It’s not every day that I find myself at the Yacht Club de Monaco (YCM), but in late September I had the pleasure of representing the science of the Explorers Club as they signed a new agreement with YCM committing to shared environmental and scientific goals on the opening day of the Monaco Yacht Show. I was invited to say a few words about what we can learn about Earth’s oceans from the geologic histories of our nearest neighbors, Mars and Venus.
From La Gazette de Monaco (translated from the French by our friend Google):
A “sustainable” commitment to the planet
“This agreement once again reflects our Club’s commitment to environmental issues but also the link that unites Monaco and The Explorers Club ,” underlines Bernard d’Alessandri, general secretary of the Yacht Club. “ Our desire is to bring together witnesses to climate change and those who are working to combat this problem, ” he added.
The ocean is not “an eternal and unlimited resource”
Also featured at the luncheon was Dr. Nina Lanza, Space and Planetary Exploration Team Leader in Space and Space Remote Sensing and Data Science (ISR-6) at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “ The ocean has long captured our imagination. We have always considered it an eternal and unlimited resource. But appearances can be deceiving. The oceans are much more ephemeral than we often think ,” explained the researcher. “ The oceans are probably the cradle of life. This is why exploration is so important: it teaches us about ourselves and our future ,” the scientist continued.
