Plastic Paradise. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch | Angela Sun | TEDxLecce
Summary
TLDRIn this inspiring narrative, the speaker recounts a transformative encounter with a shark in Hawaii, igniting a passionate curiosity that led to a journey of environmental discovery. This curiosity propelled the speaker into researching plastic pollution, culminating in a documentary revealing the devastating impact of single-use plastics on marine life. The story emphasizes the power of curiosity, perseverance, and authenticity in driving collective action towards environmental consciousness and change.
Takeaways
- 🐋 The speaker encountered a three-meter shark in Hawaii, highlighting the intense experience of being in the presence of such a creature.
- 🌊 The feeling of being watched by the shark led to a contemplation of the dangers in the ocean, especially after a recent shark attack and the speaker's own injury.
- 🏊♀️ Despite fear, curiosity and the desire for new experiences motivated the speaker to jump into the water, symbolizing the human drive to explore.
- 🧠 A 2014 study suggests that curiosity alters brain chemistry, enhancing learning and retention, which was used to explain the speaker's passion for learning.
- 🌍 The speaker's work on a documentary about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was initiated by curiosity about plastic pollution.
- 🚿 The realization that all plastic ever created still exists on Earth, as it's non-biodegradable, led to a deeper investigation into its pervasiveness.
- 🐟 Research findings showing plastic in fish and the impact on wildlife underscored the urgency of the plastic pollution issue.
- 🏝️ A visit to Midway Atoll revealed the devastating effects of plastic pollution on wildlife, particularly seabirds.
- 📹 The speaker's journey from sports broadcasting to environmental activism was driven by a commitment to storytelling and the power of media.
- 🔗 The call to action for individuals to reduce single-use plastic for two weeks demonstrated the impact of collective engagement and personal change.
Q & A
What was the speaker's experience with a shark in Hawaii?
-The speaker encountered a three-meter shark while snorkeling in Hawaii and felt a deep connection with the creature, sensing its awareness of their every movement.
What did the speaker think about just before entering the shark-infested water?
-The speaker was concerned about a recent shark attack that resulted in a surfer losing his leg, their own injury causing them to bleed, and the daunting visibility of over a hundred meters in the water.
What did Albert Einstein say about curiosity?
-Albert Einstein stated that he had no special talents but was only passionately curious, implying that curiosity is a driving force behind learning and achievement.
How does curiosity affect the brain's chemistry according to the study mentioned in the script?
-The study suggests that curiosity alters the brain's chemistry, enhancing the ability to learn and retain information, even unintentionally acquired knowledge.
What role does the amygdala play in the learning process?
-The amygdala, an almond-shaped structure in the brain, releases dopamine, which acts as a natural 'save' button, helping to remember experiences and information when present.
What is the speaker's profession and how did it lead them to their documentary project?
-The speaker is an investigative journalist, sports broadcaster, and TV presenter. Their curiosity about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch led them to research and create a documentary on the subject.
Why is plastic pollution a global concern as described by the speaker?
-Plastic pollution is a global concern because every piece of plastic ever created still exists, affecting marine life and ecosystems worldwide, as demonstrated by the ingestion of plastic by fish and birds.
What impact did the speaker's visit to Midway Atoll have on them?
-The visit to Midway Atoll was a turning point for the speaker, as they witnessed the effects of plastic pollution firsthand, seeing it in the environment and inside the bodies of birds.
How does the speaker define perseverance?
-The speaker defines perseverance as persisting steadfastly in pursuit of a goal, even when faced with distractions, difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.
What advice did the speaker's father give them regarding persistence?
-The speaker's father advised them that persistence is key, sharing a personal story of how he won over the speaker's mother through consistent effort and dedication.
What challenge did the speaker issue to individuals after their film, and what was the goal?
-The speaker challenged individuals to go without single-use plastic for two weeks, aiming to raise awareness and promote collective action against plastic pollution.
Outlines
🌊 Shark Encounter and the Power of Curiosity
The speaker recounts a face-to-face encounter with a three-meter shark in Hawaii, drawing a parallel between human intuition and the shark's perception. Despite fear and recent shark attacks, curiosity propels the speaker into the ocean, reflecting on the importance of curiosity as a driving force for learning and change. The narrative weaves in the significance of dopamine in learning and retention, the speaker's background as an American born Chinese, and the transformative power of curiosity as illustrated by a study on brain chemistry. The speaker's journey into investigating plastic pollution, starting with a documentary on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, underscores the pervasiveness of plastic in our lives and its environmental impact, as evidenced by plastic ingestion by marine life.
