A member of the royal family of marine biology graced The Hotel at Auburn University and Conference Center Tuesday, speaking on the dangers of errant pollution of Earth's waters.
Fabian Cousteau, grandson of filmmaker, conservationist and diving innovator Jacques-Yves Cousteau and son of Jean-Michel Cousteau, an explorer and environmentalist in his own right, visited Auburn with a presentation regarding his work and the condition of the world's oceans.
"We are lucky to be able to escape to a watery depth of discovery," Cousteau said.
He began the presentation showing photos summarizing his life, titled "Growing Up With Gills." He related his first dive at the age of four, first voyage at seven and scraping barnacles off the hull of his grandfather's ship.
From then on it was all business, as Cousteau detailed the level of pollution taking place in the waterways of the world. He likened much of our freshwater resources, such as rivers and streams, to a circulatory system, displacing most pollutants that come in contact with them into the ocean.
"The UN predicts that four billion people will live in water-stressed areas by the year 2050," Cousteau said. "We treat water as both an endless resource and a garbage dump. We are watering ourselves for the present while we poison ourselves for the future."
Cousteau cited examples such as 90-foot-deep garbage deposits in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas and deformities in animals due to runoff from pharmaceutical products.
Toxins ingested by these animals, Cousteau said, are in turn ingested by us as we consume the animals.
Rivers familiar to this region were seen to contain mass amounts of toxins. The Tennessee River, for example, contains 22 million pounds of direct toxic discharge, while the Savannah River contains 13 million pounds.
According to the presentation, of the 2.5 percent of Earth's freshwater, only 0.007 percent is readily available for use.
"We need to treat our resources, especially water, like a bank account," Cousteau said. "We're chewing up the capital. We need to be living off of the interest."
Cousteau said 70 percent of all food is based in the ocean, stewing in a "toxic cocktail." He said most coverage in popular media of our oceans is glazed over to only show the more beautiful parts while ignoring the troubled areas.
He went on to speak of his exploits in filming for various PBS and network television specials, referencing an instance where the people of New Zealand banded together to help his crew move a beached orca whale from the west coast of the country to the east coast, reuniting it with a pod and saving its life.
He also related an instance when he was able to build a submersible that looked like a great white shark, allowing him to observe the predators at night without being detected and convince nearby seals that he was hunting them.
"Thanks to the invention of the aqua lung we can leave this vertically-challenged world," Cousteau said. "We can now breach a weightless world to tantalize our curiosity."
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