Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and there's Jerry over there. So let's get
Speaker 1: to it. While we're talking about mangroves. Everybody, mangroves gather
Speaker 1: around while we talk about mangrove. My new favorite tree.
Speaker 1: It's a great tree. It's a good favorite tree to have.
Speaker 1: It is, and this is one of those. I think
Speaker 1: this is the second and probably final that was inspired
Speaker 1: by my recent trip to Mexico because we were surrounded
Speaker 1: by mangroves, literally surrounded by mangroves, and we couldn't get
Speaker 1: enough of them. Man Like riding the bikes around and
Speaker 1: looking in these mangrove forests and considering what it must
Speaker 1: be like to try and navigate through them. Nearly impossible,
Speaker 1: I would say, uh, because yeah, I mean you seen
Speaker 1: them in person, I'm sure like just how dense these
Speaker 1: things are. Uh, And you know we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about different kinds, but really sort of the money mangroves
Speaker 1: are the ones that we're going to focus on, and
Speaker 1: they are just I was knocked out just by how
Speaker 1: they looked. And I could tell that they were a
Speaker 1: remarkable wonder of nature and evolution. And then after this stuff,
Speaker 1: Dave Rouse helped us put this together. After learning everything
Speaker 1: that they're capable of, it's just like, what what kind
Speaker 1: of tree is this? It's amazing. It's an amazing tree.
Speaker 1: Like I said, it's maybe one of the best trees
Speaker 1: to have is your favorite tree, because there are very
Speaker 1: few trees that are this amazing, Chuck Man, And we're
Speaker 1: talking mangroves, and we should say mangroves aren't necessarily like
Speaker 1: a species or even a family of tree. One of
Speaker 1: the other things that makes them such a cool tree
Speaker 1: to have as a favorite is that there's something like
Speaker 1: eighty or ninety species of them, and they're not genetically
Speaker 1: related in every case. Instead, biologist classify them by their
Speaker 1: ability to survive and even thrive in salty water that
Speaker 1: uh in soil that has little to no oxygen, which
Speaker 1: are two things that most trees can't do. And that's
Speaker 1: just the tip of the iceberg. And what makes um
Speaker 1: mangroves so amazing. Yeah, but like I said, we're talking
Speaker 1: mainly about those amazing trees that sit up above the
Speaker 1: water with this network of you know, look like fingers
Speaker 1: just sort of propping up the tree, which are the roots. Um.
Speaker 1: They are a woodland tree, also could be called a shrub.
Speaker 1: And they grow in a pretty narrow area between um.
Speaker 1: While they're subtropical along the coastlines first of all, but
Speaker 1: they grow between literally between um, the terrestrial and the
Speaker 1: marine environment in salty brackish water. Yeah. Um. And there's
Speaker 1: I want to say a lot of them. It's really
Speaker 1: not though. I think they make up like one percent
Speaker 1: of the forests of the old mangrove forests are. But
Speaker 1: it's still eighty five thousand square miles, which is a
Speaker 1: pretty decent amount of area for you know, one kind
Speaker 1: of tree. It's about the size of the state of Arkansas. UM.
Speaker 1: And the largest mangrove forest in the world is at
Speaker 1: the mouth of the Ganges UM, near the Bay of Bengal.
Speaker 1: It's called the Student Arbans And that's where the Bengal
Speaker 1: tiger lives, which is pretty cool, agreed. Uh. They exist
Speaker 1: in a hundred and eighteen countries and here in the
Speaker 1: United States in Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. And I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: surely the Georgia Coast so close to Florida surely they've
Speaker 1: got some mangroves. Don't even try. Not quite there that
Speaker 1: I did see some people that are like, oh, so mangroves, um,
Speaker 1: but it's not true. It looks like the closest mangroves
Speaker 1: are about forty miles from the Georgia border, near the
Speaker 1: Georgia coast line. Um. So I was really sad that
Speaker 1: we don't have our our mangroves. But they do have
Speaker 1: them in Florida and Louisiana and Texas and in Mexico.
Speaker 1: That's right. And again you said that they grow subtropically,
Speaker 1: and Chuck, I want to share that. It was just
Speaker 1: today that I finally stopped and was like, this subtropical
Speaker 1: thing is driving me crazy. Like it's it's above the
Speaker 1: tropics on either side. It's either above or below, depending
Speaker 1: on where your perspective, but it's not below. It's not
Speaker 1: below the equator. And then I realized, if you're on
Speaker 1: the equator from the perspective of the equator, it's below
Speaker 1: the equator on either side, so it's sub tropical. You've
Speaker 1: never stood on the equator. I never have, and I
Speaker 1: think I should be. I've never been to Ecuador. Well
Speaker 1: we should go sometime we should do a podcast live
Speaker 1: live from the equator. Yeah, and see if we melt.
Speaker 1: I know I will. I'm melting this week. Um. As
Speaker 1: far as man the money mangroves that I was talking about,
Speaker 1: we're talking about red, black and white, and for my money,
Speaker 1: I love those red mangro Those are the ones that
Speaker 1: grow along the water's edge. They have those proper roots
Speaker 1: that and if you've never seen a mangrove mangrove, please
Speaker 1: just look up red mangrove. Uh. And they're called proper
Speaker 1: roots because they prop that tree up off the ground.
Speaker 1: They are fully well, not fully exposed because they also
Speaker 1: go into the water, into the soil, but they're largely
Speaker 1: exposed and they are just tangled, gnarly beautiful roots that again,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine trying to navigate through a mangrove forests.
