# Facing Extinction

An episode of [Drilled](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1439735906), 20 May 2019, 13 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/pdrl.fm/3e5572/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/9a7ab5ee-ce11-48ff-a544-b3ec00ea9b1e/0a237637-ab1c-4bb8-ab49-b3ec00f4c7f0/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f82f371-6316-4ea6-a108-b3ec00ea9b2d

As the crabbers' 2018-2019 season comes to an abrupt end, they prepare for a year that could see the fishery close altogether. Meanwhile, Big Oil pushes to dismiss the crabbers' climate suit, forcing the question: Which industries do we protect, and which do we let go? As natural resources are increasingly impacted by climate change, who will pick the winners and losers and how will we survive? Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is part six of a six part series, the
[0:03] Speaker 1: final episode. If you're just joining us, go back and
[0:06] Speaker 1: listen to the first five episodes. In this episode, we're
[0:09] Speaker 1: going to look at where exactly the crabbers are right
[0:12] Speaker 1: now and what this year's season holds. Previously on Drilled.
[0:24] Speaker 2: We get overextended too. I've done it myself over and
[0:27] Speaker 2: over again in my career. You know I'm doing it
[0:29] Speaker 2: right now with the new boat, you know, taking a
[0:32] Speaker 2: big financial risk. So with all this stuff going on,
[0:35] Speaker 2: with whale lawsuits and democass hitting everything else.
[0:38] Speaker 1: This is the story of two industries, one struggling to survive,
[0:43] Speaker 1: the other the most powerful and human history. The outcome
[0:47] Speaker 1: of their battle may well dictate what path we take
[0:50] Speaker 1: in dealing with climate change. I'm Amy Westerveld, and this
[0:54] Speaker 1: is Drilled, Season two, Hot Water. On a sunny spring day,
[1:07] Speaker 1: fishermen are filing into a large room off the back
[1:10] Speaker 1: of the Lutheran Church in downtown Sacramento. They look a
[1:14] Speaker 1: bit shell shocked. They've just come from days of negotiations
[1:18] Speaker 1: between the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Center
[1:21] Speaker 1: for Biological Diversity to settle the whale entanglement suit and
[1:25] Speaker 1: it's not looking good for the crabbers. The rumor is
[1:29] Speaker 1: spreading that the fishery will be closing early statewide. It'll
[1:33] Speaker 1: close even earlier next year. Ben Platt will later tell
[1:36] Speaker 1: me that this is the biggest threat the fishery has
[1:39] Speaker 1: faced since he was a kid, or maybe even ever.
[1:43] Speaker 1: There are hushed, worried conversations happening in every corner of
[1:46] Speaker 1: the room that raise in volume as the beer gets flowing.
[1:52] Speaker 1: But there are also happy reunions happening here. This is
[1:55] Speaker 1: an annual event held the night before the state's annual
[1:58] Speaker 1: Fisheries Forum every year. Tomorrow we'll bring more arguing and negotiating.
[2:03] Speaker 1: But tonight Lorie French is in her element, moving between
[2:07] Speaker 1: the crowd and the kitchen in her apron. She's happy
[2:10] Speaker 1: to have changed the menu from fancy food to normal food.
[2:15] Speaker 1: She's particularly proud of a large platter of perfectly fried fish.
[2:19] Speaker 1: Ben Platt isn't there, but I hear he's driving down
[2:21] Speaker 1: for the meeting in the morning. Dick Ogg is in
[2:24] Speaker 1: his usual jeans and hoodie, coordinating with the fish and
[2:26] Speaker 1: Wildlife staff. He'll take them out to look for wales
[2:29] Speaker 1: soon and start the long road towards shifting the fishery
[2:32] Speaker 1: to accommodate changing migration and feeding patterns. Vic Chaer, the
[2:36] Speaker 1: trade group's attorney, is there with his wife. Noah Oppenheim,
[2:40] Speaker 1: the Fishing Trade Association director, is getting pulled into a
[2:43] Speaker 1: new conversation every two minutes. It's the first time I've
[2:46] Speaker 1: met him in person, and he's younger than I expected,
[2:49] Speaker 1: with what can only be described as a fisherman's beard.
