Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Julia Gets Wise with Sylvia Earle

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

In this special Earth Day episode, Julia chats with 89-year-old marine biologist and oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle, who joins from a boat in the Gulf of Mexico. Sylvia shares what it's like to walk untethered on the ocean floor, how her first dive changed her life, and the ocean's vital role in our survival. Plus, Julia tells a comical story about the one-and-only time she went scuba diving. She and her 91-year-old mom, Judy, also reminisce about snorkeling adventures and a unique 90th birthday gift from Judy’s grandsons.   The introduction to this episode was finalized on 4/16/25. The pipeline in Santa Barbara County is an evolving story.  Learn more about the pipeline and donate at the Environmental Defense Center.  Follow Wiser Than Me on Instagram and TikTok @wiserthanme and on Facebook at facebook.com/wiserthanmepodcast. Keep up with Sylvia @sylviaearle on X and @dr.sylviaearle on Instagram. Find out more about other shows on our network at @lemonadamedia on all social platforms. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For exclusive discount codes and more information about our sponsors, visit https://lemonadamedia.com/sponsors/.  For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are you supposed to wish people a happy Earth Day? I'm not sure. But to celebrate, I'm going to be talking about a big climate problem on behalf of our food waste fighting sponsor, Mill. It's an issue that I care a lot about, so please do stick around for the ads. In the Wiser Than Me episode you're about to hear, I mention my house, a beautiful, perfect old Spanish revival home that was built in the 1920s where we raised our two boys and lived happily ever after for 31 years. A few weeks later, that very house and everything in it all burned down in the Palisades fire in Los Angeles. We lost everything, all of our family photos and treasures, every memento from my career. I mean, just everything. It's an unspeakable personal tragedy. but truthfully, in the end, we do count ourselves lucky. Our family is safe, thank God. We have a place to stay.

We have some insurance. We have the resources to weather this storm, and God knows not everybody does have that. This wildfire happened about two weeks before Inauguration Day, and since that day, it has been a metaphorical wildfire. We have been overwhelmed with a chaotic frontal attack on everything from science to the economy to immigrants to democracy itself. It is just completely nuts. It's so nuts that we're barely even talking about maybe the biggest danger lurking in the shadows. Actually, hardly the shadows. The climate

disaster. It may feel existential right now, but, you know, truthfully, the climate crisis is not something that is on the way. It's actually something that is very much here right now. There's a metric that scientists use to determine the role of the climate emergency and fire risk. This metric considered a set of factors like temperature, humidity, wind speed, and precipitation to estimate that the fire that burned down the Pacific Palisades and Altadena in Los Angeles was 35% more likely thanks to climate change. So yeah, the climate crisis helped burn down my house and I take that very personally. I know it's hard, of course, but now is not the moment to turn our attention away from

championing the environment. Here's an example from right here in Santa Barbara, where I am right now. A decade ago, a decrepit pipeline in the Santa Barbara Channel exploded and spilled more than 400,000 gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean, closing fisheries, upending lives, killing sea life, and threatening a vital ocean ecosystem that is already under immense stress. It was one of the

biggest oil spills in California history. And now an oil company called Sable is trying to restart this same corroded failed pipeline without environmental review or public comment. Sables Project has been issued a cease and desist order by state government agencies, but shockingly the company simply ignores that order and keeps working. But citizens in Southern California know how important our coast is and we're not going to let them get away with it, not without a genuine fight. It's very hard to keep all the battles we need to fight right now straight.

Every institution we hold sacred, everything dear seems to be threatened. And just like you, I am so exhausted, oh my God. And I am sickened by the whole thing. So I'm trying to pick my fights. I'm thinking globally and I am acting locally, like battling this awful sable oil pipeline plan. If you want, you can join me in that fight by donating at environmentaldefensecenter.org. There's a link in the show notes and we'll also have it on the Wiser Than Me Instagram. Or you can find a fight of your own right where you live.

