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MS. EILPERIN: Good morning and welcome back. For those of you just joining us, I’m Juliet Eilperin, Deputy Climate and Environment Editor at The Post.

Joining me now is marine biologist and photographer, Cristina Mittermeier, who traveled to D.C. from New Zealand to join us here, today. Cristina, thank you so much for joining us here at The Post.

MS. EILPERIN: So, to start, for years, wildlife photographers have spoken out for conservation. You were a pioneer in the development of conservation photography. Can you tell us what you're trying to communicate through conservation photography?

MS. MITTERMEIER: Yeah, conservation photography was an idea borne out of the necessity for action. I was part of a community of nature photographers, and there's this, you know, tendency to just go and take pretty pictures. You want to get published; you want to be in magazines. But I understood that if you put those photographs along with the stories that they come with in front of the people that may or may not know about issues, you have a chance to influence the way people think. And so, it's the advocacy work that goes with photography.

MS. EILPERIN: Got it. You grew up pretty far from the closest ocean. When and why did you turn your attention more specifically to protecting the oceans?

MS. MITTERMEIER: You know, books are so important in the formation of a child's mind. And to me, I read two books that were very influential in my life. One was Paul Erlich's "The Population Bomb." I don't know if you were scared along with me in the 1980s.

And the other one was just Jacques Cousteau and the invitation to adventure, the mystery of this ecosystem we know so little about.

MS. EILPERIN: Yeah, and The Post has reported on the unprecedented streak of ocean heat, entering a second year, that scientists say could potentially cause an irreversible change to earth systems. Are we reaching a tipping point with the oceans, whether you're talking about coral reefs or other key components in the ocean?

MS. MITTERMEIER: You know, one of the things that frustrates me about scientists is their reluctance to just tell us what's what. And for those of us who spend a lot of time in the ocean, absolutely, it is getting warm all around, and in places like the eastern coast of Australia, the Great Barrier Reef, it's several degrees warmer than it should be. So, as a result, we're losing things that we can see, like coral reefs. But it's the things that we cannot see, like the planktonic communities that, you know, through photosynthesis, provide oxygen, those are the terrifying ones.

To me, the most scary part of the whole story, Juliet, is that we know so little about how things work and how these tipping points are going to be interconnected with another. We're basically piloting a spaceship through the universe that we know very little about.

MS. EILPERIN: Yeah. Now, you said, as we saw at the beginning with the video, that oceans are both a victim and a solution to climate change. Can you give a specific example of how they can be a solution?

MS. MITTERMEIER: Yes, I mean, anything that is doing the work that is a quarter--you know, 25 percent of a solution is pretty important. You cannot drive a vehicle with just three tires; you need the fourth one, too. The ocean is absorbing 25 percent of emissions. It does this naturally. We don't pay it to do it; we don't ask it to do it; it just does it. But it's also producing 50 percent of the oxygen we breather and it absorbs 90 percent of the excess heat in the atmosphere. So, it lends us an incredible service, and it can only do it if it's alive. And people think that ocean is just saltwater; but no, it's a living broth of microorganisms, algae, that is where life emerged from in this planet and it's what keeps this planet alive.

So, as we ignore it--you know, and that's shockingly the most underfunded of all the Sustainable Development Goals, by a lot. And conservation, in general, environmental work in the ocean is severely underfunded as well. So, we need to keep it alive.

MS. EILPERIN: And news broke recently about indigenous groups in New Zealand, Tahiti, and the Cook Islands signing a treaty that recognized whales as legal persons. How might this--and we've also seen this in Panama with leatherback turtles, how might this help lead to further legal protections?

MS. MITTERMEIER: I love spending time in the company of societies that I don't understand, including societies like whales. They are fellow passengers on spaceship earth, and we know very little about how they communicate, how they operate, but they absolutely lend an incredibly valuable service to humanity. And we're learning more about the role that not just whales but biomass in the ocean in general plays in the carbon cycle. We need these animals to help us tar--you know, things like--think about a whale, how big it is. I'm looking at these photographs. The amount of carbon in the body of a whale--and when it dies, of course, it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. But throughout its life, this whale is feeding in the depths and it's eating very mineral-rich nutrients, and then it poops on top--on the surface of the ocean. And this is fertilizer that promotes the growth of plankton that, of course, you know, produces oxygen, sequesters carbon, the whole cycle.