Speaker 1: You probably had to go around. Yeah, it can be
Speaker 1: really really thick um both above water and below water
Speaker 1: because of those roots. So those roots, um, if you
Speaker 1: see them, that means that it's low tide, high tide,
Speaker 1: they're usually covered up with water. But it's like you said,
Speaker 1: they propped the tree up. And so for that reason,
Speaker 1: because at low tide, you can see the bottom of
Speaker 1: the tree and it's above ground. Um. They're sometimes called
Speaker 1: walking trees, but they're pretty neat. And the red mangrove
Speaker 1: is I think anyone who knows about mangroves seen a
Speaker 1: mangrove probably is what they're thinking of as a red
Speaker 1: mangrove because there's just those those roots are just so
Speaker 1: characteristic and unusual, you know. Yeah, the black mangroves are
Speaker 1: still really cool looking because they have these um protrusions
Speaker 1: coming up out of the water called new metaphors and
Speaker 1: just you know, put a pin in this. They but
Speaker 1: they allow the plant to basically breathe. And we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that later. But if you look at a picture
Speaker 1: of these, it looks sort of like almost like little
Speaker 1: just spiky roots sticking up out of the ground all
Speaker 1: around the tree. Yeah, almost like still agmites. Um. And
Speaker 1: I got that right too. By the way, Um, white
Speaker 1: mangroves are. It's weird. I don't understand fully why they're
Speaker 1: considered mangroves, aside from the fact that they must still
Speaker 1: thrive in brackish or salty water and poor um, poor
Speaker 1: oxygen soil. It but I guess so but they grow
Speaker 1: inland and they have normal shallow roots systems like any
Speaker 1: other terrestrial tree, but they're still considered mangroves. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I don't think i've mentioned the black mangroves to grow
Speaker 1: a little bit further inland than the reds. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: if you are, you know, looking at a cross section
Speaker 1: of the ocean hitting the land and going inland, you
Speaker 1: would see at the ocean or at the bay or wherever,
Speaker 1: um red mangroves on the shoreline actually growing into the
Speaker 1: ocean depending on where the tide is behind them. You
Speaker 1: would have the black mangroves on slightly higher ground, and
Speaker 1: then behind those on the highest ground you would have
Speaker 1: the white mangroves. And that's what it would look like
Speaker 1: you put it all together, well, you have is a
Speaker 1: mangrove forest, also known as a mangal, a mangal, which
Speaker 1: is uh one of the more amazing We're talking about
Speaker 1: a lot of amazing things about mangroves and mangals, but
Speaker 1: it's the only species of tree that can grow in
Speaker 1: salt water. Um, and big time they grow and it's
Speaker 1: not like they love the salt. We'll see in a minute.
Speaker 1: They have some great ways of getting rid of it. Um,
Speaker 1: but they figured all that stuff out. But they can
Speaker 1: grow in salinity levels of seventy five parts per thousand,
Speaker 1: which is about twice as salty as ocean water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty impressive because I mean, where are they growing
Speaker 1: that that's twice as salty as ocean water? You know,
Speaker 1: I think that's just kind of showing off at that point. Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't know if like that inland water like just
Speaker 1: accumulates salt or something. Yeah, I would Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you might be right. Yeah, yeah, I think you fit
Speaker 1: upon it. Okay, So they're not showoffs. They're just doing
Speaker 1: what they've got to do there. I mean that they're
Speaker 1: making they're making lemonade out of the lemons that that
Speaker 1: they were handed by natural selection for where they grow.
Speaker 1: So what about the salt? How do they get rid
Speaker 1: of it? So you would think like they just they
Speaker 1: can drink salt water and use it like you know
Speaker 1: terrestrial trees use water. Not true. There's actually two techniques
Speaker 1: where they can either um keep salt from entering their roots,
Speaker 1: or they can take the salt in and then get
Speaker 1: rid of it in certain ways. And so that means
Speaker 1: that there's two types, secrets and non secrets. And black
Speaker 1: mangroves are secrets, I believe, right, that's right. Those are
Speaker 1: the ones with a little nubby they look like sticks
Speaker 1: almost sticking out of the water. Uh. They filter it
Speaker 1: out and they secrete it on the leaves. So that
Speaker 1: means if you see a black mangrove and you see
Speaker 1: some you know, kind of chalky white stuff on the
Speaker 1: leaf that is salt like goat, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I should say go lick it because I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's dangerous salt, but it's it's salty. Just trust me.
Speaker 1: It tastes like salt. And d D T gosh um.
Speaker 1: Red mangroves they're they're non secrets. So they actually just
Speaker 1: don't allow salt to be taken up by their roots.
Speaker 1: Now that's easier said than done, because their roots are
Speaker 1: planted in the water, right, so there's water. They're taking
Speaker 1: up water from the ocean, from salt water. And what
Speaker 1: they do is they have cell wall that actually act
Speaker 1: um through reverse osmosis. It lets water through, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't let solids through, which is quite a trick. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's something that humans have only recently figured out how
Speaker 1: to do The mangroves have been doing it for who
Speaker 1: knows how many, hundreds of thousands or millions of years, um.
Speaker 1: But they do it in part because they have this hydrophobic,
Speaker 1: lipophilic material called suberin that really serves them. Well, that's right.
Speaker 1: It allows them to get rid of more than of
Speaker 1: the salts in the water, which also means, which I
Speaker 1: don't really think about until just now, that they can
Speaker 1: They can literally tolerate I guess about ten salt content. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw, but yeah, that's still a lot of salt
Speaker 1: for a plant. Totally. Yeah. So they have at least
Speaker 1: adapted in some ways to to tolerate salt more than
Speaker 1: other plants. But for the most part, they're just really
Speaker 1: good at um at keeping salt from being taken up
Speaker 1: by their roots. I just find that fascinating. Uh And
Speaker 1: I love how Dave puts these uh he he. His
Speaker 1: sections are labeled either mangrove magic tricks or what was
Speaker 1: the other one, mangrove superpowers. Yeah, pretty fun. They're both
Speaker 1: apt they are. So this is magic trick number two?
