In this episode, we hear from James Ellsmoor, founder and leader of multiple initiatives focused on helping island states and coastal communities around the world to coordinate strategies for addressing common challenges and opportunities of building sustainable blue economies while navigating the impacts of climate change and global economic discontinuity. James is an award-winning serial entrepreneur and writer recognized on the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work on building global networks that support the deployment of renewable energy systems through the empowerment of island states’ government leadership. He shares with us his deep knowledge of emerging technologies, climate change adaptation solutions, environmental policy, and how these can be balanced with sustainable tourism and blue economy development.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

ep. 10: Building Blue Economy Island State Innovation, Leadership, and Resilience

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] Honestly, we can solve the climate crisis with the technology we have today. You can look at the Breakthrough Ventures by by Gates and things like that. They focus on new technology and, of course, it's important to innovate. So it's important to explore technology, but in my mind a lot of the issues we have right now come down to three things. It's policy, culture, and investment, and if we can't solve those three things, we can have all the technology in the world, but it's not it's not going to matter. Aruba in the Caribbean had a dependency on tourism of 90% previous to the pandemic, and that that really highlights the fragility of a relatively wealthy Island that depends more or less on a single industry. Combined with that, in a region like the Caribbean, you have cost of electricity generation that's five or six times higher than the east coast of the United States. Why is it that it's cheaper to import chickens grown in Georgia than it is to rear them domestically in the Caribbean island? When you're looking at the cost of electricity generation, that has a knock-on effect on your whole economy sustainable development. Sustainability is all about trade-offs, so nothing is Black or White, purely sustainable or not. It's all about trade-offs, and I think that applies just as much in in these conversations as well.

[GREG DELAUNE] Welcome to the blue economy primer; a New Orleans-based podcast where you learn from the experts the Practical tools and solution sets that will Empower your community to adapt and thrive in a new blue era of rising seas and economic discontinuity [Music] are speaking with a global climate technology evangelist focused on island nations and the particular issues of Caribbean communities he is an award-winning serial entrepreneur and writer recognized on the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work on sustainable energy and his commitment to advocacy for the development of climate change adaptation Solutions and Associated environmental policy James thank you so much for joining us in the blue economy primer can you please introduce yourself to our audience.

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] Well thank you Greg, and that was a better introduction than I could do myself thank you so I'm the CEO of Island Innovation we're a global company uh with a team of 20 working remotely on islands around the world based in Lisbon Portugal and as you say uh very much engrossed in the blue economy climate and other Solutions and My Philosophy about our philosophy is Island Innovation we're very much focused as the name might suggest on island communities and it's that although Barbados and Bermuda Fiji and Madeira are all very different places there are certain commonalities that unite them so Hawaii and Greenland and Shetland we link all of these islands together really to share good practices information and opportunities related to climate energy and sustainable development

[GREG DELAUNE] That's great. Well as somebody who did some work in the French Polynesia, it's it's great to see somebody focusing on this area and you and I have sort of been in the same orbits here for a few years and have been in touch a few times but I was really excited to have the opportunity to have you on the podcast and hear specifically about what some of these communities are going through can you tell us a little bit about your background or or how you came to arrive at this type of work

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] Absolutely. So, I originally started in the energy industry or renewable energy specifically I should say that drew me to Island communities because in general due to economies of scale and other factors Islands have extremely high electricity generation costs so for example the Caribbean region the cost of energy generation can be five or six times higher than in Florida and this applies to all Islands you know Hawaii has this the same problem parts of the South Pacific and so that means that moving to renewable energy not only makes sense for the environment but as a pragmatic cost-saving move in a way it's kind of like looking into the future you can look at implementing Energy Solutions and this is looking in the past that perhaps not economically viable everywhere at this moment but often are economically viable in islands and so that's why many islands became Pioneers for Renewables so I started in the Solar sector um and I was lucky enough to do a research project in the South Pacific Islands and traveled to Samoa Fiji new way tuvalu and then New Zealand um and then later worked in the Caribbean region uh working similarly in renewable policy and and solar and then decided to do a masters in Island studies and believe it or not you can do a masters in Island studies and I thought why not and that was based in the Scottish islands of orkney which will still have their own renewable energy program and what blew my mind is the issues we were looking at concerning Island development in the Scottish islands had so many parallels with what was being discussed in the Caribbean despite obviously many differences in climate and culture in political status even um and there was an opportunity here to connect information and if you're talking about energy in a small island context you can't ignore tourism and waste management and all these other factors that closely relate that for me broadened the scope to look at the whole picture for sustainable development and then to try and build this network to share good practices and looking at opportunities and also good case studies of where people have been able to solve problems so people are not Reinventing the wheel over and over again

[GREG DELAUNE] So I imagine that in your extensive research you have found that the weather in the Caribbean is better than the weather in the orkney islands?