🏝 Midway Atoll: A Turning Point for Curiosity and Purpose
The speaker takes us to Midway Atoll, a remote location pivotal in WWII history and a revelation for the speaker's environmental activism. Witnessing the effects of plastic pollution on albatross birds, the speaker's curiosity evolves into a mission to share these untold stories. The narrative discusses the speaker's accidental path to activism, the role of media in storytelling, and the importance of embracing multiple perspectives. It also touches on the authenticity of children and the fearlessness they possess, which adults often lack, using the speaker's experience teaching surf lessons as an example of learning through perseverance.
🤝 The Role of Perseverance and Authenticity in Connection
This paragraph delves into the concept of perseverance, drawing from the speaker's father's story of persistence in love and life. The speaker reflects on the importance of being open and vulnerable to foster genuine connections, using personal experiences and advice from a high school teacher. The narrative critiques the curated nature of online social interactions and calls for a deeper level of authenticity and empathy. The speaker emphasizes the power of real engagement in forming partnerships and driving change, highlighting the need for collective action against single-use plastics, which leads to a pledge initiative.
🌍 Collective Impact: From Curiosity to Global Engagement
The final paragraph discusses the speaker's initiative asking individuals to pledge to avoid single-use plastics for two weeks, illustrating the collective impact of individual actions. The speaker shares personal stories of change inspired by the pledge, emphasizing the importance of daily actions and the power of connection in encouraging change. The narrative concludes with a call to action, urging the audience to let curiosity lead them to new experiences and depths, reflecting on the speaker's own journey from a shark encounter to becoming an advocate for environmental change.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Curiosity
💡Shark
💡Fear
💡Plastic Pollution
💡Dopamine
💡Amygdala
💡Authenticity
💡Perseverance
💡Single-Use Plastic
💡Empowerment
💡Plastic Paradise
Highlights
Encounter with a three-meter shark in Hawaii, illustrating a profound connection with nature.
The psychological impact of fear and curiosity in deep waters, and the decision to engage with the unknown.
A recent shark attack incident influencing the perception of entering shark-infested waters.
The role of curiosity as a driving force, as quoted by Albert Einstein, and its relation to personal growth.
Neuroscientific findings from a 2014 study showing how curiosity alters brain chemistry to enhance learning.
The amygdala's role in releasing dopamine, the 'save button' of the brain during learning.
The speaker's multifaceted career journey from investigative journalism to documentary filmmaking.
The revelation of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and its impact on marine life, including human debris in fish.
The omnipresence of plastic in daily life and its environmental consequences, highlighting the issue of disposability.
Personal anecdotes of the speaker's connection with the ocean and the discovery of plastic pollution globally.
The transformative experience of visiting Midway Atoll and witnessing the effects of plastic on wildlife.
The concept of being an 'accidental activist' and the unexpected path to environmental advocacy.
The importance of embracing one's authentic self and the freedom to fail as part of personal growth.
The value of children's authenticity and fearlessness as a metaphor for perseverance.
A personal story of persistence from the speaker's father, emphasizing the importance of persistence in all aspects of life.
The speaker's realization of the power of vulnerability and authenticity in engaging with an audience.
A call to action for individuals to pledge against single-use plastics as a practical step towards change.
Reflections on the power of curiosity to spark personal and collective journeys towards new experiences.
Transcripts
Buon Giorno ciao
I was looking straight into the eyes of
this three meter shark in Hawaii just a
few weeks ago and in the same way that
you can feel somebody eerily staring at
you from across the room I could sense
this shark
feeling my every single movement I'm
sure if he could sense my fear I
asserted myself to show that I was just
as curious as he was in this vast deep
blue water in the back of my head though
I couldn't help but think that just a
day ago a surfer had lost his leg to a
tiger shark bite just less than five
kilometers away yeah
and before I boarded the boat I
accidentally cut my foot and I was
bleeding so you can imagine my
hesitation to jump into the
shark-infested water with over a hundred
meters of visibility with nothing but a
GoPro in hand and some snorkel gear but
it was my insatiable curiosity in a
desire to try something new that fueled
me to jump off the side of that boat and
into the unknown Albert Einstein said it
best I have no special talents I am only
passionately curious passionate
curiosity gives us purpose and through
perseverance engages people to become
part of a collective movement it's as
simple as ABC or in my mom's words what
I am an American born Chinese but it
also means always be curious there was a
study published in October of 2014 that
suggests that the brains chemistry
actually changes when we become curious
helping us better learn and retain
information
even information that we didn't even
mean to learn about one of the study's
co-authors dr. Matthias Gruber explains
that that is because curiosity puts the
brain into a state it allows it to learn
and retain any kind of information it's
like a vortex that sucks you in to what
you are motivated to learn but also
everything around it learning is
addictive they
- this almond-shaped gray matter in the
temporal lobe of our brain the amygdala
the amygdala releases dopamine which