Speaker 1: Is we mentioned? You know, I mentioned earlier that they
Speaker 1: actually breathe through these roots. Um. I think typically you
Speaker 1: might like to think about plants as uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just eating up that CEO two, which they definitely do.
Speaker 1: But plants need oxygen and they need to get oxygen
Speaker 1: from the roots and and you know with a regular
Speaker 1: tree and a regular forest, they're getting that like through
Speaker 1: the soil and these little gaps between the soil. Uh
Speaker 1: in mangrove or mangals, I guess you would say they
Speaker 1: can't do that because the title sediments come in and
Speaker 1: it's all water log and compacted, so they don't have
Speaker 1: those air gaps that you have in a normal forest.
Speaker 1: So they kind of came up with a brilliant little
Speaker 1: trick to get around that, right. Yeah, So the new
Speaker 1: metaphors that black mangroves have those stalagmites um that are
Speaker 1: coming up in in spikes around them. Those act as snorkels,
Speaker 1: so they stick up out of the water and they're
Speaker 1: covered in these little cells called lenis als, and that's
Speaker 1: where oxygen exchange happens. So they actually absorb oxygen through
Speaker 1: these snorkels. They get taken into the snorkel underground, into
Speaker 1: the other roots of the tree um and used for
Speaker 1: um aerobic respiration, which is converting food into energy. It's
Speaker 1: just pretty nuts. And new metaphor actually is Greek for
Speaker 1: air carrier, so it makes sense pretty on the nose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some of those new metaphors can reach up to ten
Speaker 1: ft tall. Did you see that? Yeah? I didn't. Um,
Speaker 1: I looked at a lot of pictures. I didn't see any.
Speaker 1: That's all with my eyeballs. But I've looked because I
Speaker 1: wanted to see that. Yeah, I didn't see it either.
Speaker 1: It could be made up. So then you've got this,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Um. Then you've got the red
Speaker 1: mangroves that we talked about for my money, like the
Speaker 1: money mangrove, and those proper roots serve the same purpose
Speaker 1: as the newmataphors. They you know, like I said, they
Speaker 1: sit up on those long um sort of curvy stilts
Speaker 1: and they stay above water like a lot of stays
Speaker 1: above water even at high tide at times. And they
Speaker 1: are also covered with those linisils and they do the
Speaker 1: same thing. They allow for that oxygen exchange to take place. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that explains also why there's so many roots and
Speaker 1: so many newmataphors that that spread around these trees. It's
Speaker 1: like if you dug up a tree of roughly the
Speaker 1: same size. It would probably have a similar sized roots structure,
Speaker 1: maybe a little less, but you don't see it. It's
Speaker 1: all underground. This is above ground, so it like looks
Speaker 1: like a lot of roots, and it is a lot
Speaker 1: of roots, but it's not necessarily more than a terrestrial
Speaker 1: tree would have. We just don't see them. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like a tree that has dropped trial. It's exactly right.
Speaker 1: It's porky pig in it. Should we uh, should we
Speaker 1: take a break at mangrove magic trick number two? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Number three? Yeah, we'll come back with number three right
Speaker 1: after this. So, Chuck, which mangrove is your favorite kind? Well,
Speaker 1: I think I've been clear. I know you're teasing me
Speaker 1: because me and my red mangrove tirades. Uh. To me,
Speaker 1: this is the best part of the episode and the
Speaker 1: most amazing thing that maybe besides and we'll get to
Speaker 1: carbon sequestration because it's amazing too. But to me, this
Speaker 1: just knocked my socks off. That mangroves kind of give
Speaker 1: birth two baby mangroves. I think the only reason you
Speaker 1: want to qualify it with kind of is because our
Speaker 1: mind rails against accepting that that's what's going on, but
Speaker 1: that is what's going on for all intents and purposes.
Speaker 1: That some mangroves are viviparous, meaning that it means um
Speaker 1: live bearing to where they have seeds on their on
Speaker 1: their plants that they develop. They're about acorn sized. But
Speaker 1: then rather than the seed falling off and dispersing and
Speaker 1: then eventually growing into a seedling, something much more mind
Speaker 1: blowing happens with mangroves. That's right. The seedling is actually
Speaker 1: produced on the tree itself, and they uh, they sort
Speaker 1: of that's sort of keep qualifying it. They self plant themselves.
Speaker 1: Eventually this thing is going to fall off. You've got
Speaker 1: to look up the video on the internet. There are
Speaker 1: many out there where it shows these you know, acorn
Speaker 1: like things. They grow down to these sort of long
Speaker 1: arrow like, you know, green arrows that are pointing down
Speaker 1: and eventually they just go and they snap off and
Speaker 1: they go straight down and they either stick into the
Speaker 1: ground at low tide or I saw them in two
Speaker 1: ft of ocean water just going straight through and sticking
Speaker 1: into the sand and they plant themselves. They do, they
Speaker 1: plant themselves in that sandy bottom and then they sprout
Speaker 1: roots really fast. I saw that they can start growing
Speaker 1: roots within hours um, which means that also if they
Speaker 1: don't fall straight down, if they fall and they land
Speaker 1: on their side, they can actually stand themselves up by
Speaker 1: growing roots on the ground facing side and then grow
Speaker 1: roots on the other side as well, which is pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: What's even more amazing is that if they fall, they
Speaker 1: happen to fall it like high tide, and it's pretty deep,
Speaker 1: and they never touched the bottom in any way. They'll
Speaker 1: float along, they'll go out to sea and as they're
Speaker 1: out to see they're a little tree growing like growing leaves,
Speaker 1: getting water um from the ocean and doing photosynthesis in
Speaker 1: the sunlight. And they can float around for up to
Speaker 1: a year before they make land and stand themselves up
Speaker 1: and grow roots wherever they land. It's just unbelievable because
Speaker 1: this was an evolutionary adaptation. Uh, because my first thought was, well,
Speaker 1: why don't why doesn't the acorn like seed just fall
Speaker 1: into the water and float around. But it must have
Speaker 1: just not been able to survive and got water logged
Speaker 1: and died and and adapted to grow on the tree
Speaker 1: itself and get that little seedling started. Yeah, because thing
Speaker 1: about this chuck. A seedling is a small viable tree
Speaker 1: all it has everything it needs to grow, So it's
Speaker 1: an individual organism. And when the um, the the mangrove
Speaker 1: is growing the seedling on its tree, on itself, that's
Speaker 1: just station. Because when it drops off, it's like of
Speaker 1: giraffe dropping a baby out like three or four ft
Speaker 1: above above the ground. It's the same thing. It's just station.