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] That is a tangible difference that we could we could know I mean the Orkney islands, wow that is a windy place but that makes it a good place to look at Ocean energy and wind energy and that's why they export far more electricity than they use uh use on the island very interesting so you told us a little bit here but can you tell us about Island innovation's mission agenda and theory of change particularly for our listeners tuning in from wide-ranging parts of the world

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] Absolutely, so as I mentioned it's this idea of comparative islands and sharing success stories and there's a few angles here it's breaking down barriers so what Avenues are there for the orkney Isles to share information with Barbados or Fiji and it's really important that that sharing of information is in both directions you know the Caribbean has a lot of interesting examples and a lot of things that can teach the Scottish islands and kind of moving away this from this old-fashioned development perspective of Europe coming to tell everyone how they should do things it's about sharing information on an equal footing which I think is really important um it's it's also about breaking down barriers between different sectors so we always make sure that we engage what's a term that that I like to use the Quadruple Helix which means private businesses governments NGOs and academic research how can those four sectors work together other and islands are great places to see that because when it's a small community they need to work together and often that doesn't happen in other areas and what that means is that even when these four sectors have the same goals they often speak different quote-unquote languages uh because they don't know how to work together the private sector and government you know that there's not always good opportunities to work together and so we make sure when we're talking about sustainable development that we're engaging across these sectors and we're engaging different islands around the world one of the programs that we launched that kind of kick-started a lot of this was the virtual Island Summit. This was a conference essentially that was free to attend and held virtually that was opened to islands around the world now we launched that pre-covered when a virtual conference was an Innovative idea of course the world has changed very much now um and this year will be our fifth virtual Island Summit we have about 10,000 stakeholders sign up each year to participate in that from over 500 different islands around the world um now I still we although there are we are now launching in-person Gatherings and I can go into that later this virtual element is still really critical for Ireland because how else can we get people from Patagonia and the Pacific and the Arctic and Europe all in the same room so I see virtual events is a really good way to share information and share case studies and do presentations and so we still go ahead with that and we have a number of other events and convenings that we do but our role we're not on the ground implementing projects we're a platform to connect and share and build information together

[GREG DELAUNE] New Orleans is often referred to as the most northern Caribbean City and certainly from my experience I can see why people see those parallels with Latin American and Caribbean culture so we're excited to look for opportunities to collaborate with the work that Island Innovation is doing when we first connected a few years ago you were focused on solar head of state can you tell us a little bit about how where where that fits into all this

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] Sure so Island Innovation is my my day job now as CEO but I'm still a chair of the board of Seoul ahead of state so ahead of States is an NGO that was set up by a group of solar entrepreneurs in the Bay Area California um with the idea that if they can get world leaders to put Sola on prominent government buildings the White House parliaments whatever that might be in the local context that sends a powerful message about Renewables and you know I'd say now actually time has moved on that perhaps that's not as necessary but 15 years ago when that started was absolutely necessary to set that precedent um that organization still exists over time we've done um solar installations in the Maldives in Jamaica in St Lucia on the official government residence let's say the White House equivalent in each of those countries um and each of those came with a commitment from the local government to engage in renewable energy policy in in some format so you'll notice there's still an Island theme here as well we now have a project that's ongoing in the Pacific Islands in partnership with the Pacific island development Forum funded by the government of India's aid program and that will be to do 11 more installations across the South Pacific in in various countries there um also on government buildings and these are symbolic um because each of those countries is some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and there's a sense of needing to lead by example and demonstrate yes our impact is small but we're going to show that Renewables you know make Renewables should be the way forward to reduce carbon emissions but also there's an important um you know they as was mentioned before they make economic sense it makes economic sense for these islands to move towards renewables and there's also a climate change adaptation element that if the grid goes down and you have a solar battery system the central government buildings can as long as they're not damaged keep keep running in the event of a serious disaster so we're working with all the different partners um involved on that project and yeah that's very much ongoing we just launched the first of the 11 installations on the Fiji state house a few weeks ago so