There are great, great rewards in fighting for something noble like the future of the planet, of a lake, of a river, a mountain, or the mighty ocean from which our gooey ancestors crawled and evolved into the beautiful flawed humans that we are today. And that's why it's kind of perfect that on Earth Day, we have one of the greatest ocean activist scientists who ever lived as our guest. A woman who must have gills by now. She has spent so much time submerged in the sea. A powerfully brilliant

explorer, scientist, and environmental advocate, and someone who is oh so much wiser than me, Dr. Sylvia Earle. I'm Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and this is Wiser Than Me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me. Before the 1950s, ocean exploration was a lot like space travel. Wildly dangerous and experimental. The gear looked like something straight out of a Jules Verne novel. It really did. Back then, oxygen regulators would notoriously malfunction, meeting a life-or-death struggle to reach the surface. Divers faced constant risks, from decompression sickness to the near impossibility of communicating

with the surface. They had to rely on pure instinct and experience. It makes you wonder, with all that danger, what kind of person would go down there anyway? It would have to be a true explorer, someone whose drive to discover the unknown was stronger than their fear of what could happen. Someone just like our guest, Sylvia Earle. Sylvia is a world-renowned marine biologist, activist, and oceanographer who has spent over 7,000 hours underwater. Seven thousand hours.

For context, that is almost 10 entire months. She has led over 100 expeditions. She's written more than 200 publications on the wonders of the ocean. She's a pioneer in American diving. Sylvia descended 1,250 feet to walk untethered on the ocean floor and became the first human, man or woman, to ever venture so deep in this way. At the core of all of her scientific work, Sylvia has been delivering a powerful message. She is asking, begging us, in fact, to see the ocean as a place we are intricately connected to. She should know. She's been diving for over 50 years and has witnessed firsthand the changes in our oceans,

the grave effects of overfishing, pollution, and climate change. And she's still diving at the age of, well, we're going to ask her her age. Dr. John McCosker, head of San Francisco's Steinhardt Aquarium and someone who has worked with Sylvia for many years said, I think Sylvia may have mellowed a bit in recent years and thank goodness because her magnetism and dynamism are almost impossible to keep up with. Sylvia in her most enthusiastic state is just too hot to handle.

And that's exactly how we like her here on Wiser Than Me. She is the president and chairman of Mission Blue, a critical organization and global coalition that inspires public awareness, access, and support for a worldwide network of marine protected areas. She is the winner of the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, a TED Prize, and has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and recognized by the Library of Congress as a living legend. She's a mother, an aquanaut, and a woman who is infinitely wiser than me, Sylvia Earle.

Dr. Sylvia Earle, I should say. Welcome, Sylvia. Great to be on board, really. Thank you so much. Speaking of being on board, as I'm looking at you here on our Zoom for our listeners, you're on a boat, Sylvia. I am. I'm offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, one of my favorite places.

Yes, I know, indeed. And you spent a lot of your youth in that area. I do need to start our podcast by asking you how old you are, if you're willing to say. Not old enough yet. Still working on growing up. Do you want to say your age? I came along in 1935. You do the math. Oh, God. Okay. I'm not good at math, but that means you're 89. Yep. Okay.

So I want to ask you, what is the best part about being your age right now? And also, how old do you feel? I mean, I think I know the answer to that, but I would be so curious to know really. I don't feel any particular age. I mean, my knees are a little creaky. Yeah. Divers, especially over time, because you keep stressing your ears. I don't hear as well as I did when I was a teenager.

Oh, interesting. But if you focus too much on how old or young you are and use it as a reason why you can't do something, why you shouldn't, I just say why not? Why not? Oh, I love that. It's up to you. Yeah. You're too tall, you're too short, you're too fat, you're too thin, you're the wrong

color, you speak the wrong language, whatever it is, there are plenty of excuses why people tell you you cannot do that. Yeah. Look them in the eye and say, why not? There may be reasons, maybe good reasons. Okay, but don't let somebody else tell you that. Yeah, that's incredibly wise. By the way, we had the lucky chance many, many years ago to meet here at my house. I don't know if you remember this, but you came and spoke. You may not remember because it was probably... I do remember.