[2:52] Speaker 1: Crabber Larry Collins is staffing the bar. His pals jokingly
[2:56] Speaker 1: call him the King of San Francisco. He's pragmatic about
[2:59] Speaker 1: the way.
[3:00] Speaker 3: Well, that one year that started all that crap, we
[3:04] Speaker 3: had the blob and there wasn't any crab up above,
[3:08] Speaker 3: and so all the crawboats in the state came to
[3:11] Speaker 3: fish here because there was some crab here, and the
[3:15] Speaker 3: whales were here eating anchobies. So it was like all
[3:18] Speaker 3: these things came together. But now it's all started, and
[3:23] Speaker 3: it's gathered momentum, and you know, the crabbers are bad guys,
[3:27] Speaker 3: and you know it just it's you know, it's too
[3:31] Speaker 3: far along. You can't stop it.
[3:33] Speaker 1: One point of discussion, not at this fish fry, the
[3:36] Speaker 1: climate lawsuit, which is still ongoing and which has divided
[3:39] Speaker 1: the community a bit. According to Lori, it's very, very polarizing,
[3:43] Speaker 1: and it's just things are changing. When I talked to
[3:47] Speaker 1: Ben Platt about it, it was clear that the suit
[3:49] Speaker 1: had made reluctant activists out of them.
[3:52] Speaker 2: I think Noah posted something on Facebook about it when
[3:55] Speaker 2: they actually dropped the lawsuit, and there was a bunch
[3:58] Speaker 2: of comments about them this is, you know, or liberal
[4:01] Speaker 2: blah blah blah whatever. But you know, like that was
[4:04] Speaker 2: the main comment I heard, was like, well, how could
[4:07] Speaker 2: you be a part of this if you've got, you know,
[4:09] Speaker 2: diesel engine in your boat. That's the kind of stuff
[4:11] Speaker 2: that I heard. But I haven't heard much discussion on
[4:14] Speaker 2: the docks or nobody's asked me about it. I'm reluctant
[4:17] Speaker 2: to be part of something that might anger a lot
[4:20] Speaker 2: of other my fellow fishermen. But you know, if I
[4:23] Speaker 2: separate all that from the facts of the lawsuit and
[4:26] Speaker 2: what they're trying to achieve, I believe it's the right
[4:28] Speaker 2: thing to do.
[4:29] Speaker 1: It also gets to the heart of the whale entanglement suit.
[4:32] Speaker 1: Although that suit focuses on the crabbers and their gear,
[4:36] Speaker 1: what drove the perfect storm of events during those years
[4:39] Speaker 1: when whale entanglement spiked was climate change. Warming waters have
[4:43] Speaker 1: fundamentally changed the marine ecosystem, shifting everything from whale migration
[4:48] Speaker 1: patterns to algo blooms and squeezing the crab fishery in
[4:51] Speaker 1: the middle. The crabbers are still waiting for that federal
[4:54] Speaker 1: disaster payment they were awarded in twenty fifteen. They're pissed
[4:57] Speaker 1: off about the entanglement settlement and feel like the ones
[5:00] Speaker 1: who bear the brunt of every problem. It's all gotten
[5:03] Speaker 1: to be too much for some folks, and the fleet
[5:05] Speaker 1: has been shrinking rapidly in recent years. According to Larry,
[5:08] Speaker 1: there's hardly any of us left.
[5:10] Speaker 3: You know, last year, four hundred and fifty three boats
[5:13] Speaker 3: delivered salmon, and fifty three boats delivered fifty percent of that.
[5:19] Speaker 3: So basically our work in salmon fleet, which was five
[5:23] Speaker 3: thousand boats in the early eighties when I started, is
[5:27] Speaker 3: fifty three.
[5:27] Speaker 1: Boats and noah echoes this.
[5:30] Speaker 4: We're losing more and more fishermen each and every year
[5:33] Speaker 4: to either consolidation or to climate impacts or the inability
[5:37] Speaker 4: to operate in a heavily regulated environment.