acts like the brains natural save button
it explains why we get a buzz out of
learning something new dopamine is so
important to learning and retention that
when is present we tend to remember an
experience or message but when it is
absent nothing seems to stick I'm an
investigative journalist a sports
broadcaster and TV presenter I'm also a
world wanderer I started researching for
my feature documentary plastic paradise
ten years ago as a side project because
I was just curious about what this Great
Pacific Garbage Patch was never in my
wildest dreams would I have thought that
my curiosity would take me down the road
to where I'm in front of all of you
today
I didn't mean to learn about the history
of plastics the chemistry behind it or
how we were paying for the price of its
seeming disposability I really just
didn't think about plastics at all and
that's the thing none of us think about
the amount of disposable plastic use we
use every day because it is so readily
available to us and it's such a
ubiquitous part of our daily lives every
single piece of plastic that has ever
been created
is still somewhere on this planet
because it's never biodegradable it's
literally woven into the fabric of our
lives through fabrics such as polyester
and nylon and in what we do and what we
eat as well as recent as September 2015
researchers from the University of
california-davis found that 55% of fish
species that they sampled in Indonesia
contained human derived debris with one
having 21 pieces of plastic in it now
this picture is actually from the Great
Pacific Garbage Patch
when researcher dr. Marcus Erickson was
traveling through and he caught this
rainbow runner thinking he was gonna eat
it but instead he found all this plastic
inside of it as an
avid surfer scuba diver and ocean lover
I've always been fascinated by the
oceans and everything in it and I sort
of fell into examining plastic pollution
simply because it was in the waves that
I was surfing or when I was scuba diving
on the ocean floor I would see it
everywhere and it wasn't just all my
home beaches it was everywhere around
the globe that I traveled to Travel is
an important part of my life and it's
something that's defined and shaped Who
I am and I don't take the opportunities
that I've had for granted it's helped me
gain new perspectives and I always try
to look at things with a different lens
to take the road less traveled in my
career ambitions as well as going off
the beaten path which led me to one of
the most remote places on the planet in
the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean
tens of thousands of kilometers away
from any civilization lies this tiny
piece of land Midway Atoll
this 2.4 square miles of land was an
integral part of world war ii history as
the Battle of Midway was a turning point
for the Allied forces it was also a
turning point in Revelation for me as my
curiosity led me to a purpose traveling
now to a National Marine refuge and home
to 1.5 million Laysan albatross birds in
this seemingly untouched and pristine
beautiful paradise I saw firsthand the
repercussions of our disposable plastic
use not only washed up along the shores
and in the sand but also in the bellies
of these birds that would mistake this
plastic for food and eat it and
literally be filled and choked with this
plastic my amygdala was working on
overload in other words my mind was
blown now I could have put this powerful
footage online in 2009 when we shot it
and it probably would have gone viral
because it was never seen before but the
larger story was still unfolding and I
didn't want to share this information
prematurely as a sports broadcaster and
TV presenter I cover sporting events and
reports on other people's lives and
stories
and as the years went by on this project
though I organically became part of the
narrative and this was a whole new
uncharted path I consider myself an
accidental activist I like most of us
just you know never thought about
plastic because I mean it was just there
right in the same way that you don't
notice how tethered we are to our
gadgets and electronics or perhaps
apathetic about social political and
environmental issues because sometimes
it's just too insurmountable turning a
blind eye is so much easier curiosity
killed the cat some may say but my
passionate curiosity helped me to find a
purpose to follow and to share stories
untold ones to dive beneath the surface
literally in this case when I first set
out to learn about the oceans I didn't
really know what I was doing I mean I
had hosted and produced short form
content and you know it was nothing to
this magnitude or this intensity my
career path was never clearly marked and
I've been able to transition from sports
reporting to TV presenting to even a
little bit of acting I've always wanted
to communicate though and tell great
stories and to use the power of media
for good and to reach new audiences and
to expose the truth what I realized that
in hindsight being the
jack-of-all-trades allowed me to have
multiple perspectives in which to view
the world and when I finally embrace the
fact that I was the jack-of-all-trades
and the master of none I could go forth
with the confidence and freedom to fail
yep
that's what I said I could go forth with
the confidence and the freedom to fail
it's actually quite liberating and it
was just a little change in perspective
that made all the difference embracing
your authentic self imperfectly perfect
kids are truly authentic you ever notice
when a kid throws a tantrum and it's
usually about something completely
insignificant but to them whatever it is
that they're crying about is the most
important
in the world at that moment well author
blogger and stay-at-home dad Greg
Pembroke compiled all of these illogical
reasons why kids will cry including he
couldn't find his rubber duckie or uh
she keeps dropping her Fork and here's a
favorite one they got new hats kids are
truly endearing with their wide-eyed
innocence that seems to disappear slowly
as we grow older they are their true