Yeah. It was for Heal the Bay. It was an event for Heal the Bay in Los Angeles, a wonderful local organization that is dedicated to protecting the bay in Santa Monica and up and down the coast here of Los Angeles County. And I'm a big believer in local and grassroots environmental movements, as I'm sure you are too, Sylvia. So it was really an honor to have you in the House, and we raised a lot of money that night for that organization. So I thank you again for that. And we both have an association with NRDC. Oh, that's right. Of course.

Yes. We're both associated with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and they, of course, do wonderful work as defenders of our planet in the courts. So back to sort of the more sort of almost silly questions that I want to ask you. You are such a get up and go person. I want to know, I'm assuming you're like a morning person. Are you somebody who rises early and sort of gets going? What's your deal in the morning? I want to know. Well, I travel quite a lot right now. So morning is wherever I am. I do like to get up early.

I also like to stay up late. Oh, you do? But I do like to get up early. I also like to stay up late. Oh, you do? But I also like to sleep. So you want it all. You want it all, Sylvia. Don't you? Yes, without question. I just need my seven to eight hours of sleep.

And if I get that, I'm set. I'm done. I can't remember where I read this, but I heard that you don't like working out per se, exercise for the sake of exercise. I'm assuming that the physical activity that you get is with your diving and being in the water. Am I correct to say that? Well, as often as I can get there.

But running through airports, lifting bags into the overhead compartment on a long distance flight. Yes. Or just staying active every day. Can you take us back and just tell us about your very first dive and the experience of your first dive and how it hooked you? What happened to Cousteau too, he said the first time he put his face in the water, he came back up, he went down, came back up. He went down,

came back up. It's like, where am I? I had no idea that this existed. It's like going through a secret door into— Narnia. Narnia. Yeah. There you go. For real, right? For real. Yeah. What do you wish people, the average person, knew about the ocean?

That it's alive. It's not just rocks and water. From the top all the way to the bottom and even beneath the bottom of the ocean, all life needs water, at least life as we know it. And 97% of Earth's water is ocean. And the rest, that 3%, is mostly ice. Antarctic and Arctic and glacier ice. And we need to take care of the ocean. That's where life is. The ocean governs climate and weather. The ocean governs our life support system. The ocean makes Earth habitable. The living ocean isn't just rocks and water.

But 97% of the ocean is currently open for exploitation. Only 3% is highly or fully protected. And that's part of why I'm here on the Gulf of Mexico. There's a goal, I'm sure you know, many people probably don't know, that nations around the world, most of them have come together to say that by 2030, it's not far away now, of course, but to safeguard 30% of the land and sea that give back to nature to secure our safety, our security, by securing our life support system, the diversity of life in the ocean. Well, then let me ask you this, because like for the people who are listening to this,

you know, it feels, I mean, I know we have the chance, but it's a daunting task. Doesn't mean it can't be done, of course. But what can we say to our listeners? What can an individual do? What are actions individuals can take in their own lives towards this goal that you're discussing? Are there actions they can take? Oh, so many possible things. Nobody can do. I can't do what you do, Julia. I mean, I can't do what anybody else does. Everybody has power. My question is, what have you got? Do you have a way with music? Are you a great communicator? Are you good with kids? Do you love animals? Are

you okay with signing up and being a part of an organization, it's doing something that you see is doing the right thing by your measure. Whatever it is you've got, do you have resources that you can invest in solutions? Everybody can do something. Nobody can do it all, but working together, we can come up with ways starting in your backyard or starting in your community, to give back to nature. Just think, craft your own recipe for what you can do that is special to you.

There are people who sing and they convert people with their inspiration. There are those who write, whether it's poetry or scientific articles, they're using what they've got to go from where we are to get to a better place. Kids go out on the beach, they start picking up trash. And you see grownups watching the kids take the leadership. The kids can inspire all of us. Their future is on the line. And, you know, I have for many years worked with National Geographic and have been involved as an explorer with them and going way back and tell stories and inspire people and then find something that you can do that inspires you.