I think that the fact that indigenous people not just in New Zealand, not just in the Cook Islands, in all over the world, really, are taking a leadership role in reminding us that we need these biodiversity elements to survive. And I believe firmly that whales deserve personhood. They are valuable assets, not just on economic terms, but just culturally and I mean, I want to live on a planet where there's whales.

MS. EILPERIN: A recent piece about you and your partner, Paul Nicklen said that because the two of you spend your lives on the frontlines of the climate crisis you could be compared to wartime photographers.

I wanted to know what you think of that. Is that a fair comparison? Would you challenge part of that?

MS. MITTERMEIER: You know, you feel very humbled when you're out in nature and when you witness what happens, for example, with the industrial fishing fleet. I mean, it is a war on nature. It is so unsustainable to think that we can exploit any resource in that manner. But it happens out there in the middle of nowhere. It's invisible to most people.

And a lot of us, we only understand fish because we see it swimming, you know, in a sea of butter, a plate of butter. But fish are wildlife and you start understanding the destruction of the bottom of the ocean through deep sea mining. Yes, there is a need for minerals, but we cannot just wholesale destruct entire ecosystems that we know so little about.

So, yes, I feel like we are reporters out in the middle of nowhere bringing stories about the most important ecosystem on planet earth, and it's a pretty lonely job, Juliet.

MS. EILPERIN: And as you said, you go out into the world and take these photographs. How do you track what impact conservation photography--whether yours or others--have on the world?

MS. MITTERMEIER: I think it's the hardest part of the job. We never know the impact that our photographs have. I firmly believe that photography is a great way of inviting people into what I think is the most important conversation of our times, really: the survival of our planet. And a lot of people don't feel competent enough to enter the conversation on climate. You know, they don't know enough about it. Nobody wants to feel ignorant.

Photography lowers the price of entry. It invites people to ask questions. And it's just a way for us to make the audience larger. But to track the impact is almost impossible. I just hope that we are having impact.

MS. EILPERIN: And one related question, which is what are the kinds of images that you think have the biggest impact on the public consciousness? Would it be uplifting images or images that create an uproar, because you've obviously shared both.

MS. MITTERMEIER: Oh, this is such a good question. I derive a lot of inspiration from Dr. Martin Luther King. You know, he didn't start the famous speech by telling us he had a nightmare. Here, he told us that there's a dream, right, and creating aspirational images of the kind of planet that we want to live in, I think, is valuable.

At the same time, we need to remind people that we are in a lot of trouble, and those images need to be very carefully punctuated throughout the conversation, because don't want to feel hopeless; they don't want to feel despair. And so, you have to keep this narrative going.

MS. EILPERIN: Yeah, and we have a couple of photos that the audience is seeing. Could you tell us just a little bit about both of them, so they have a sense?

MS. MITTERMEIER: Yeah, so, we have a stellar sea lion, a beautiful animal that's taken in front of my home in British Columbia. And this urchin, you know, it can be a beautiful thing, but when you lose the ecological balance in some places like the coast of California where we have removed a lot of the top predators, urchins can become a massive problem. We're seeing this in New Zealand, in California, and British Columbia, but you try to tell these stories in a way that's whimsical.

On the other side, we have a polar bear that we encountered on expedition to the Canadian Arctic. And we are seeing more and more bears stranded on land. They don't get enough food. They are starving. It's a very, very sad thing to watch. The funny thing about this image is how much controversy it caused. It really created this narrative that there's too many polar bears, because now polar bears are so hungry that they're going to villages or we see many more. That doesn't mean there's more polar bears. I think they are in a lot of trouble and facing issues like climate but also trophy hunting.

MS. EILPERIN: Got it. Now, we have an audience question from Amy Loeffler in Alaska, an amazing state. "What would you tell aspiring climate journalists who might feel like the reporting falls on deaf ears?"

MS. MITTERMEIER: You know, as a reporter, you really never know who's going to see your work, who's going to read your words. And the job is not to be paying attention to that; the job is just to tell the story, right? So, don't go out there worried about how many people are reading it. You just have to do the work. And you know what? We need an army of storytellers and photographers and journalists out there reporting on the state of the planet. So, just go do it.

MS. EILPERIN: You and I spoke over a decade ago, because we've known each other for a long time, about the intersection of your work and politics. You said that politicians are afraid of conservation images. Is that still true today?

MS. MITTERMEIER: I don't think so. I think things have changed dramatically, especially in this country. It's so rewarding to see an administration like President Biden's administration who really cares about these things.