[GREG DELAUNE] I had not remembered that solar head of state had a bay area connection one of the things that we talk a lot about here is innovation ecosystem so you know sharing what are some unique Lessons Learned or techniques from the Bay Area how can they help us here on the Gulf Coast in New Orleans and then with your work is there any particular takeaways in terms of how the Bay Area Works how Silicon Valley works and how that can inform in our case the Gulf Coast and in your case these island nations

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] Yeah so I was only in the Bay Area for one year which was a great experience and then um us made it far too hard to stay and get a Visa so I went elsewhere um but it's it's a very intense place I guess I don't know how else to say it and the salt being based that when in the Solar industry for that year was a was a really amazing moment to see the drive and the competition and the amount of things um that are happening in the world of tech and um and business and of course that level of competition in the government in the private sector of course leads to Innovation um I I found it very interesting living and working there but I think that the it's important to remember that in these Island contexts for example there's a really big role for government and there needs to be that interface between the private sector and government to get things done and so um it's perhaps more of a place where it's the the deep Tech and the startup scene but I would say for the type of work that I'm doing these days is is less uh relevant part of our philosophy though is that I'm I think now especially the world of innovation is becoming more and more decentralized that Innovation can happen in a lot of different places and so I think that's really an important learning for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and other parts of the world and of course islands that what what I guess previously had um big walls around it and was hard to get in is becoming more accessible and you can create uh you know the next Facebook let's say um from different parts of the world without needing to be sucked into the Bay Area um that's my theory um and I think over the next few decades we'll see that more and more yeah that certainly sounds valid and certainly what we believe here in New Orleans so uh looking forward to see how that develops

[GREG DELAUNE] So what does the blue economy and blue technology development mean to you and how does it relate to the work at Island Innovation

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] So there was always this interesting divide between people who work on islands and people who work on the ocean um and I think the blue economy is starting to bring them together you know even five years ago I would go to discussions about the blue economy or ocean conservation and it will be very theoretical and not necessarily involve Islanders in those conversations um but if we look at the Pacific for example which covers a third of the planet huge areas of that ocean are under the jurisdiction of small island developing States and that term has come under some criticism that's the official United Nations term for Pacific Caribbean and other regions um that term has come under criticism has now been known as large ocean States and I think that's really important way of thinking it if you look at a country like Curabas with a population of a hundred thousand people spread over a huge number of tiny Islands their exclusive economic zone is bigger than the United States um and so there's a huge area of ocean that these this relatively small population is responsible for and it's in crucial to engage the small island nations in these conversations around the ocean the blue economy is interesting because it is it covers so many different aspects I mean obviously tourism the old school Industries in the maritime sector but also a lot of this new tech that's coming up um and I'm actually based in as I mentioned before I'm based in Portugal which is trying to position itself as the leader within Europe for the blue economy and last year I hosted the United Nations ocean conference bringing people here to Showcase what is is happening so I I think there is a lot of buzz around the blue economy there's a lot of excitement but also it's becoming now thankfully something that's a lot more practical one thing that Portugal I think does well which not other regions don't always do is involve the ports the shipping the kind of these well-established older companies in those conversations um but that is a is a hard thing to do so on this question of economy to me how do you see the interdependency and balance between economic development and Environmental Protection for these low-lying coastal regions and island nations I think that's the billion dollar question yeah um yeah that balance is something I mean just take the tourism industry how do you balance the economic benefits that are necessary for tourism in small islands with the obvious environmental damage and I think that's the Catch-22 that comes with a region like the Caribbean which is economically extremely dependent on tourism but also is the most vulnerable region to climate change people need to fly to get there and also have huge environmental impacts once they are there which I think the problem for many Island regions is there are not many economic Alternatives that are viable to tourism and so one of the good things about the blue economy is that it potentially promotes other avenues beyond tourism to diversify economies because um I'm not against the tourism industry by any means but I think any Nation relying solely on one industry is um at risk and obviously that was seen during the pandemic of that industry disappearing almost uh overnight but in terms of the the balancing I don't think there's any such thing as purely sustainable nothing is ever going to be 100% sustainable and for me that's the biggest error that gets made in conversations around sustainable development sustainable development sustainability is all about trade-offs um you know we can talk about things like lithium batteries a lot of people are really promoting lithium and lithium batteries for electric vehicles and for renewable energy as the thing we need to do and it's very easy to ignore that where do these minerals come from where does lithium come from and where do all the minerals come from needed for wind turbines needed for solar panels so nothing is Black or White purely sustainable or not it's all about trade-offs and I think that applies just as much in in these conversations as well