Well, it's interesting you say that about telling stories because I will tell you that I snorkel, but I did go diving once and I, unlike you Sylvia, was filled with fear. And I had an instructor and I saw nothing on this dive except the ass of my instructor. I was on him. I was as close to him. He probably thought I was coming on to him because I was so close to him the entire time. I was terrified. So I'm not cut out for the actual diving, but I have the utmost respect, of course,

for you and for those who dive and for you in particular. Don't go anywhere there's more with Sylvia Earle after this quick little break. So, today is Earth Day and it has me thinking about the planet a little more than usual. Everyone I know from coast to coast is impacted by climate change in some way. I know I certainly am. The hard part is that it can feel like there isn't anything we can do about it. Or maybe it's just that there are too many things we're supposed to do to help. We're supposed to drive an electric car, we need to go vegan,

we need to reuse plastic bags or take shorter showers, we need to stop having birthday parties with balloons. Balloons are especially bad. I mean, you know, boy, it's a lot. And that's when it's easy to just freeze and do nothing. Well, instead, maybe we should triage the situation. I mean, we can only do one thing at a time. So what can we start with?

What's one easy thing we can do to help the planet right now? You ready? We can stop putting food in the garbage. I'm not joking. We're talking banana peels, carrot tops, old leftovers, eggshells, and coffee grounds, and chicken bones. Because here's the not very fun facts.

Food waste is the most common material in landfills. And most of it comes from our own homes, not from Big Ag or fast food. The clincher, all of this food generates huge amounts of methane, which is like a greenhouse gas on steroids. 80 times more potent than CO2. I mean the carbon footprint of US food waste is more than that of the airline industry, if you can even believe that. And while there may be even bigger climate problems, food waste seems to be the most

pointless, because it's a problem every one of us could help solve every day from our own homes. Regular listeners to Wiser Than Me might have heard me say before that I'm an investor and kind of evangelist for the Mill Food Recycler. And this is technically an ad for Mill, but today on Earth Day, Mill wants me to tell you something different. You don't need a Mill Food Recycler to stop wasting food.

Seriously, there are so many ways to start keeping food out of the trash, in any kitchen, on any budget. Like for example, you can buy only what you need. You can use a curbside organics bin if you have one. If you're a total badass, you can start a compost pile or a worm bin, whatever the hell that is. Granted, if you wanna make all of that totally effortless and odorless and kind of magical,

you might really want the Mill Food Recycler, but I'm gonna get into that later. The big bold headline today is super straightforward. Please, please keep food out of the trash by any means necessary. And if we can all do this one easy good thing, maybe we can worry about the other 10,000 things tomorrow. I wanna talk about that record making dive I mentioned earlier when I introduced you.

When you walk untethered 1,250 feet down on the ocean floor, my God, what does it mean to walk on the ocean floor untethered? Sylvia, what does that actually mean? To be able to walk freely. People cannot normally dive in compressed air or even using a mixture of gases. On scuba, 50 meters, you know, 150 feet is a deep dive. With special mixes of gases, you can go down deeper than that. But not very many people do it because it's experimental. Commercial divers do it in the oil patch, in the salvage work. But

you wouldn't do it recreationally for the most part. But to be able to package yourself as I did in a system that is one atmosphere. I was in a system that is known as an armored suit. It's like a suit of armor actually. It keeps the pressure. And so I could go down as I did to 400 meters, it's 1,250 feet. And normally there would be a line going all the way back to the surface using a diving suit of that sort. In my case, I had no line back to the surface. I went down on the nose of a little submarine. I was like a hood ornament on the front of the submarine.

Wow. Descended and then walked off and there was a communication line between the submersible and myself, but no line back to the surface. How long did you do it for? How long were you walking like that in that suit? Time on the ocean floor was two and a half hours, which is about the same as that first moonwalk. For those two and a half hours, what were you thinking about? Was it like a meditation?