The concern is that politicians are not always well-versed in these subjects. You know, you have ministers of the environment that are appointed, and they're politicians; they are not biologists. What I think is important is that they listen to the scientists. Scientists are the pilots. They're the ones who know how planet earth works. Let's not ignore their advice, and politicians should be sitting always next to a scientist.

MS. EILPERIN: And then, related, while we're on policy, what message would you want to communicate to American officials here while in Washington?

MS. MITTERMEIER: The most important thing I can say is I travel all over the world; I talk to politicians all over the world. And yes, everybody is watching America. What we do or don't do really matters. And so, let's just engage in American conservation environmental work with a knowledge that the rest of the world is following us or not.

MS. EILPERIN: And again, once you're done, you're going to go back to Down Under, to Australia. Could you talk a little specifically about what you're doing there, and kind of how you do your work. What does it mean to actually be out doing both photography and conservation?

MS. MITTERMEIER: You know, I went to New Zealand first, the boat was there, for three months. And I was so excited because I thought of New Zealand as a country that cares about conservation. But a country that's 93-percent ocean has barely protect 0.3 percent of their waters. And I thought that was pathetic. And you can see the effects that this is having. You know, there's just rampant fishing. Everybody has a right to fish.

And so, you want to tell them, you know, I've seen what happens to countries that do this. Be warned. From there, we're going to Australia; our boat arrived yesterday. We are there because the water is so warm that the scientists we're working with are saying, we're going to lose 90 percent of the Great Barrier Reef this year. Ninety percent. I mean, let's just stop for a second and think about this is a habitat--this is something that we can see from space.

And people say things like, oh, we can restore it. You can't. Losing these types of ecosystems, what we need to know is that it's irreversible and it is catastrophic and it's going to have tremendous impact for the communities first where the coral reefs are, but eventually for all of us. This causes all sorts of issues with increased storms and migration, and it's devastating. So, I feel it is really important for journalists to be there to make sure it's not just a blip in the news cycle. You know, this is a big deal.

MS. EILPERIN: And you know, there--obviously, we have seen in recent months both a global treaty on biodiversity, these goals of 30 by 30. We're right now in negotiations over whether there's a possibility to reach a global plastics treaty, which obviously has critical implications for the planet. What do you--and you know, the ocean specifically--what do you think of these efforts and what will it take to actually make them not just a paper agreement but have real impact.

MS. MITTERMEIER: I think these treaties are so important: climate treaty, biodiversity treaty, now this global plastics treaty. What they require is a lot of public support. We need a population that is informed and engaged and pushing politicians to keep doing the right thing. Because if these treaties are negotiated in dark rooms in some obscure conference, then nobody cares, but they are critically important. I mean, the future life on earth depends on these treaties and they really outline how humanity is going to go forward or not.

MS. EILPERIN: And is there anything--and when you--how have you encountered, for example, plastics in the ocean and that impact as you've been out in the field?

MS. MITTERMEIER: The more we learn about plastics, Juliet, the more terrifying it becomes, because it's not the stuff that we can see. Of course, plastics break down and we think about micro plastics and we know we're all eating it. It is the chemicals in plastics that are devastating.

You know, I learned yesterday, 16,000 chemicals go into plastics. We only know what three of them do to human health. All of these chemicals leaching into the environment have an effect not just on humans, on our babies, our children, but also on these ecosystems. New studies are saying that these chemicals are impacting ecosystems like reefs, as well. And we have a chance with the upcoming negotiations on the global plastics treaty to actually, you know, create language that is strong enough to say, let's turn the tap off and not create any new plastic. Let's learn how to reuse the plastic that we have and use alternatives.

MS. EILPERIN: And this will be our last question. So much in the literature out there about climate change is, of course, about doom and gloom. So, to provide us with a little optimism. In one sentence, what makes you hopeful people will take action to be better caretakers for the planet?

MS. MITTERMEIER: I think hope is a personal choice. There's many days when I wake up and I think, oh, my God, we're doomed. And then, I remember, you know, I cannot allow myself to feel or think that way, so I make the choice of remaining hopeful. And I think hope is a powerful motivator for all of us, so I'm doing a book about hope.

MS. EILPERIN: So, we'll have to leave it there. Cristina, thank you again for making the journey.

MS. EILPERIN: And best of luck to you on your next expedition.

MS. EILPERIN: And don't go anywhere. We'll be back in a few minutes for our next conversation. Stay with us.