Photo by Tori Lemon
Tori Lemon
Lantern Staff
The Harold Smith Cultural Series presents Fabien Cousteau, grandson of famous deep ocean water explorer Jacques Cousteau on Tuesday, Nov. 1 at the Welcome Center on Butler’s El Dorado campus.
Cousteau was the fifth speaker to appear at the series to inform the Butler community about environmental discipline and concerns, as well as the work he has done to protect and rejuvenate the underwater world.
This series takes place every other year since 2012, bringing in prominent figures such as former First Lady Barbara Bush and Michael Uslan, producer of the Batman movies in 2014.
Mary Moon, executive director of Community Advancement, works on the committee that brought Cousteau to campus.
“We thought Fabien Cousteau would interest community members who recall the TV series from the 1960s featuring his grandfather, and interest students concerned about the environment and sustainability, as well as those studying science, technology and engineering,” Moon said.
In spring of 2014, Fabien Cousteau embarked on Mission 31. He lived within the Aquarius Reef for 31 days straight to test new technologies and to conduct research on the effects of climate change on the sea life.
His grandfather experienced a very similar expedition in 1963, spending 30 days in an underwater habitat, like a submarine.
“As a pioneer, you have to be a little bit crazy to do the things that he did,” Cousteau said.
The biggest part of Cousteau’s platform is about educating the public on deep ocean exploration.
“With today’s social media, the underlying notion is that we’ve explored pretty much everything on this planet,” he said. “The reality is quite different. Taking into consideration the notion of all the days of exploration we’ve done, including the days of my grandfather, we have explored less than five percent of our ocean world.”
Cousteau’s curiosity regarding the aquatic life started as a child.
“Being a failed dinosaur hunter and archaeologist, at least as a child anyways, it’s something that just made me dream forever,” he said. “Basically, we have the history of the sea right here in our aquatic backyard, and that is fascinating to me.”
His grandfather played a significant role in his passion for what lies beneath the waves following him to adulthood.
Jacques Cousteau used to say, “When one person has a chance to be extraordinary, or to lead an extraordinary life, he/she has no right to keep to himself.”
In Fabien’s eyes, his grandfather did just that.
Jacques Cousteau started out as a very passionate filmmaker in the early 1940s. He produced some of the first underwater houses and habitats, submarines, regulators and research in regards to deep sea exploration. These expeditions and scientific findings happened within 60 years, encompassing 13 trips around the world in his lifetime.
“He wanted to bring back these stories to the millions of people around the world that will never get the chance to go dive in the Amazon or go and visit the indigenous regions of Papua New Guinea,” Cousteau said. “When he told these same stories to me, I didn’t even really quite know that he was famous- that I was sharing him with the world.”
Infused with curiosity and passion for the ocean and all of his grandfather’s stories, Fabien decided to continue on his Jacques’ legacy, so he, too, could interact and connect with people, all while educating them about the environment and motivating them to take care of it.
“Water is our universal connector, as well as one of our two necessities,” Cousteau said. “We so often take it for granted.”
Fabien’s main goal is to inform the public on conservation regarding the ocean: how to save it, how to live in it and also how to rejuvenate it to be the best it can be.
Fabien continues to explore and advocate the people of this earth to live with this planet, rather than on it, and to give back future generations the things this one took for granted.
“They [people] create miracles when they want to,” he said.