No. Did time fly by? I was full alert. And what was the most mundane thought when you were down there, breaking, by the way, a world record? What were you thinking, Sylvia? Really? Well, mundane. I was thinking the port, the little window that I, there are three little round portholes that I could look through. They were fogging up. The water around was cold, inside it was warm because I'm a warm-bodied person. And I had to keep scrubbing the glass so I could see. But you know, there's just, the time went by so fast. It was just glorious. It's right at the edge of light. It's the

twilight zone, literally, where I can look up and I can see that it's slightly lighter above than below. And these luminous creatures, little fish with lights down the side. Did you have lights on you? Were you illuminating the area or no? No, but the submarine that was nearby had lights and I asked them, turn off the lights so I can see what it's like to be there without see what the creatures experience. And there were some long whisker-like corals that are about six to nine feet tall.

And when you touch them, they just burst with bioluminescence, little rings of blue fire. And I was, I just was mesmerized, of course, but I could not take any photographs. You know, fast forward to about three years ago when I was able to go back with my grandsons. I have four grandsons, two are with me, and we had a new low light level camera, which means you can almost take pictures in the dark. Tiny bit of light by luminescence is enough to be able to image these creatures. So instead of just going down and experiencing bamboo coral doing its amazing light show, I was able to go and share the view with my grandsons and they, using this fancy new equipment, documented it. One of the times that you lived underwater was in the 70s on the

Tektite 2, right, with a crew of all women. And I'm curious about what that experience was like being in the company of only women. Was there a distinction that you can identify? It was pure joy. You know, curiously, it didn't start out that way when the notice appeared on the bulletin board at Harvard. Anybody wants to live underwater for a couple of weeks? This is during the high point of going to the moon, so astronauts and aquanauts were kind of mushed together with a similar kind of aura.

And as a scientist, the idea that I could actually stay underwater and use the ocean as a laboratory day and night, swim out anytime you wanted to, get to know individual fish, and really see the ocean in a new way. And I talked with some of my fish friends, ichthyologists who specialize in fish. And we decided to team up and we put together, I thought, some pretty good proposals that went to the Smithsonian. They thought they were great proposals, but there was a glitch. They did not expect women to apply at all. They never bothered because there are no women astronauts until 1986. This is 1969. So the head of the program, James Miller, I think had a good marriage, had a good relationship with his

mother and had a daughter. His response when said, should we really think about having women? He goes, well, why not? Half the fish are female. Guess we could put up with a few women. But they couldn't let men and women live together underwater in 1970. Different culture. Today, look, space station, men and women live together. Airplanes, you know, you fly, it's not a big deal. But it was a big deal then. So they had to put together a women's team and actually had to find an engineer who was willing to come and be a part of this. The others involved applied the way I did. And they just patched us together, irrespective of our compatibility. But hey, you know, women get along.

Yeah, women find a way to work it out, don't they? Are you in touch with any of those women today? Yeah. Well, one of them, sadly, is gone. One is a coral scientist, and we stay in touch from time to time. Another became an environmental lawyer. She got her PhD at Scripps in zoology, but then got her law degree in the engineer. Peggy Lucas lives in Hawaii, and we talk from time to time. That's so wonderful, that bond. What an opportunity.

How did you make room in your life for relationships? Because you were on the road all the time working passionately, doing this extraordinary exploration, this critical exploration. Can you talk about the Balancing Act? You've been married three times, I think. Yeah, so obviously didn't... I mean... That didn't... Well, except to say you had relationships at work for X amount of time, but you did have kids who are still your kids. So can you talk about that, how you managed that balancing act with kids at home? Well, as I say, evidently didn't manage all that well.

But my mom and dad were together for 61 years. It was a model I tried very hard to emulate. I mean, that's what I thought was what I should be doing. But what about the kids? How did you do that? When I could, I took them with me to places. They've been diving with dolphins and whales and I mean, it was almost a condition of either it was acceptable for them to go with me or usually not all three, although sometimes all three got to go with me. But I don't know. There's no recipe that I can tell anybody else or that I can learn except

to say, well, Jeanne Clark, the so-called lady and the sharks who started the Cape Hayes Marine Laboratory, now the Moat Marine Laboratory, she had four kids and somehow managed to run a marine lab and be a distinguished scientist. For some, it was just too much that they decided just to stay solo. Some of the great women scientists, in order to be able to stay on point, you know, they didn't have a partner who cooked and did the laundry and took care of you when you were sick. And they'd full speed ahead. They didn't have a partner who cooked and did the laundry and took care of you when you were sick. Right.