Speaker 1: It's a lot. I've birth of a plant. It's nuts, man,
Speaker 1: I love it in the baby draft sticks its nose
Speaker 1: into the ground and it's it grows from there for
Speaker 1: months and months, plant some roots out of its head
Speaker 1: and they go. Uh. Let's talk about the mangals a
Speaker 1: little bit. We've talked about um the fact that these
Speaker 1: forests are very dense, but it is a dense ecosystem
Speaker 1: that is dense and more ways than one. It's not
Speaker 1: just all these gnarly roots that you see everywhere. There
Speaker 1: are all kinds of fish habitats and wildlife habitats that
Speaker 1: exist in these mangals. Yeah. One of the reason why
Speaker 1: these like um root systems and why the above water
Speaker 1: um parts of the trees are all just so thick,
Speaker 1: like you're saying it's so hard to get through is
Speaker 1: because of the way that they drop seedlings right off
Speaker 1: of their tree right around them. So these mangals develop
Speaker 1: into these really thick deposits of trees and shrubs above
Speaker 1: water and below water because they grow so closely together,
Speaker 1: and as they grow, a migrate one way or another,
Speaker 1: or they just spread out one way or another, sometimes
Speaker 1: towards the ocean, sometimes behind them, sometimes to either side
Speaker 1: of the shore. But that's how they grow, and that's
Speaker 1: why they're so dense too, uh, and that provides a
Speaker 1: lot of protection for these habitats. Uh. They're all manner
Speaker 1: of fish. If you're in Florida, you're gonna see gray
Speaker 1: snapper in there, or you probably won't see them um snook,
Speaker 1: tarpin um. This is pretty remarkable that goliath grouper, which
Speaker 1: is actually endangered, spends their first six years in that
Speaker 1: mangal before it goes to open water. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: not just like a few kinds of fish like things
Speaker 1: like octopi, sharks, shrimp, mollusks, just tons of different kinds
Speaker 1: of fish, like this is their nursery ground because these roots,
Speaker 1: these tangle of roots provide a place for juveniles to
Speaker 1: like hide out of reach of predators and get bigger
Speaker 1: and bigger, because it's also a very nourishing place for
Speaker 1: them to eat too. So they're they're really really important
Speaker 1: as nurseries for all kinds of sea life. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: if you're talking about eating seafood, the commercial fishing industry,
Speaker 1: and this just sort of shows you how important these
Speaker 1: mangals are. Uh, one square mile loss of mangroves forest
Speaker 1: would lose about two hundred and seventy five thousand pounds
Speaker 1: of fish every year. Uh. And then that's not even
Speaker 1: to speak of all the indigenous communities that um, that
Speaker 1: are you know, rely on these fish to provide their sustenance. Right.
Speaker 1: And so that's just the below water part of the mangal.
Speaker 1: The above water part of the mangal basically does the
Speaker 1: same thing. But for terrestrial and arboreal animals like monkeys, insects, reptiles, birds,
Speaker 1: they make their home and their nurseries in those um
Speaker 1: the mangals, to the branches, the leaves, the trunks, um,
Speaker 1: those are really just as important for above ground animals
Speaker 1: as they are for below water animals. Yeah. And you
Speaker 1: mentioned that Bengal tiger. Uh. This was also in this
Speaker 1: some Darbin's right. Yes, and this is the largest single
Speaker 1: population of Bengal tigers on planet Earth, and it's only
Speaker 1: about a hundred of them, but they live in these uh,
Speaker 1: in these mangals. Yes. And also attention Kristen bell Uh,
Speaker 1: if you are ambivalent about mangrove forests, prepared to care
Speaker 1: because in Panama, the pigmy three toad sloth, critically endangered
Speaker 1: by the way, only makes its home in mangrove forests. Sound.
Speaker 1: That's right, So you gotta care now. I still watched
Speaker 1: that video of her in that sloth about once every
Speaker 1: two years. Yes, it's just one of the great human
Speaker 1: reactions to something. Yeah, and I remember how hardened we
Speaker 1: were when we realized that she didn't touch it, even
Speaker 1: though you clearly wanted to more than she's ever wanted
Speaker 1: to do anything or life. But she doesn't. She didn't
Speaker 1: do it, you know, for her, it's pretty great. I
Speaker 1: think we can move on to some superpowers, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: man of superpower number one, which is coastline protection, which
Speaker 1: is pretty important if you live along the coast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a big one, um one great benefit of
Speaker 1: all those above ground gnarly mess of roots that are
Speaker 1: everywhere is and it just makes perfect common sense when
Speaker 1: you look at them. Is they make great wave breaks? Um,
Speaker 1: any kind of wave, even like a tsunamic. Is that
Speaker 1: a word? It is? Now? I think it's a great word, right.
