Rise up sunshine. I'm Koi Wire. This is
CNN 10. And today we are going big. As
in 25,000 miles circumference, planet
size big. Happy Earth Day. The one day
where about 8.3 billion teammates share
the same home field advantage and same
responsibility. From the deepest oceans
to the highest mountain tops to baby
animals taking their first steps today.
This show is a reminder that this planet
isn't just where we live, it's who we
are. We begin in the world's largest
ecosystem, the ocean, where some of the
smallest critters like paperclip small
make a huge difference. Antarctic krill.
These tiny crustations are the power bar
of the Antarctic food chain. The primary
food source for everything from tuxedo
wearing penguins to the heavyweight
champ of the animal kingdom, the blue
whale. A single blue whale can eat up to
four tons of krill in one day. That's
like eating the weight of 4,000
medium-sized pizzas per day. But krill
are now facing growing pressure from
industrial krill operations. Trwers are
harvesting more than half a million tons
of them each year. We went one-on-one
with Greenpeace co-founder Captain Paul
Watson, whose foundation is working to
protect this fragile food chain, and his
approach is anything but conventional.
>> The primary purpose for the krill is to
convert it into a cheap protein feed for
salmon farms around the world. And it's
a Norwegian industry primarily as a
salmon farms. And this is a Norwegian
industry doing the krill uh
exploitation. So, for us to have cheap
salmon, it means that we're going to
have to starve the penguins and the
whales down in the southern ocean.
>> Now, your missions, quote, block,
harass, do everything we can to stop
industrial krill fishing, but your focus
remains on this direct action nonviolent
campaign. How do these missions work and
and how effective are they? Well, 50
years ago, I developed a strategy which
I call aggressive nonviolence to
aggressively intervene to make sure that
nobody is injured and to stay within the
boundaries of the law and the boundaries
of practicality. And for the last 50
years, we have shut down hundreds of
illegal operations.
>> So, when the Captain Paul Watson
Foundation team arrives, what happens
next?
>> Primarily, we focus on illegal
activities. The krill fishery is
actually not illegal but we are
challenging it on uh the through the
United Nations World Charter for Nature
because uh we believe that we have to
exercise a precautionary principle here
because there's real diminishment being
caused by this and uh so we feel that we
have to get it into court somehow. So
what our objective was is first to let's
bring this to the attention of the
world. So how did we do that? We took
our ship up against these monstrous uh
uh krill fishing vessels and we gently
nudged them. They of course they know
they're going to accuse us of ramming
them which we didn't do. We just scraped
their paint. But that nudging was in the
spirit of what the plains Indians used
to call counting coup to get their
attention. And that photograph of course
was to dramatize the issue. And from
there we went on to interfere with their
nets and uh to you know prevent them
from doing their fishing operations with
the krill. and uh that resulted in them
all fleeing the the area.
>> On March 31st, one of the Captain Paul
Watson Foundation's ships made headlines
after deliberately colliding with a
vessel operated by Oer Krill Company,
one of the world's largest Antarctic
krill harvesters. Here's what Oer Krill
Company said about the incident.
>> I hit right around the diesel tank. Uh
it went well, but it could have ended
differently where you have big spillage
of oil into the Antarctic Ocean. It was
also very close to our rudder, you know,
which allows us to control and steer the
vessel. And just a few hours later, it
grew up to a large storm. And if we
didn't have the rudder to control the
vessel.
>> Do you have this fear that if if krill
becomes more endangered now that perhaps
these whales wouldn't be able to adapt
as they have in the past?
>> You simply can't take that amount of
krill out of the Southern Ocean without
having an impact. And we're seeing that
impact. That's the diminishment of all
species of penguins down in the southern
ocean. Um, they all rely on krill except
for the emperor penguin, but the emperor
penguin relies on silverfish which
relies on krill. So everything is
connected to krill.
>> The krill fish is heavily regulated. So
you can only catch 1% of the biomass. So
99% of the biomass is left to to all the
animals that are consuming about 24% of
the biomass every year. When we harvest
it, we harvest very little and make sure
there's plenty of krill left for for
ecosystems and and everybody that relies
on krill.
>> If someone watching this wants to help
but might not know how, what are some
things that they can do?
>> The consumption of farmra salmon is the
reason that this is happening. About 40%
of all the fish is taken from the ocean
is converted into fish meal. It's not
eaten by people. And uh so this krill
thing is in order to replace the
diminishment of the fish that they're
exploiting, we're going to catch the
krill and convert that into the salmon
feed. Basically, what we have to do is
eliminate salmon farming. It's extremely
destructive industry. Well, for the last
50 years, I've seen the steady
diminishment of biodiversity uh in our
ocean. And I've been saying all year
after year, if the ocean dies, we die.