And they'd full speed ahead. They didn't have much time or take time for diversions. I mean, the history is full of such individuals who had to give up what many people think of as a normal relationship with family and kids. Did your parents help you with your kids? I was really lucky to have my parents live nearby and take care of the kids. And during the project where I lived underwater, they actually came and stayed at the home in Los Angeles when I was off aquanauting.

Yeah, right. That's so fantastic. Yeah, no kidding. So let's talk about conservation. I mean, we have been talking about it, but further about it. In 2018, you said you thought we had five years to get this right, to get this on track. Now of course, it's been six years. Do you think we're fucked, Sylvia? Have we done it to ourselves? Absolutely, we have done it to ourselves, and it's going to get harder.

But the sooner we take seriously the opportunity that will never be as good as it is right now. It's a race with what we're learning and what we're losing. And looking at the climate issues, the loss of the natural fabric of life, 5% maybe of old growth forest, old growth, meaning those systems that have survived, they were here preceding the advent of Europeans arriving in North America. Some preceding, going back literally thousands of years that are still intact. The few trees in a few places that literally are more than a thousand years old, most of them have been converted to lumber, board feet that you can

measure in dollars. But they're really priceless. What else can I say? This is the last best chance we'll ever have. And it isn't just in North America, it's across the globe. So I'm excited about a lot of things, mostly the kids, who I say to them, you're so fortunate, you're a 21st century kid. And I'm lucky too, as a 21st, because of what we know that nobody could know before. It's that race with knowledge and loss. But nobody had been to the moon or the deepest part of the ocean. Nobody knew about DNA or RNA or the microbes that live within us that we need. Now we might come to realize that we need fish alive in the ocean. We need them, like we need birds in the sky. We need nature. We need a living planet, not a dead one. And just what can

anybody do to restore life instead of constantly being on the killing side, the consuming side? And if I could be born anytime, I think it would have to be right about now because of what's known, the best chance. What's known and what the task ahead is, it's quite clear, isn't it? Yeah, we had no idea going back when I was a kid that the kids of today grow up with that awareness that is in their everyday existence. Cause for hope. Cause for huge hope.

My conversation with Sylvia Earle continues in just a moment. Stay tuned. So, usually, Sylvia, we end our conversation with a little bit of a little bit of a break. But we'll be back in a little bit. So, we'll be back in a little bit. So, we'll be back in a little bit. So, we'll be back in a little bit. So, we'll be back in a little bit.

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I wish everybody could go back to 50 years ago, whatever it is, armed with what we know now and look at the choices that we could have made if we had known. Look at the plastics for heaven's sakes. If we had any idea, they were so useful, they've been so much a part of our modern culture that it's hard to imagine a time when there were no plastics. But I can imagine because there were none. And as I grew up, I embraced them. But now we know.

I see. Imagine if all of us could go... And have that understanding, yeah. Right. How much more we could save. There'd be more tunas, there'd be more elephants, there'd be more big old trees, there'd be a better chance. There'd be cleaner everything. Yeah. But it's going to get harder. So welcome where you are, when you are, right now, because

based on what we know, we know what to do. Imagine if we didn't know. because based on what we know, we know what to do. Imagine if we didn't know. Yeah. Lucky us. Lucky us. And what are you looking forward to, Sylvia? About this time next year, a new class of little submersibles, Honu, H-O-N-U, which is Polynesian for turtle,

the land-sea connection, linked to the Brando resort in French Polynesia. So you have responsible, environmentally conscious, land-based, I think of tourism as education when it's done well, linked to a research station in Tetiroa that is funded by the Brando and private contributions. And now they're behind getting two little thousand meter submersibles that can service individuals who want to come and really experience what it's like in the Twilight Zone, and for scientists, and for kids. And just to be a window into the deep sea is now on the crosshairs of exploitation, the deep zone where a layer of life migrates vertically, just packed with little squids and luminous creatures that William Beebe described

using the bathysphere going back to the 1930s, that now for the first time they're able to be exploited to gather all those little fish and luminous creatures to grind up and feed to salmon, to feed to cows and pigs and chickens. Just take this. I know, it's just like, oh wait, no, stop. It's what they're doing with krill in Antarctica. What they're doing with squid around the world, just grinding them up to feed. It's like taking songbirds and feeding them to the pigs.

