35  
actually going to be coming out this month,

Peter Ravella  1:02:37  
Episode Five. You know, Tim gaggy debt oceanographer of the Navy Assistant Administrator of NOAA an incredible career in professional in what a great show I just love it. And he has on this extraordinary panel of guests every time like four or five or six people that are of the highest caliber and get some all talking about the subject and interacting with each other. It's It's It's very insightful shots, as I'd say insight and intelligence is what you get on ASPN and that is a good example of it.

Tyler Buckingham  1:03:14  
And that comes out monthly. So Episode Five comes out this month, little later in the month and another new one of note is northcoast Chronicles. Yeah,

Peter Ravella  1:03:23  
you put this one together with Helen Brohl, what do you think of it?

Tyler Buckingham  1:03:27  
Well, I adore this show. But you know, this is a show about Tales from the Great Lakes This is about our Great Lakes shoreline which I can't say that we neglected we we had always planned on including the Great Lakes but inevitably we our coverage skewed toward the oceanic the salty

Peter Ravella  1:03:51  
parts of the shoreline just got to it and I'm glad we did

Tyler Buckingham  1:03:54  
well we found just the perfect host Helen is right off the shoreline there on Lake Erie Yeah, and she just grew up just grew up just oozes the Great Lakes. We two episodes are out and episode three comes out this month and I'm really looking forward to it because it has to do with the viniculture and

Peter Ravella  1:04:20  
oh this is the wine and the wine leg the wine episode now who knew and you know, I didn't know there was a wine industry in the Great Lakes region but we're gonna find that out the wine culture in the food culture because it was a very very wealthy part of the of you know, it was the it was the Silicon Valley of its day and as she says Can't she thinks still is actually

Tyler Buckingham  1:04:43  
and I think might be coming back. Yeah, there's a lot going on with climate gration out in that region that I think is intriguing. But just a just a really fun show. It's It's unlike any other ESPN show. It's not. It's not a technical person. policy or science oriented show. This is really about understanding a region's culture and history and heritage. Yeah. And I, last minute, I never really thought about Great Lakes history, culture and heritage until putting the show together with Helen. I just think she's doing a masterful job with it. And she

Peter Ravella  1:05:20  
herself is great. She read my book, my wife, we were listening to it driving up to Maine, we listened to Helens, both of her shows, and after it signed off, Genevieve looked over at me and said, I love her. And I said, Yeah, I know. She's fantastic. She's like, She's such a great conversationalist. She's so warm. And here's the other thing. Like all of the hosts on ESPN, they're deeply technically grounded in the subject matter. Not only did Helen grow up there, and her brother is a captain of Great Lakes Lake are the biggest ships that transit and her father worked on ports. And so she comes first of all grounded in who she is and where she grew up. But she's also the head of the the US government's Task Force on commercial navigation. And I will not try to remember the name of it, but she is a very high level US government official on shipping and maritime policy for the United States government. So and then she talks about pie crust and about what's cool about the Great Lakes and um, because, you know, you just know there's so much richness in what the stories that she tells and what she can bring to the chef's I'm just, you know, she's I'm looking I'm so jazzed about her show.

Tyler Buckingham  1:06:32  
We're lucky to have Helen Brock hosting that show. We're also lucky to have the going coastal podcast on the network these days. This is the American shore and beach preservation associations, student and new professional chapters show.

Peter Ravella  1:06:48  
Yeah, what a cool thing this took some months to we've been, I think, talking to them for quite a while about putting this show together. And I'm really good at what did you think of it? so far? They've done a couple episodes. What do you think? Well, we

Tyler Buckingham  1:07:03  
we, you know, I feel like if I was the GM of the Lakers, we got to get younger, we had to get some young legs. And so going, going coastal is a great show about, obviously, the students and new professionals who are entering into the space and who are in the space. And they're talking about what they're working on what they're researching, right. And what they find exciting and interesting. And that's really the most important thing is like, what direction is the next generation

Peter Ravella  1:07:34  
right interested in in submarine science, transportation, engineering, all the all the disciplines policy planning? Yeah, the next generation of coastal professionals, we always knew this one up on it.

Tyler Buckingham  1:07:47  
We always knew this was going to be an important part of the ESPN chorus. We needed to have our the the next generation of voices heard. And that's one of the things we really made a concerted effort of adding this year along with the rising sea Voices Podcast hosted by Felicia omega scholtz. Yeah, our wonderful lead on ESPN you and which I think we're kind of molding into actually this kind of section of our coverage. Yeah. Which is our kind of students and young professionals in academia. Yep. And really profiling these stories.