[GREG DELAUNE] So do you have any favorite key benchmarks or statistics that crystallize the climate crisis for you perhaps related to the inevitable impacts that Caribbean communities and island nations

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] Around the world I would say actually using economic statistics is interesting here so for example Aruba in the Caribbean had a dependency on tourism of 90 previous to the pandemic and that that really highlights the fragility of a relatively wealthy Island that depends on a single more or less industry combined with that in a region like the Caribbean you have cost of electricity generation that's five or six times higher than the east coast of the United States and so that electricity generation is dependent on diesel on old-fashioned generators and even now although there's been a huge uptick in Renewables still relies largely on fossil fuels and you have to think when you're looking at the cost of electricity generation that has a knock-on effect on your whole economy why is it that it's cheaper to import chickens grown in Georgia than it is to rear them domestically in the Caribbean islands a big part of that is the energy costs and so that applies across the whole economy and adds to this difficulty in diversifying and so for me renewable energy so often gets cut under the bucket of environmentalism but in many parts of the world it's a business decision and an economic decision that governments should reduce their Reliance on imported fossil fuels and look to reduce the cost of electricity because that can hold a whole economy back

[GREG DELAUNE] So as you're saying energy transition is such a key and complex part of this work ahead what are some key technologies or project types that you're watching come online and how could they be important new tools for Coastal Community resilience and for island nations

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] So, I think ocean energy is still has a long way to go but there's a lot of fascinating technology and I'm sure that there is a strong future for types of ocean energy generation so the ocean energy Nexus for me is very exciting area but there's a lot of different Technologies a lot of different ideas and we still don't know which of those are going to be the ones to take off um in Europe there's a few places that are quite interesting to look at this and the two Island regions that stand out for me one is Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands and another is the orkney island in the north of Scotland that I mentioned before so orkney hosts the European Marine Energy Center and there's a lot of really cutting-edge Research into um blue energy into Marine energy looking at tidal wave and how that can be used and obviously having this very being this very rough seas in the North Sea with the Arctic Ocean right above you um they are obviously a good place to test that out and so they have a number of different um companies that are based there or that relocate there to test out their Technologies um there's also efforts there around hydrogen ferries and moving they have an interesting situation whereby they have more electricity than they can use because of the amount of wind turbines they have and so that kind of free electricity allows them to do things that maybe wouldn't be possible in other areas um in the Canary Islands in Gran Canaria you have this interesting Marine energy testing ground where they've allocated as part of their Marine spatial planning they've allocated allocated a specific area of the coast for testing new um new forms of renewable energy such as floating wind turbines and other forms this is still taking off but I think just the fact that they've allocated that the Marine spatial plan is really important and they've got support from that from the Spanish government from the European Union as well and so they're attracting companies to come and use this space that they've built to test out Technologies so there's a number of companies that are also relocating there they have strong research institutions and so I would say you know those though providing an area to test this technology and actually the foundations to be able to build out the technology is as important as the technology itself because how else do you actually turn this from ideas in a lab to reality and so those two places are doing are doing just that one of the Technologies which I find really interesting is ocean thermal energy conversion using the difference in water temperature from deeper water and surface water to cool and to generate generate energy it has a number of different uses and so for example for large resorts that are by the coast how can you improve the air conditioning which is a huge expense and uses a lot of electricity how can you use deep water um cold water from the deep ocean to find a different way than using electricity to cool your hotel and there's a number of other uses for that I'll be honest it kind of a lot it's a lot of it goes over my head I'm still learning about these Technologies as well um but I think those areas are interesting now the problem with ocean um ocean Technologies is that they're very expensive and there's a massive Capital cost that's needed right now and so in practice there are not really anywhere that is using ocean energy in a large widespread form to generate big amounts but I think um that's natural right we go through this we could have said that about solar 20 years ago and now look where we are so I think um as the costs come down um it's going to be exciting the one challenge that solar didn't have is that these big ocean energy generation or ocean Energy Technologies are not going to be modular in the same way that solar and wind could be done on a smaller scale so we are going to need to find ways to find the investment because even if this is something that makes a lot of economic sense you have to have um the millions available to be able to make that upfront investment and that is going to be a problem especially for small island communities where does that initial investment come from