[5:40] Speaker 1: I hear a lot of people saying, fine, have fun
[5:43] Speaker 1: eating your imported tilapia, pointing out that even if commercial
[5:46] Speaker 1: fishing stops entirely on the West Coast, people will still
[5:50] Speaker 1: want to eat fish and seafood. The California Water Project,
[5:53] Speaker 1: which diverts many of the state's rivers down to farmland
[5:56] Speaker 1: in the Central Valley, is another popular gripe. At most
[6:01] Speaker 1: West Coast fishermen have the overwhelming sense that they are
[6:03] Speaker 1: always outspent, out lobbied, and generally outgunned by environmental groups,
[6:09] Speaker 1: by big oil, and by almond growers in the Central Valley.
[6:12] Speaker 3: I mean, the water's going to build fish or it's
[6:15] Speaker 3: going to build fortunes for almond growers, you know, And
[6:19] Speaker 3: basically we've made that, California's made that choice.
[6:22] Speaker 1: Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Chuck Bonham says we
[6:25] Speaker 1: need a broader, more systemic approach to supporting climate adaptation
[6:29] Speaker 1: in coastal towns up and down the West Coast.
[6:31] Speaker 5: There's a bigger discussion that needs to continue about what
[6:35] Speaker 5: does it look like to help our rural coastal communities
[6:38] Speaker 5: become more climate adapted. What does it look like to
[6:41] Speaker 5: have the right wars and infrastructure for chillers and boats,
[6:45] Speaker 5: and how to prepare them for what might be the future.
[6:50] Speaker 1: The climate lawsuit feels like a long shot, but also
[6:53] Speaker 1: like one of their last hopes. Between demoic acid and
[6:56] Speaker 1: whale entanglements, crabbers are steering down the barrel of extinction
[7:01] Speaker 1: this year. The whale entanglement Settlement has mandated in early
[7:05] Speaker 1: closure for most districts of April first if they see
[7:09] Speaker 1: another start as late as their twenty fifteen year. Combined
[7:13] Speaker 1: with the early closures, that would limit the season to
[7:16] Speaker 1: four days, effectively shutting it down for the year. If
[7:22] Speaker 1: the suit against the oil companies moves forward, it could
[7:25] Speaker 1: set a precedent the industry absolutely doesn't want to see.
[7:29] Speaker 1: If they're held responsible in this case for their contributions
[7:33] Speaker 1: to not only the warming oceans, but also their role
[7:36] Speaker 1: in decades of inaction on climate, they could be held
[7:39] Speaker 1: responsible for multiple other impacts on cities, businesses, and people
[7:44] Speaker 1: all over the world, so they're expected to fight it hard.
[7:49] Speaker 1: They're battling about a dozen of these climate liability suits
[7:52] Speaker 1: at once, but the rest are all from cities, counties,
[7:55] Speaker 1: and states local governments wanting oil companies to help pay
[7:59] Speaker 1: for see walls. And other climate adaptation strategies. Any one
[8:04] Speaker 1: of them moving forward could spell trouble for the oil industry.
[8:07] Speaker 1: Just getting into the discovery phase of a suit could
[8:10] Speaker 1: unearth documents and information that would tell both attorneys and
[8:14] Speaker 1: the public even more about what oil companies knew and when,
[8:17] Speaker 1: and about their strategies to suppress and confuse information. Here's
[8:22] Speaker 1: Attorney Vic Schaer on why so many of these suits
[8:25] Speaker 1: have been filed in the last couple of years.
[8:27] Speaker 6: What's compelling about these cases is the strong relationship that
[8:33] Speaker 6: scientists can now give us between emissions and climate change
[8:38] Speaker 6: related impacts on the first hand, the ability to attribute
[8:42] Speaker 6: emissions to particular companies on the second hand, and this
[8:47] Speaker 6: compelling culpability narrative that starts really with the ramp up
[8:54] Speaker 6: in emissions that scientists called great acceleration in the nineteen sixties.
[9:00] Speaker 1: So far, despite claiming that these lawsuits are causing them
[9:03] Speaker 1: undue financial harm, oil companies have been increasing profits since
[9:07] Speaker 1: the Paris Accord was signed. They've also been ramping up production.