Peter Ravella  1:08:25  
Yeah. You know, Felicia joined us last year, I think it was September or October, to help out developing a ESPN University based on the series we did with Oregon State University, which was really fantastic. And so I always knew that, you know, when I met her and got to know her working on that project, I thought, Man, she needs to be on our network. She has a really interesting voice and perspective and an incredible ethical point of view. And this rising sea Voices Podcast is a isn't is a is a podcast, devoted to coastal science and engineering and technical academic investigation and to inclusion, diversity and inclusion 100%. And I'm really proud of her and for bringing that to us and to working with us on our value statement and other things that we're trying to do to be to be deliberately inclusive as we can be, in who our hosts are, and what kind of things we've talked about. So, you know, my hat's off to her. I think she really helped help us move in a good direction here.

Tyler Buckingham  1:09:33  
You got to listen to the show. I mean, it's, she does a great job of talking about the research and, and also getting to know the individual behind it. And we are complicated people. And the people that make up our community have a broad spectrum of stories, and we tend to only kind of look at the ones that are most similar to ourselves. And yeah, Felicia really has a knack. for finding new and interesting stories that we can all learn a lot from. And so that shows just I really, it's really a gem on the ESPN calendar. And that's that's a monthly offering. Of course, we have Leslie Ewing are an Oji host on the network with her monthly shoreward show. Yeah. And we are excited to be bringing on hopefully this month, a new offering from the coastal society. This is another young person show students show. Yeah, from the Carolinas. And so although I think it will cover the the whole American shoreline but really excited for that, Peter, I know we're getting late. So I want to quickly go over what we're doing this week. Okay, what do you do? And what do we get go? Yeah, so it's a it's a big one. We have four shows coming out this week, starting off on Tuesday with Delta dispatches, and this is one that you're gonna like it's the economic case for coastal restoration.

Peter Ravella  1:11:00  
Delta design from New Orleans all about the Yeah, the coastal the coast of Louisiana restoration project. That's going to be cool.

Unknown Speaker  1:11:08  
Okay, that's right. And Wednesday, we've got the monthly waterlogue from Howard Marlowe and Dan gentle fi, DC up in DC,

Peter Ravella  1:11:18  
you know, Capitol Hill boy pounding pounding boot leather to the marble

Unknown Speaker  1:11:24  
at a Capitol. That's right.

Tyler Buckingham  1:11:26  
Just hustling to get the stories for you. And they're going to be going over this new Cobra act that we discussed earlier on the show that we're gonna be discussing that as well. They're going to be looking at the coastal highlights from the house appropriation bills, and they're going to dive into the infrastructure bill a little bit. So that's exciting. That should be an interesting Well,

Peter Ravella  1:11:45  
they're experts you know, Dan and Howard up on the hill do a lot to work for a lot of coastal communities around the country. They do little they consult a little bit and let's just say they know their way around the coast and they know their way around the rustled senate office building to in everywhere on Capitol Hill. They're there. So when they talk about what's going on in the hill, I always listen to because I want to find out what's really going on, and they'll let you know. So I love that one.

Tyler Buckingham  1:12:12  
Absolutely. And finally, our final show Friday,

Peter Ravella  1:12:16  
the ocean decade show actually, is Taylor Taylor gal. Good I can't wait to hear and this is

Tyler Buckingham  1:12:21  
gonna be you're really gonna like this one. This. This show is about the BB and j the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction. Conference. Ooh. And so this has to do with you know, the blue ocean correct and how we're going to govern this and yeah, how the ocean decade is going to approach multinational elements here. So this is a total un Yeah, global ocean management show.

Peter Ravella  1:12:49  
actually love Taylor show grace. What number is this for her? Can you tell it's like five or six?

Tyler Buckingham  1:12:55  
Well, it started on New Year's Day. So this would be her fifth show.

Peter Ravella  1:12:58  
Okay, Taylor, you know, former canals fellow now with the Alpine Institute working on decarbonisation of open shipping. She's absolutely brilliant. She's a great Interviewer And she worked really hard on the ocean decade in her canals fellowship. And I just think if you're looking for the biggest picture possible about broad scale, sort of global level thinking on ocean and climate and and coastal issues, Taylor's just just a blast. Absolutely I do it's no my learn too much. And I listen to every time I learn too much.

Tyler Buckingham  1:13:32  
That's right. Coming up on Friday. Ocean decade show new episode. Check it out. And of course, we're gonna have another Saturday special. We're just keeping the content running. Yeah, basically, ladies and gentlemen. Tune into a ASPN all August long. We have a packed month of content. spanning the coastal space

Peter Ravella  1:13:52  
right here. Yep. amazing collection. Tyler. Well, thanks, everybody. It was great to catch up and middle of the year we'll probably do another one of these at the end of the year and just touch base with y'all but I'm really proud of the work that cuz the news today is doing on ASPN and all of the great hosts that join with us to talk about the issues around the world on and around around the American shoreline because there's a lot to talk about.

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