[GREG DELAUNE] In French Polynesia we saw that as well I think it was at the Brando hotel that they had the ocean Tech Cooling and energy generation but the costs were really extraordinary so what we're seeing and it sounds like you're confirming is that many of the solution sets many of the technologies that we fundamentally need they already exist they've been proven it's just fundamentally about how do we scale these and bring the costs down I think that applies honestly we can solve the climate crisis with the technology we have today

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] I think that this comes back to our theory of change that we talked about before with Island Innovation a lot of efforts I mean you look and look at the Breakthrough Ventures by by Gates and things like that they focus on new technology and of course it's important to innovate it so it's important to explore technology but in my mind a lot of the issues we have right now come down to three things it's policy culture and investment and if we can't solve those three things we can have all the technology in the world but it's not it's not going to matter and so we saw that this is part of the idea we're still ahead of State as well with the cultural element there's a huge education that needs to that the society needs to go through and when it comes to things like energy it's a very complex thing how do you educate the policy makers the decision makers to make sure they can actually make policy that makes sense for the long term that's as important um investment how do you make sure that the finance is available for something that might be considered risky or in a region like the Caribbean that needs a lot of insurance things like Insurance you don't really think about but insurance is absolutely vital to be able to move forward with things like renewable energy and then policy of course kind of related to the education but you need decent policy in place to actually allow these things to move forward and so um this is the disconnect sometimes I think with research and Innovation and then the wide scale rollout that is necessary

[GREG DELAUNE] So on that note I was excited to read about the hack Caribbean 30x30 project can you tell us more about that

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] We're on the heels of an exciting announcements the commitment for 30 of the world's ocean to be protected is something that now has been signed on by almost all of the countries around the world and has gained massive momentum there's still a lot of questions around what this means of course but getting the political well is a big part of the journey that now what needs to be explored further is what does this mean are we talking about coastal areas are we talking about the high seas I think the biggest challenge here is going to be for the high seas and how do we actually bring in legislation that connects that protects these huge areas of the planet that don't fall under the jurisdiction of any one nation and um therefore are open to exploitation by all and are places that are becoming extremely environmentally degradated our role in the 30 by 30 we did a government relations project as Island Innovation with nations in the Caribbean to reach out to the relevant decision makers and push them to get on board with this 30x30 campaign asking for Global ocean protection and of course ocean protection is something which has a direct relation to the economy and I think this is why the blue economy is a useful tool um often people think about the oceans as something which is you know saving the saving the whale saving the wildlife um doing good and of course that's important but actually if you're in a if you're again an island that relies on tourism the ocean is one of the things that absolutely your economy relies on because people are not going to come to swim in brown water that has plastic floating in it and so I think when we think about sustainability it's really important to have this economic social and environmental components weighted equally

[GREG DELAUNE] So I want to remind our listeners that we'll have lots of links and references available for things like the hack Caribbean 30x30 and other information that James is talking about so people can go a little bit deeper on some of these topics that we're talking about. So James clearly there's a lot going on all over the world with island nations with with Coastal communities how do you see us all collaborating effectively with all the different initiatives that are going on it's it's sometimes it's hard to keep track what do you see as the best way moving forward for us to effectively be working together and certainly not competing