Speaker 1: Tsunami's wave is going to be cut down big time
Speaker 1: when it hits this stuff. It's just gonna you know,
Speaker 1: just cut through and disperse it in in a really
Speaker 1: profound way. Yeah, because there's so many different like roots
Speaker 1: and individual things to bump into on the way to
Speaker 1: the shore that it's going to reduce its energy um,
Speaker 1: which means that it reduces one of the pernicious effects
Speaker 1: that waves have on shore, which is erosion. And not
Speaker 1: only does it reduce erosion because the waves don't have
Speaker 1: enough energy to take stuff back out to see it
Speaker 1: actually has them deposit the sediments that they're bringing to
Speaker 1: the shore in the mangrove swamps. And if you compare,
Speaker 1: if you combine that, I should say, with the really
Speaker 1: um low oxygen um uh environments that make up the
Speaker 1: mucky bottom in a mangrove mangal um, you, if I
Speaker 1: guess you can kind of flash back to our coal
Speaker 1: The mystery of coal episode where we talked a lot
Speaker 1: about how swamps work like that. So the mangrove swamps
Speaker 1: are very much like that as well. But then in
Speaker 1: addition to that, they have um ocean sediments being brought
Speaker 1: all this organic stuff being brought from the oceans layering
Speaker 1: with the mucky sediment that um from the mangroves falling
Speaker 1: into the muck um, which means that they're like holding
Speaker 1: onto a lot of stuff and building up soil as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, so much so that they outpaces
Speaker 1: sea level rises in some areas. Yeah. I mean that
Speaker 1: this kind of falls under one of their other superpowers
Speaker 1: is the fact that they are literally sequestering carbon. But
Speaker 1: I think that they they add about and we'll get
Speaker 1: to that in more detail in a minute. But um,
Speaker 1: in Australia, some mangrove or some mangals in Australian belize
Speaker 1: at about ten millimeters or more of coastal soil each year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that doesn't sound like that much, but sea
Speaker 1: level rise is coming in at about three point two
Speaker 1: meters a year or so in parts of Australian belize.
Speaker 1: It is actually outpacing climate change. Yeah, that's pretty cool
Speaker 1: and that's really really important because the sea levels rise.
Speaker 1: If the soil level is rising, we don't have to
Speaker 1: worry quite as much about sea level rise there. But
Speaker 1: that's only in some spots, as we'll see. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: as far as the waves go uh and we're talking
Speaker 1: about tsunamis um well with just regular waves, for every
Speaker 1: hundred meters of a mangrove for us that a wave
Speaker 1: will hit, uh, its height can decrease by as much
Speaker 1: as sixty six uh. And if you're looking at um
Speaker 1: storm surges, which is you know, one of the big dangers.
Speaker 1: It's not just the wave, is that that water surge.
Speaker 1: If you listen to our tsunami episode, uh, there was
Speaker 1: a study that found that store surge depths UM were
Speaker 1: reduced about a little over a foot and a half
Speaker 1: for every little more than a half a mile uh
Speaker 1: fifty centimeters over every kilometer. And that doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: a ton, But if you've got a mangrove forests that's
Speaker 1: you know, several miles deep, then we're talking you know,
Speaker 1: six or seven feet of uh less storm surge happening,
Speaker 1: and that can make a really big difference in flooding.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because the storm surge is what gets you.
Speaker 1: I mean, it can flood miles and miles inland. It
Speaker 1: carries all sorts of debris with it has so much
Speaker 1: energy it can just rip buildings down. It's a real
Speaker 1: problem from hurricanes. It's that flooding from the storm surge.
Speaker 1: But because those mangroves are there to absorb a bunch
Speaker 1: of that energy, it just doesn't have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: come nearly as far inland. So mangrove forests, especially thick
Speaker 1: one save human lives and you would guess animal lives too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we've seen the sort of the this bear out
Speaker 1: in very sad ways when mangrove forests have disappeared. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it was in the Indo Pacific region in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties they used to have about five miles
Speaker 1: like deep of mangrove forest. By the nineteen nineties they
Speaker 1: were depleted because of shrimp farming. We'll talk about that
Speaker 1: later as well, but basically, you know, human cause depletion. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in ninety one there was a cyclone that hit
Speaker 1: the coast of Bangladesh where there were no longer any
Speaker 1: mangrove for us to cut down on that impact and
Speaker 1: there was no buffer and there was a big twenty
Speaker 1: ft storm surge and almost a hundred and forty thousand
Speaker 1: people died, right I saw, I saw that. Um, they
Speaker 1: had a lot of those people died because they weren't
Speaker 1: they didn't use storm shelters in addition to the mangrove
Speaker 1: buffer being gone, and that they had built the storm's shelters, Chuck.
Speaker 1: After a nineteen seventies cyclone that killed five hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people in Bangladesh, can you believe that? Can you imagine
Speaker 1: a storm killing half a million people in your country
Speaker 1: or your little area. That's insane, it is, that's devastating. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's biblical, you know. Yeah. Uh. They did some studies
Speaker 1: to with um the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in
Speaker 1: two thousand four, and they found that the mangroves there
Speaker 1: were about a hundred meters deep and they at least
Speaker 1: helped reduce those waves between five and thirty So that's
Speaker 1: that's a big deal. You know, six feet of storm
Speaker 1: surge up to thirty percent of wave height and the
Speaker 1: initial um Russian from the ocean is you're saving a
Speaker 1: lot of lives in that case. Yeah, And I mean,
Speaker 1: you saw how bad the Indian Ocean tsunami was too.