And therefore, it's really our
responsibility to ensure that
biodiversity is not diminished.
>> All right. And if you thought Earth Day
views were good from your backyard, try
this one from the moon.
>> Would you look at that, man?
>> The Aremis 2 crew astronaut Reed Weisman
captured this stunning Earth set or
planet dipping below the moon's horizon.
He described it as watching a sunset at
the beach from the most foreign seat in
the cosmos. And the wild part, it wasn't
some giant space camera. He snapped it
through a tiny window with his iPhone.
You can even hear his fellow astronaut
Christina Cook snapping away, too.
capturing iconic images released by NASA
that remind us from up there there are
no borders, no divisions, just one
glowing, fragile, beautiful home. Now to
some Earth Day hope served extra cute in
Southern California's Big Bear Valley. A
pair of internet famous bald eagles is
welcoming some new additions this
spring. Jackie and Shadow are now proud
parents times two. They are the valley's
only yearround bald eagle residents.
They've been the stars of a live stream
for years. Earlier this month, viewers
got a front row seat to Nature's reality
show, watching their eagllets hatch over
Easter weekend. Now, mom and dad, they
have their talents full with this puffy
pair of siblings known as Simply Chick
One and Chick 2 so far, and that's where
you come in. The nonprofit Friends of
Big Bear Valley is hosting a naming
contest for the chicks with proceeds
going to help protect their habitat.
Students at a local elementary school
will peruse the list of names to pick
the finalists. Last spring's hatchlings
were dubbed Spirit, Sunny, and Gizmo. I
may be biased, but uh Rise Up in
Sunshine have a certain ring to them,
don't you think?
Pop quiz hot shot. Which of these has
the highest electrical conductivity of
any metal? Nickel, iron, silver, or
aluminum?
If you said silver, shine bright. One
common use for silver is in electric
circuit boards due to its conductivity.
But some parts exposed to oxygen are
usually swapped for gold because it
doesn't tarnish as easily.
Extra pop quiz hot shot. What do your
broken refrigerators, old cell phones,
and mystery drawers of tangled chargers
have in common? They're all part of one
of the most pressing pollution problems
on our planet. Electronic waste or
e-waste. Mountains of it. From broken
microwaves to busted TVs pile up
landfills each year. And as our love for
shiny new tech grows, so does the
e-waste we leave behind. A recent UN
report says that more than 62 million
tons of it was generated in 2022 alone.
That would fill about 1 and a half
million dump trucks bumper-to-bumper.
That would circle the equator. But one
company is using an innovative approach
to help curb the crisis. Literally
dissolving the waste with special
chemicals. D cycle uses deep utctic
solvents or dees for short to dissolve
the precious metals found in so many
circuit boards and other electronics.
They say it allows them to recover
things like gold, copper, and palladium
from e-waste in a sustainable and
efficient way. They say the process is
also more eco-friendly than traditional
e-waste recycling through processes like
smelting, which consumes large amounts
of energy and can release hazardous
chemicals into the environment.
Today's story getting a 10 out of 10. A
group of high schoolers proving you're
never too young to make waves or protect
your coast. Oysters play a huge role in
marine ecosystems by providing food and
protection for fish. Students from St.
Patrick Catholic High School in Bualuxy,
Mississippi are partnering with the
Coastal Conservation Association to
apply what they learned to this project,
attaching oyster shells to sheet metal
that once belonged to an old shrimping
boat. This studentmade reef will then be
deployed near Ship Island. The finished
product will be a part of a permanent
reef site and expand the oyster
ecosystem. Those students don't just
talk about change, they build it.
Congrats to our your word Wednesday
winners, Miss Alzheimer, Jackson and
William and our friends at Shambbley
Middle School in Shambbley, Georgia. The
word of the day, peruse, a verb meaning
to read or examine something in a
thorough, detailed, and careful manner.
I see you, Bulldogs. We have some Earth
Day shoutouts today. And the first one
goes to Mrs. Fast at Franklin Middle
School in Yakama, Washington. Thank you
so much for this hand embroidered needle
point piece. And uh Mrs. Fast, right now
it's a necklace, but we have a perfect
spot for you. and this on our wall of
friends. All right, this next shout out
goes to Mrs. Suffel, Mrs. Suful, and
Miss Gibson at Jessup W. Scott High
School in Toledo, Ohio. Their students
are in charge of a huge recycling
initiative, and they sent us this
recycled paper project and a very Earth
Day appropriate shirt. Thank you so
much. From classroom lessons to real
world impact, this is what Earth Day is
all about. Let's go out and do our part.
Recycle something. Pick up a piece of
trash. plant some seeds or just tell
someone who's taking care of our planet.
Thank you. Keep rising and keep shining
sunshine. I'm Koi Wire and we are CNN
10.