Environmental activist Jean-Michel Cousteau said there are two questions he is often asked: first, if his father, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, was skinny because of water pressure (he wasn’t); and second, if he enjoys swimming in an ocean full of sea creatures’ excrement.
“Yes, sorry,” he said to an audience of Northwestern U. and Evanston community members Thursday night at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall. “I love to dive in the ocean where all of the fishies are doing their poopies.”
Cousteau, founder of Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society and a self-described environmentalist, educator and film producer, spoke at NU on Earth Day as part of this year’s One Book One Northwestern project. The event was the last speaker the project, coordinated by the Initiative for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern, brought to NU. This year’s chosen book was Thomas Friedman’s “Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–And How it Can Renew America.”
University President Morton O. Schapiro opened the event and said Cousteau was an old friend.
“You’re an inspiration to me,” he said. “How the heck did we get you on Earth Day?”
Cousteau said the ocean, representing two-thirds of the planet, is an essential part of everyday life.
“You are skiing on the ocean,” he said. “You’re drinking the ocean.”
He said despite great gains in technology and understanding of the environment in recent years, humans continue to harm the ocean. Climate change and an increase in carbon dioxide emissions are causing acidification of the ocean, he said.
“If we don’t modify our behavior, the skeleton will melt away,” Cousteau said. “It will fall apart. But we can avoid that. It’s not too late.”
Major problems facing the ocean include over-fishing, the destruction of coastal habitats and the release of chemicals affecting marine and ultimately human life, he said. He proposed sustainable farming of plants and herbivore fish in the ocean, intensely protecting important coastal resources such as mangrove forests and carefully managing chemicals people wash down the drain.
Dean of students Burgwell Howard said the event was fantastic.
“I’m one of those people who thought I was going to be a marine biologist,” he said. “One Book got taken to another level this year.”
Cousteau closed with a video of humpback whales and said it was his way of wishing the audience “Happy Earth Day.” He swam with the whales for more than two hours, he said.
“It was very magical,” he said. “You know that for the rest of your life you’re going to do everything you can to make sure that these little kids will have the privilege of having the same experience.”