Speaker 1: It just makes you wonder, like how much worse it
Speaker 1: could have been without mangroves. Um. So I say we
Speaker 1: take our say can break and we come back and
Speaker 1: talk about carbon sequestration. That's right, a k A. Superpower
Speaker 1: number two. All right, we had promise of superpower number
Speaker 1: two and we tease a little bit early earlier I
Speaker 1: did about carbon sequestration. Uh so we need to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about what people are calling a blue
Speaker 1: carbon ecosystem, blue sort of referencing the ocean. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's basically the same thing like you know, trees inland
Speaker 1: capturing carbon and storing them in their their bits and parts.
Speaker 1: This is this is just um coastal vegetation doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. Um. And the thing is is, like trees,
Speaker 1: they're really efficient capturing carbon and storing it. But because
Speaker 1: of our friends fungi and rot um, when the tree dies,
Speaker 1: that carbon gets released back into the ecosystem and even
Speaker 1: possibly back into the atmosphere if say, like a wildfire
Speaker 1: happens atmosphere hot wheels. That is right, But you know
Speaker 1: how we mentioned before that UM, with that soil that
Speaker 1: the water is basically the ocean wait is just sitting
Speaker 1: on top of it is not it's just building up
Speaker 1: to that salty peat and that carbon is not being
Speaker 1: released like it does in a terrestrial forest, and it's
Speaker 1: not breaking down. So it is a champion at storing carbon.
Speaker 1: Not only good at it, but really good at it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the Judah Friedlander of forests as far as
Speaker 1: carbon sequestration goes. I love Juda Freelander. We actually met
Speaker 1: him once, but I don't get the joke. Oh. He
Speaker 1: always wore I had the said world okay, and he
Speaker 1: was always boasting about stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that guy. When we met him at an event
Speaker 1: with Jesse Thorn and Hodgeman many years ago, and this
Speaker 1: is kind of during his run on uh thirty Rock
Speaker 1: and that this is when also I was also wearing
Speaker 1: my last Chance garage at all the time, which I
Speaker 1: haven't put on in a couple of years, I hate
Speaker 1: to say so, probably a few years um. But he
Speaker 1: remember when I met him, he went and in that
Speaker 1: face of his he kind of peered up at my
Speaker 1: hat and that patch and he went, all right, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: That was a great Freedland. I was like, hey, I
Speaker 1: got the stamp of approval from the hat guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely the hand guy first. It was cool so but yeah,
Speaker 1: so mangroves are are the champion of carbon sequestration, so
Speaker 1: much so that they are four times more efficient than
Speaker 1: terrestrial um vegetation at storing carbon, which makes him like
Speaker 1: a bona fide car and sinc. Mangrove forests are um
Speaker 1: and again it's because there's just no decay, there's no fungus,
Speaker 1: there's no rot. All the stuff that all the vegetation
Speaker 1: that dies and falls down into the mock just gets
Speaker 1: stuck there and covered over and doesn't get a chance
Speaker 1: to break down. So as long as you don't dig
Speaker 1: up or destroy a mangrove forest and cut up the
Speaker 1: peat to use it as as cheap fuel, you've got
Speaker 1: a really good carbon sink on your hands. Yeah. To
Speaker 1: the tune of UM, worldwide, mangals account for about six
Speaker 1: point four billion tons of carbon that's being held in check.
Speaker 1: That means when you do do something like you hinted at,
Speaker 1: it can have devastating effects for the world. Surprise, surprise, Uh,
Speaker 1: If you cut down a mangrove forests, that carbon is
Speaker 1: gonna be released, that sequestra carbon is slowly gonna creep
Speaker 1: back into the atmosphere. From two thousand UM, roughly a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty two million tons of carbon extra carbon
Speaker 1: were released into the atmosphere because of the destruction of
Speaker 1: mangrove forests and uh, between eighty and two thousand, thirty
Speaker 1: of the mangals of the world have been stripped away
Speaker 1: and it is outpacing like the tropical rainforest construction. That's
Speaker 1: mind boggling because if you just hear the figures on
Speaker 1: how how frequently and how much rainforest is cut down,
Speaker 1: the idea that mangrove forest is outpacing it is pretty nuts.
Speaker 1: But apparently um Me and Mar is the current hot
Speaker 1: spot for mangrove deforestation. Between two thousand and sixteen, Me
Speaker 1: and Mark cut down six of its mangals just gone.
Speaker 1: Part of the problem is is like you can restore
Speaker 1: mangrove forest. Fortunately, we'll talk about some people who do that,
Speaker 1: but it can take a while. And sometimes when you
Speaker 1: restore some mangroves, you put the seedlings in and UH,
Speaker 1: typhoon or a cyclone or a hurricane comes along and
Speaker 1: just washes them all away. So if your timing is wrong, uh,
Speaker 1: it might take a very long time for you to
Speaker 1: restore a mangrove forest. So it's it's not something you
Speaker 1: want to cut down willy nilly, basically, no. Um. Shrimp
Speaker 1: farming is something we mentioned earlier in passing. But they
Speaker 1: are the biggest culprit responsible for thirty of mangrove for
Speaker 1: us loss. And you know people love shrimp all around
Speaker 1: the world, and in Thailand in the eighties and nineties, UM,
Speaker 1: and in other places as well, but especially Thailand. Uh,
Speaker 1: they've cut down a lot of mangrove for us to
Speaker 1: make these uh shrimp farms along the coastline. UH. And
Speaker 1: then you've also got the sea level rise that's uh
Speaker 1: causing destruction. We mentioned parts of Australian belize that those
Speaker 1: um soiled deposits are outpacing it. But that's only in
Speaker 1: a couple of those places it is. It is not
Speaker 1: doing that in other areas. No. Um, so that means
Speaker 1: that sea level rises outpacing soiled deposition there. UM. I
Speaker 1: want to say one more thing about shrimp farming too.