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] I think it's interesting right, we have even when we all have the same goals we're still competing even even ngos they're competing for funding they're competing and it's really hard to balance the ultimate goal and the The Wider societal goals with your own organizational goals and they need to you know pay the bills at the end of the year and I think that's a real challenge for a lot of the campaign groups working on some of these issues is the um is balancing their own needs as an organization to survive with the wider goals that they they have and it's frustrating sometimes to see um that that even though we all want the same thing we don't know how to work together so I I don't have the answer for this I mean I've been attending the last six years I've been at the cops the climate cops most recently in Egypt and xiaomi's and these events are becoming bigger and bigger bringing together all the players in the climate change space to talk and to work together and I emphasize the word talk because there's a lot of talking that happens and it is challenging to turn that to action you know and this is something that does it is painfully slow it is very incremental and it's easy to get disheartened when you look on the small scale of how slow things move but I think there is a need to remain optimistic and remain positive about it when you take a a bird's eye view there are so many things that are happening and so many so much good news and we're always careful when we're talking about island nations it's easy to focus on challenges but there's also opportunities and it's important whenever we look at this to think about okay what are the opportunities and not to get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem we're all doing our own bit to work towards more sustainable oceans implementation of the blue blue economy and of course there's a lot more that needs to be um that needs to be done um I would love to see better collaboration um it's challenging but we're getting there we see and there are a lot of amazing groups out there that do the work our role as Island Innovation is really to help connect them and help them identify and be aware of each other because so much energy goes into trying to solve problems that have already been solved and so if we can actually we're in a world today where we're overwhelmed with information the problem is not access to information the problem is the organization of that information to be able to consume it and and not be overwhelmed so I think if we can if we can find ways to share better and and that's that's our role in this then um yeah hopefully we'll get closer to solving all these problems and taking all these opportunities that are out there

[GREG DELAUNE] So I really liked your comments earlier about island nations as Pioneers for many of these solution sets and Technologies and certainly here in Louisiana we're interested in our Bayou parishes and Southeast Louisiana sort of a laboratory for these solution sets is there something particularly positive or some good news or opportunity that you are excited about right now

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] I think the high seas treaty that came in and kind of alludes to what we discussed earlier the high seas treaty um I mean it's depressing when you think it took over a decade of negotiations to agree to protect the ocean but the fact that we now have um a treaty in place to help Place 30 of the high seas into protected areas by 2030. um I think it's promising you know there is a will there there is collaboration and you think the challenge of getting countries as diverse as the US Russia China Israel South Africa Brazil Portugal Australia to agree to something I mean you get 200 people in the room and try and get them to agree to anything it's going to take you 10 years so um it's it's painful to see the the slow pace but then when you reach these Milestones um it is exciting and that now gives a foundation to build better cooperation and to potentially put in more treaties more um regulations to protect these huge areas of ocean so what's next for you James what are you most excited about in your personal or professional life so we have a lot going on with Island Innovation uh our team's grown over the past few years and we're implementing a few new initiatives we started off doing virtual events before the pandemic and of course that's now come full circle and we're actually moving into doing a number of physical events to bring people together in different regions so in June we have a blue economy investment Forum taking place on the island of Madeira in Portugal um we're working with various actors again from the government from the NGOs and from the private sector and universities to bring people together on the blue economy in the local context and then also streaming that to a wider audience so people can have access to that youthful information um we also have again our fifth anniversary of the big virtual event that I mentioned virtual Island Summit taking place in September and um that's going to be a really big milestone for us to celebrate five years of this event so would encourage anyone listening to if you can join us in Madeira but if not sign up for the free um free event taking place online in September and visit our website islandinnovation.com to learn a little bit more um about what we're doing

[GREG DELAUNE] Yes and again we'll certainly have those links available on the specific web page for this episode well thank you so much for joining us James really appreciate all the great work that you're doing and the chance to get caught up so please keep keep in touch about what you're up to and we'll look forward to the opportunity to maybe work together in the future

[JAMES ELLSMOOR] Thanks so much Greg I really enjoyed the conversation

[GREG DELAUNE] Thank you for joining us on the blue economy primer if you enjoyed today's podcast don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform please help us spread the word and be sure to visit our website at www.deepblue.academy, where you can find all of our available episodes access important links and supporting information for each episode send us your comments and or suggestions for potential guests and topics get more information about our community engagement initiatives and join our mailing list as well as make a much appreciated tax deductible donation to support our non-profit Education and Research mission thanks again to the Dan Lucas Memorial foundation and the Pontchartrain Conservancy for their critical financial and institutional support until next time when we meet again on the ever expanding Horizon of the blue economy [Music]