authentic little selves and they are
crying about the minutiae of daily life
even when your dad breaks the cheese in
half I used to teach surf lessons and
along with the myriad of other jobs when
I was an aspiring journalist and I
always loved to teach kids because they
have this innate fearlessness that
adults seem to lack they didn't have any
preconceived notions they didn't have
any hangups
and they just tried they tried and tried
without hesitation and most of the time
they would fail to stand up on that wave
but they would go and get out paddle on
that board again out into the waves and
try and try again the definition of
perseverance is this to persist
steadfastly in pursuit of an undertaking
a task a journey or a goal even if
hindered by distraction difficulty
obstacles or discouragement my dad used
to tell me a story about how he met my
mom and his motto was always persistence
is key he is actually what he told my
brother as some advice in approaching
girls use persistence and he would wait
for my mom after school and walk her
home made friends with her family and
her siblings and we just hang out in the
general vicinity that she would be in
and to most his persistence would be
misconstrued as creepy or stalkerish but
look at him he's super nerdy I mean in
an Asian Steve Urkel kind of way which
is what he would say well one day my mom
was playing with her brothers and
fell and broke her collarbone and so she
was in the hospital and my dad would
visit her and bring her flowers and
magazines and just hang out with her and
that was the tipping point on how he won
her over
that and the fact that she couldn't
really leave again
persistence is key in my own stubborn
right and as a classic middle child
dying to be seen or heard my dad's words
struck a chord with me and also his
other sage wisdom and advice that he
would leave with us before he passed
away from cancer I was 17 and it was
after the first year of university and
it really struck a chord with me his
passing was a stark reminder of how life
is short and to embrace every moment
fully for the present is a gift and
that's when I started traveling every
free moment that I had so here I am
finding myself passionately curious
about this strange new topic but how do
I get people to care about it the
business that I'm in the media industry
is unforgiving judgmental critical and
that is nothing new but I discovered
that being open and vulnerable is the
key to engaging people into real
authentic connections I was once told
some wise words from a broadcast
journalism teacher in high school he
said the more open and honest you are
with people the more honest and open
they will be with you and he said this
in the context of interviewing someone
and you know to make them feel
comfortable and gain their trust tells
them something about yourself the more
open and honest you are with people the
more honest and open they will be with
you I'm saying this with the full
awareness that like most of us though
engage through our phones and our social
media and computers that's how I do
engage as well and in the digital age we
tend to overshare about our lives online
but in actuality in actuality it's just
the perception and facade of an
oftentimes meticulously curated timeline
of life events usually these post
consists of perfectly positioned food or
perhaps it's carefully laid-out outfits
or the crafted casualness of life but
what if we pulled back on that 8 by 8
square photo and looked at the bigger
picture what our lives be as truly
fabulous and exciting as it seems if
we're truly open and honest with each
other it's not often that someone will
share something deeply personal or a
struggle on their social media and you
know you roll your eyes at the people
who do because you just don't do that
it's not adhering to unsaid social
etiquette online you just don't share
that and maybe it's because we're
missing something and we don't want to
get too involved or deep having that
real connection it takes a lot of work
the fact that we text more than we talk
in about 97% of kids under the age of 1
have used a computer or mobile device
should sound off an alarm true
engagement is hard because empathy is
really feeling what the other person is
feeling and real empathy is the purest
form of authenticity and connection when
you are truly engaged with people this
is where partnerships work and form and
teamwork flourishes and change happens
there's a lot of talk about this
cleaning up of the Great Pacific Garbage
Patch but many of these efforts are to
small scale to expensive and often times
too risky for ocean life it's still
essentially a bandaid on the larger
problem of our single-use plastic and
what we're doing with it so instead I
asked individuals to take a pledge to
say no to single-use plastic for two
weeks after my film and that means no
bottles no using of straws no utensils
no takeout basically no single-use
disposable plastic for two weeks and
it's actually pretty hard and never did
I imagine that the collective impact an
engagement from this pledge will be so
far-reaching how did a spark of
passionate curiosity lead to thousands
people around the world collectively
engaged with each other and connecting
into doing something so immediate and
tangible for me it was inspiring to hear
individual stories of how people's lives
had changed through doing something
every day something little every day and
it encourages me to persevere just like
my dad
every interaction that we have with each
other is an opportunity to connect and
to encourage change one of my favorite
quotes is this a journey of a thousand
miles begins with one single step
staring a shark in the eyes in the ocean
that day sparked my curiosity to step
off that boat and into unknown waters
and it is a fraction of how scary it is
to be staring out in front of all of you
I hope that's something you heard today
sparks your curiosity to take you to new
depths and new experiences that you
never would have imagined dropsy a
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