Speaker 1: I looked a little bit into it, cannot decide maybe
Speaker 1: it deserves its own episode Who Knows. One of the
Speaker 1: other problems with shrimp farming, in addition to um a
Speaker 1: shrimp farm sharing the same kind of land or a
Speaker 1: mangrove forest that landed occupies being desirable for a shrimp
Speaker 1: farm so you cut down mangro forest to build a
Speaker 1: shrimp farm, is that when you harvest shrimp, you basically
Speaker 1: have to refresh the water. So shrimp farmers typically just
Speaker 1: basically opened a dam and let all the water out,
Speaker 1: and the water is filled with tons of nutrients that
Speaker 1: overwhelmed the carrying capacity of the ecosystems the mangrove forests
Speaker 1: around the shrimp farm, and you get what's called an
Speaker 1: algae bloom, which sucks up all the oxygen, kills off
Speaker 1: all the fish, and has just this devastating effect on
Speaker 1: the ecosystem surrounding it. So shrimp farming is really hard
Speaker 1: on the areas where it takes place, not just from
Speaker 1: the shrimp farms themselves, but from what comes out of
Speaker 1: the shrimp farms as well. And there's just so many
Speaker 1: basic good best practices that could be followed that just
Speaker 1: aren't followed that there's almost like a general like duh
Speaker 1: coming out of the shrimp farming industry. As far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, that really needs to be fixed. It's
Speaker 1: almost as if they just wanted to continue to make
Speaker 1: as much money as they can before they're regulated in
Speaker 1: some way. But I mean, what are you gonna do
Speaker 1: if you try to regulate them at all? You've got
Speaker 1: a nanny state on your hands. And who wants that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's shrimp farming is just one tiny fraction of
Speaker 1: the great amounts of harm that are happening to the
Speaker 1: ocean because of lots of things, but commercial fishing and
Speaker 1: is certainly one of them. I will say, though, it's
Speaker 1: really hard to turn down shrimp on pizza. You're heading
Speaker 1: or something. No, no, that's that was from years back.
Speaker 1: I used to love shrimp on pizza. All right, talk
Speaker 1: to me more about this. What what what? What are
Speaker 1: we talking us? Throw some shrimp on a regular cheese
Speaker 1: or is it like a barbecue pineapple thing? No? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: a regular pizza. But you don't want to use just
Speaker 1: any shrimp. You certainly don't want to use jumbo shrimp.
Speaker 1: You want to use the little tiny salad shrimp because
Speaker 1: they cook just enough with the pizza. Bigger shrimp might
Speaker 1: still be partially raw. It's gonna be too big to
Speaker 1: eat some of this. Yeah, you just throw some of
Speaker 1: the Well, now I think they usually come already cooked,
Speaker 1: now that I think about it. But you just throw
Speaker 1: a couple of handfuls on your pizza, put it in
Speaker 1: the oven, and they thank me later. Basically, Oh, man,
Speaker 1: I love shrimp. I don't know about shrimp and pizza. Well,
Speaker 1: now I feel bad about eating shrimp knowing how bad
Speaker 1: shrimp farming is. It's uh, yeah, it's another wake up call,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Well, yes, and I've been awoken because I'm
Speaker 1: now farming my own shrimp here at home in a
Speaker 1: very sustainable manner so that I can have it on
Speaker 1: my pizza. Bathtub shrimp, that's right, it's delicious. We don't
Speaker 1: take baths anyway. Yeah, you mean's like, why do you
Speaker 1: have an out of order so on on our bathroom door? Right,
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to figure out how to break the
Speaker 1: news to you mean, we don't really have a working
Speaker 1: bathtub anymore. Uh So there are also invasive species that
Speaker 1: can uh totally wreck the health of a man. Gall
Speaker 1: uh And the seventies in China, they were trying to
Speaker 1: do the right thing. I think there were conservationists that
Speaker 1: um transplanted some marsh grasses that were from the United
Speaker 1: States there to try and slow erosion, but it crowded
Speaker 1: out mangroves. And then in Texas they weren't trying to
Speaker 1: do the right thing. Um. They the vision game officials there.
Speaker 1: Um they said, Hey, people like hunting this uh exotic
Speaker 1: Asian antelope. It's called a nil guy I guess and
Speaker 1: I l g a I. So let's put them in
Speaker 1: Texas so people can hunt them. Um. And it turns
Speaker 1: out they love to eat mangroves. Yeah, so they're they're
Speaker 1: being deforested by the game that was imported to Texas
Speaker 1: to hunt, which means I'm sure there's huge bounties on
Speaker 1: these things now too. Yeah. Isn't that funny how that
Speaker 1: all works out. So there are people who are like,
Speaker 1: we really need to work on this, We need to
Speaker 1: get mangroves back. Um. And there are places where this
Speaker 1: is the good news. Mangrove deforestation globally speaking, on average
Speaker 1: has actually stopped progressing and is now starting to decline.
Speaker 1: The deforestation is so people are are you know, kind
Speaker 1: of getting hip to the idea that we really need
Speaker 1: these things. They provide countless services for us humans, So
Speaker 1: even the most selfish human can get behind mangrove restoration, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think there's about of the worldwide mangals
Speaker 1: are protected now, but you need that number at like
Speaker 1: while at a hundred. But I would feel much better
Speaker 1: if it was like in the eighties or nineties, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And not only that, like like areas that have been
Speaker 1: developed closely need to replant the mangroves that they cut
Speaker 1: down to to um to build because they need them
Speaker 1: really bad. You need mangrove buffers, as we've found. Whatever
Speaker 1: you can get is helpful, that's right. But there's another
Speaker 1: kind of clever financial instrument, as they call called blue bonds.
