the growing impacts of climate change can be stopped with new technology and an energized youth movement but we're running out of time that was the message from some of the brightest environmental scientists in New Jersey who gathered at an annual Symposium at Monmouth University last night the panel urged better communication between the science community and the public as they battle misinformation and special interests lobbying our lawmakers Ted Goldberg was at the Symposium and he reports as part of our ongoing series Peril and promise that examines the human impact of climate change optional or about the ocean one of the things that we have to convey is that it's not optional that was the main message from the 16th annual future of the ocean Symposium at Monmouth University five ocean experts explaining the importance of protecting our oceans and spreading the word we need to ask the people on the ground what challenges are you having talking about the communities and and opening up conversations and then work in dialogue to say well you know we have research questions that can answer that the scientific consensus is that climate change has damaged oceans and hurt the animals and plants that live there switching to Greener forms of energy has led to pushback including people who are critical of offshore wind speakers say it's important that scientists and leaders get better at communicating with everyday people finding ways to communicate that local effect and then also the co-benefits of taking action on climate and what's happening happening in the ocean so maybe thinking about different job prospects that can lead to more sustainability long term the panel explained that knowing how oceans change plays a huge role in responding to climate change for example sea level rise and changing weather patterns have combined to create more dangerous hurricanes and storms along the coast we could go out there and put Jetties and groins and moves tons and tons of sand and I think most of you know that's a temporary solution they argue if we don't protect our oceans sea levels will continue to rise and threaten Shore communities Margaret Lyman director of the Scripps Institute of oceanography in California explained how that works sea level rise is a big impact because when you warm water it takes up more space so half of the sea level rise is just coming from the warming of the ocean if we stopped putting CO2 into the atmosphere the excess that's in the atmosphere would exchange with the ocean and it will would all end up there according to the UN there are now 8 billion people living on this planet and population growth isn't slowing down that makes healthy oceans even more important as people need a place to find food 2 billion people on the planet depend on Seafood from the ocean as their primary protein part of the answer for food security is on crowdedly aquaculture our ability to grow protein but to do it we've got to make sure we're doing it sustainably one of the final questions they heard how are we doing do humans have a chance to undo Decades of damage I probably would have answered this differently 20 years ago but there's been a lot of technological innovation that's happened over the last 20 years and so I'm cautiously optimistic for the future people in that age group call it the 15 to early 20s age group are so well informed so passionate incredibly organized the only thing they lack is experience while these experts are optimistic that the damage can be repaired they also warned about the dangers that can happen if people do nothing in West Long Branch I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news lead funding for Peril and promise is provided by Dr p Roy vagalos and Diana T vagalos major support is provided by the Marcos foundation and Sue and Edgar wachenheim III and the Cheryl and Philip milstein family [Music]