[9:11] Speaker 1: In the past two years. The US has become the
[9:13] Speaker 1: number one producer of oil globally. US companies are now
[9:17] Speaker 1: also net exporters of energy. So when people talk about
[9:21] Speaker 1: climate change is a global problem requiring a global solution,
[9:24] Speaker 1: it's hard not to look at the number one global
[9:26] Speaker 1: supplier of fossil fuels. And while oil companies have accused
[9:30] Speaker 1: the plaintiffs bringing these cases of scapegoating them for climate change,
[9:34] Speaker 1: in fact they're pushing for oil companies to cover only
[9:37] Speaker 1: the percentage of damages that can be reasonably linked to them.
[9:41] Speaker 1: Oil companies, meanwhile, insist they have zero responsibility and should
[9:45] Speaker 1: not be required to do anything at all about climate change. Ultimately,
[9:49] Speaker 1: this case represents a choice that societies will increasingly need
[9:53] Speaker 1: to make. Which communities are worth saving, How much power
[9:57] Speaker 1: should one industry have over all of the Which activities
[10:01] Speaker 1: do we reward as a society, and which do we discourage?
[10:12] Speaker 1: For Lori French and Ben Platt, it's not just about
[10:15] Speaker 1: a sense of right and wrong, or even about helping
[10:18] Speaker 1: the industry recover from all its recent troubles. It comes
[10:22] Speaker 1: back to the community itself. This attachment they have to it,
[10:25] Speaker 1: this loyalty, the sense of being extended family, the sense
[10:29] Speaker 1: of responsibility they have to it, their desire to protect
[10:32] Speaker 1: it and to ensure that it outlasts them. We care
[10:36] Speaker 1: about what we do we care about from the next
[10:38] Speaker 1: generation and leader, it's like, yeah, we are environmentals.
[10:43] Speaker 2: Those of us that have been making living at fishing
[10:46] Speaker 2: or in the industry and around it in these coast
[10:48] Speaker 2: communities for most of our lives or all of our lives.
[10:51] Speaker 2: Unless you have your head in the sand, you can't
[10:55] Speaker 2: ignore the connection between some environmental causes and and what
[11:00] Speaker 2: we're trying to do to make a living. If we
[11:02] Speaker 2: want to be managed by the best available science, then
[11:05] Speaker 2: we have to do our part too, and so if
[11:08] Speaker 2: there's anywhere where we can make improvements, we should be
[11:10] Speaker 2: willing to do that, and I think our future really
[11:13] Speaker 2: does depend on it.
[11:19] Speaker 1: That's it for this season. We'll be bringing you update
[11:22] Speaker 1: episodes over the next few months, and we'll be back
[11:25] Speaker 1: with a third season in late summer early fall, so
[11:29] Speaker 1: stay tuned for that. Drilled is produced and distributed by
[11:33] Speaker 1: Critical Frequency. The show was created and reported by me
[11:38] Speaker 1: Amy Westervelt. Raka Murthy is our editorial advisor. An additional
[11:42] Speaker 1: editing for this series was done by Julia Richie. The
[11:46] Speaker 1: series was mixed by Bill Lance, music by Elliott Peltzman.
[11:50] Speaker 1: Season two cover art was drawn by Angela Schech Drilled
[11:54] Speaker 1: is supported in part by a generous grant from the
[11:56] Speaker 1: Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. You can listen and
[12:00] Speaker 1: subscribe to Drilled on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
[12:03] Speaker 1: your podcasts. If you like the show, don't forget to
[12:06] Speaker 1: give us a five star rating. It helps us find
[12:08] Speaker 1: more listeners and combat peskey climate deniers. Visit our website
[12:13] Speaker 1: Drilled podcast dot com for behind the scenes photos and
[12:16] Speaker 1: additional information about this series. You can also drop us
[12:20] Speaker 1: a tip or story idea there and sign up for
[12:23] Speaker 1: our newsletter, or you can find me on Twitter. I'm
[12:26] Speaker 1: at Amy Westervelt. Thanks for listening.

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