Speaker 1: It is a subset of green bonds. Green bonds came
Speaker 1: around a while ago, and these are basically, if you
Speaker 1: have money and you want to invest responsibly um in
Speaker 1: a way that not only doesn't impact the environment, but
Speaker 1: can help the environment, you invest in a green bond,
Speaker 1: or if you're really into the ocean. The subset of
Speaker 1: blue bonds, which were first introduced in right, and so
Speaker 1: it's like you want to offset your emissions. You buy
Speaker 1: a blue bond and all of a sudden, you've just
Speaker 1: paid somebody to go plant some mango or not mango,
Speaker 1: maybe mango too, but mangrove forests, right, yeah, mango forest.
Speaker 1: That sounds delicious. It would be I'd be like planet
Speaker 1: in my backyard to plan it with my bond. So
Speaker 1: look into blue bonds and green bonds. It's UM. I
Speaker 1: saw something depressing the other day when they were I
Speaker 1: don't know what they were talking about on the news,
Speaker 1: but they basically said, like, if you have an i
Speaker 1: RA A like, you were supporting all kinds of companies
Speaker 1: that you would probably never support in real life. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: Mutual Yeah, mutual funds to just everything is all lumped in.
Speaker 1: So they were trying to encourage people that if they're
Speaker 1: able to to be a little more selective and and
Speaker 1: what they choose to invest in, Well, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of sustainable mutual funds to UM that where they're you know,
Speaker 1: very carefully selected. Unfortunately, that means the management fees going
Speaker 1: to be higher. But if you care, it doesn't really matter,
Speaker 1: you know that was it really uh? A higher management fee? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Any time it requires any additional thought or effort. The
Speaker 1: management fee just automatically goes up. Had to click on
Speaker 1: three extra things, right, I had to find out what
Speaker 1: these blue bonds were. That's my impression of a mutual
Speaker 1: fund manager. Yeah, financial advisor. If that's your financial advisor's
Speaker 1: an the wrong person. I meet him at Burger King
Speaker 1: every couple of weeks in the back. Yeah, where else
Speaker 1: would you meet? Um? You got anything else? Nothing else?
Speaker 1: Up with Mangroves with Mangroves. Uh. And since we both
Speaker 1: set up with Mangroves everybody, that means it's time for
Speaker 1: a listener mail. Uh. This is a thank you from
Speaker 1: a Satanist. We had a great podcast that we must
Speaker 1: have put this on a select recently. I guess, yeah,
Speaker 1: like two weeks ago. Okay, Hey, guys discovered your podcast.
Speaker 1: Have been hooked ever since. Your informative banter Field episodes
Speaker 1: remained a welcome constant in my life throughout college, adult years.
Speaker 1: In our parenthood, was helping me stay sane during sleepless
Speaker 1: nights with my newborns. When I saw the episode on Satanism,
Speaker 1: I guess I hadn't listened to it previously. Um. I
Speaker 1: was simultaneously excited and nervous I would. I hope you'd
Speaker 1: give it the usual Josh and Chuck treatment, and I
Speaker 1: was not disappointed. Over the years, I've been given a
Speaker 1: lot of grief being a Satanist. People often assume that
Speaker 1: I'm a very devout Christian based on the way I look,
Speaker 1: and often go from praising me to threatening my family
Speaker 1: upon learning that I followed the tenants set forth by
Speaker 1: the Satanic Temple by shedding some light on the true
Speaker 1: nature of Satanism, Um, I feel that you have given
Speaker 1: many people a looking to the practice in a non
Speaker 1: threatening way, and hopefully this will help people choose kindness
Speaker 1: over fear based hatred when interacting with Satanist in the future.
Speaker 1: And thank you for being bold enough to put this
Speaker 1: episode out in the world. I'm sure it wasn't that easy,
Speaker 1: but this long time listener appreciates it. Your friendly Satanist. Donna,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Donna, Donna Satanist. Um. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: that was a good one. Because I went back and
Speaker 1: listened to it to QA before it was a se
Speaker 1: life sounds like this was a really good episode, But
Speaker 1: there was one thing at the beginning, Chuck, that now
Speaker 1: I wish we had back um, because a couple of
Speaker 1: people wrote in and it was that we we se
Speaker 1: O eight at the beginning, saying like, if you're you know, Christian,
Speaker 1: you probably don't want to listen to this, And people
Speaker 1: wrote in and said, no, like you you should not
Speaker 1: have said that, because there's plenty of people out there
Speaker 1: who should hear this and you know, change their views
Speaker 1: on people who hold these views. So, um, if you
Speaker 1: go back and listen to that, just plug your ears
Speaker 1: for that first part and then listen to it through again.
Speaker 1: That was forty year old Chuck talking, right, not not
Speaker 1: fifty one year old Chuck. That's right, It's that's a
Speaker 1: weird number to say it is, Chuck. Fifty one is
Speaker 1: a weird number, and it's going to be a weird
Speaker 1: time in your life, I'm sure of it. Er. That's
Speaker 1: that's what I think. I'll always say it is. You'll
Speaker 1: always be younger than me, no matter how much I
Speaker 1: want you to speed up the aging process, You'll always
Speaker 1: be younger. You would have to travel to Mars and
Speaker 1: suspended animation and I just have to stay here on
Speaker 1: Earth for for me to catch up. All right, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna look into that. Thanks a lot, Donna. We appreciate
Speaker 1: that big time, and if you want to be like
Speaker 1: Donna and send us some kudos, we'll take them. You
Speaker 1: can send it in an email to Stuff podcast. The
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Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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