Like wait, stop. Don't you know what you're doing? To get people down there, Of course, as a nerdy scientist, I just want to know who's living there. That would be my trajectory if it weren't the sense of urgency about getting others to see for themselves why we need to look at the world, look at the ocean with new eyes, look at ourselves with new eyes and treat one another with greater dignity and respect. We need to make peace with nature, but we need to make peace with ourselves too. Sylvia, I think your wisdom is unsurpassed and urgent and so critical for everyone to absorb. Well, thank you. I hope everyone over the next few years

will be following the voyage of the Hokalia, the sailing canoe that Polynesians of the same structure, sailing across the Pacific with a message of hope, of making peace with the ocean, and looking at the issues like deep sea mining and say, why would anybody even think of undertaking the destruction of the largest last remaining wilderness on the planet? We have a chance to save it or destroy it right now. Be so glad that you can be a voice for keeping Earth safe. And it's called the Mauna Nui

Akiya, this voyage of hope, making peace with the nations across the Pacific, engaging the indigenous, the people who've lived in places for a long time, but who know the ocean. The ocean is really their home. So I urge everybody to tune in and look at what others are doing in your neighborhood, in your city, in your state, in your country, wherever your community is. We're increasingly global in our friendships. Yeah, right. But find some kindred spirits. See what you can do. It'll change this trajectory of tipping in the wrong direction to tipping in the right direction.

We can do this. Are you going to go diving later today? In about five minutes. Everybody's ready. I'm ready. They're waiting for you. Got my bathing suit on. I love it.

Well, have a safe dive. Have a beautiful dive. I wish you could be here. I would be waiting for you on board with a cup of coffee for when you came back up. We'll see. I'll make you an offer you can't refuse. Okay. I will say that if I have an opportunity to go diving with you, I will consider.

I can't even clear my ears. I've never been able to do that. So, I mean, I'm, you are talking to a novice, novice. But I'm enthusiastic. So, maybe one day, maybe one day we'll have the opportunity and that would be a good day for me. The urge to submerge in a submarine. Thank you for talking to me today. I'm really grateful to you. And I do hope our paths cross again.

I feel pretty sure it's going to happen. I have such respect and admiration for using your great sense of humor to change the way people think about themselves and the world. So, go Julia, go. Okay, thanks Sylvia. Go Sylvia, go. Do it, do it, do it. Okay, well, while Sylvia goes diving, I'm going to call up my mom and I'm going to tell her all about this conversation. Let's get her on the Zoom.

Hi, mommy. Hi, sweetie. Mother, I have to tell you something. I just finished speaking with Sylvia Earle, Dr. Sylvia Earle, and I want to tell you something. Our conversation, guess where she was when I was talking to her? Where? On a boat in the Gulf of Mexico in the middle of shooting a documentary for National Geographic. In her bathing suit, she had already been on a dive, and as soon as we ended, she was

going back onto another dive. She's 89 years old. I know. I know. I read that. She's born a year after me. Yes. Incredible. Has she ever stopped? Because I was looking at her record and it looks like she's been diving. She dived every day of her life. Yeah. She's been diving since she was 16 years old. And no, she's not stopped. She's, I've never seen anything quite like it. And it was an extraordinary conversation

because she's talking to me in her bathing suit, wearing her sunglasses, hair is wet. You know, she's like poised to go right back in the water again. And she is, have you ever been diving, mom, in your life? I just snorkeled. Did you like snorkeling? Ah, I adored it.

It's like another world. Oh, I adored it. You were on that same boat when we were in Bermuda and this fella took us way out so that you were at the edge of a cliff underwater. And so then you sort of snorkeled over the cliff and you looked down, it was like Grand Canyon and then all these fish were coming.

And I mean, it was like another world. Oh my God, I loved it. I loved it. Ah. Would you ever have gone scuba diving? I don't know if I wanted to go deeper or not, but snorkeling would have been good enough for me. Well, she talked about her first experience of like, she was talking about it as if she was,

you know, going through a secret door into another world, which is exactly what it's like. There's so much of the earth is covered in ocean and there's so much about the ocean that's unexplored. And of course, she's been at the forefront of that exploration. She is an explorer. She's an aquanaut. Aquanaut, I of that exploration. She is an explorer. She's an aquanaut. Aquanaut. I love that word. Yeah, it's a real word. Isn't that neat? Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. She has three children. Three children and grandchildren, and she's gone deep sea diving with her grandsons.

I think she said she'd been on a submersible with her grandsons. It's incredible. Yeah. And can you imagine having a grandmother that takes you into places like that? Right. Totally. Well, you're a grandmother. You can take my kids down a poetry rabbit hole.

Why not? Yeah, that's right. That's right. I've got to find a way in. I've got to find a way into their psyche. So many people have this thing about, yeah, poetry, you know. No, but I think you have already. Remember when Henry took a Mary Oliver poem and he

set it to music? Remember that? I do remember that. I do. And I remember that Brad and Henry set a poem of mine to music for my birthday. That's right. For your 90th birthday we they did their toast and they took measure for measure your poem and they set it to music. And I'm gonna post that poem to our Wiser Than Me Instagram so people can read it mama. So wonderful oh my gosh and especially the line... Abandon all stories for this one. Yeah and they just kept saying that was. Yeah, that was wonderful. All right, good.

Well, I think we've done enough here, I suspect. And we'll say, um... We'll say do and we'll say... A do. Do, which is a good... I think I got from you the idea that's a good wordle thing to start. Oh, yeah. A do is a good wordle word.

Another good word that I got the other day was arise. Arise is also good. Good, yeah. Yeah, and so is crate and crane. Those are also good wordle words. Good, good. I have to say I love wordle so much. Well, I do it until it becomes like, oh, I've got to do this. I've got to prove to myself I can do it. You know, It happens to me in a certain, so I let it go for a few days then, and then I just come back to it where it can just be fun. When I have that experience,

what I do is I walk away from it completely, but I don't walk away for days. I just walk away for a couple hours, then I come back to it and my mind can be clear. Ah, okay. I have that with spelling bee too, but I will say I feel very driven to do it because I find it's just satisfying. Right.

Mommy, I'm going to go. Okay, good. I'm going to meditate. All right. I have a meditation group here in 20 minutes. Perfect. Okay. Well, I love you, love you.

Love you, love you. And now we can say goodbye. I do. Okay. I do. Love you. And now we can say goodbye. Adieu. Okay. Adieu. Love you. Bye.

Bye. Bye. There's more Wiser Than Me with Lemonada Premium on Apple. You can listen to every episode of season three ad free. Subscribers also get access to exclusive bonus interview excerpts from each episode. Subscribe now by clicking on the Wiser Than Me podcast logo in the Apple podcast app and then hitting the subscribe button. Make sure you're following Wiser Than Me on social media. We're on Instagram and TikTok at Wiser than Me and we're on Facebook at

Wiser than Me podcast. Wiser than Me is a production of Lemonada Media created and hosted by me, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. This show is produced by Chrissy Pease, Jamila Zaraa Williams, Alex McOwen and Oja Lopez. Brad Hall is a consulting producer. Rachel Neal is VP of New Content, and our SVP of Weekly Content and Production is Steve Nelson. Executive producers are Paula Kaplan, Stephanie Widdles-Wax, Jessica Cordova-Cramer, and me. The show is mixed by Johnny Vince Evans with engineering help from James Barber.

And our music was written by Henry Hall, who you can also find on Spotify or wherever you listen to your music. Special thanks to Will Schlegel and of course my mother, Judith Bowles. Follow Wiser Than Me wherever you get your podcasts. And if there's a wise old lady in your life, listen up. ["Wise Old Lady"] -♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh Hey, Prime members, did you know that you can listen to Wiser Than Me ad free on Amazon

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