09/10.19 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 81
it’s doing to our joints. Another mentions
carcinogens and endocrine disrupters. But
the reality is that we don’t know shit. It’s
one big worldwide experiment. Check back
in 30 years.
And that, Hocevar believes, may be why
so many corporations are suddenly inter-
ested in changing their business model. “I
think the time is coming when some of these
companies are going to have their tobacco
moment,” he says. “I can absolutely picture
some of these executives having to stand up
in court and answer questions about what
they knew about the health impacts of their
packaging and what they did about it.”
BY DAY three the bar is empty. The
Jacuzzi bubbles forlornly. These people are
machines. It’s our last full day at sea; the
captain has been told to just drive around,
fingernails on the chalkboard of his highly
scheduled soul, and even when the call
goes out that more sargassum mats have
been sighted, almost no one ditches their
committees. But I practically run to the
Zodiac, where I join the water people:
Eriksen, Rosenwaks, a dive instructor and
marine advocate from Bermuda named J.P.
Skinner, and Tom Gruber, who anticipates
my question to him.
“What’s an AI guy doing here?” he says.
“Basically, I do intelligence. Siri was indi-
vidual intelligence, but I also do collective
intelligence.” And that, Gruber says as he
tinkers with some huge underwater camera
from the near future, is what we desperately
need right now. “Our brains didn’t evolve
for giant civilizations. The election process
is broken. It no longer produces quality lead-
ers. You end up with Trump and Brexit. So
government is irrelevant, but business lead-
ers are starting to step up, and that’s what
you’re seeing on this boat. We may be at a
turning point in how we act collectively.”
Gruber says he’s been to other save-the-
ocean conferences, and this one feels differ-
ent. “There’s a ray of hope here that’s not
typical. Maybe we’ll be able to look back and
say, ‘I was on that ship when things started
to change.’ ”
And with that, we all back-flop into the
water and badger Steve, our minder from
the Resolute, to let us ditch our life jackets.
“If you have to dive under to get a photo,
we can use the buddy system,” Steve says
grudgingly. “Take off your life jacket, hand
it to your buddy, and briefly dive under while
your buddy keeps eyes on you.”
“Steve, will you be my buddy?” I ask,
shucking my jacket.
“Sure, hand it over.”
Eriksen is next. “Steve, can you be my
gram to get its beauty consultants to recycle
their cosmetics containers. A group includ-
ing executives from Dow and the World Bank
proposes a fee on virgin plastics, to be used
as a credit to reduce the cost of using recy-
cled plastic. It’s like a carbon tax, and we all
turn and stare at one another. Did they really
just say that?
The most original idea comes from David
Tulauskas’s team. ZeroHero, as it’s called,
would be a section—heck, maybe a whole
aisle—of big-box stores devoted to zero-
waste products. To qualify for the ZeroHero
aisle, products could be package-free, refill-
able, delivered from a dispensary, or other-
wise ultralight in their footprint. The pro-
gram would have its own label,
promotion, possibly even a dedi-
cated check-out line. It’ll need a
big-box retailer to play ball, but
half the brands on the boat are
already in, and plans are quickly
made for cross-industry working
groups in the U.S. and UK.
It’s wildly ambitious, and Zero-
Hero gets an ovation. Just like
that, a faint glimmer of collective
intelligence emerged from the pri-
mordial capitalist muck.
Even Hocevar sounds willing to
give his roommate the benefit of
the doubt. “I do think he came to
Nestlé Waters to try to turn the company into
a sustainability leader,” he says with a sigh.
“I don’t know how on earth he thinks that’s
going to happen. But he seems like a gamer.”
So does Ford. Before I disembark the next
morning, I tell him to get some sleep. No
time, he says. “I’m trying to secure the ship
for next year’s summit.”
I ask if he’ll be reaching out to the 50 noes.
“Absolutely. I’m optimistic we can turn
most of them into yeses.” Then he pauses.
“But to be honest, two of the biggest oil
companies in the world have already told me
resoundingly that they won’t be a part of any
collaborative summit like this. So I’ll take 48.”
I tell him I’ll be curious to see who’s on
that boat, then I race to the airport to catch
my flight back to New York. As the plane
takes off, I can see the Resolute in the har-
bor, a ridiculously small oval shrinking to
a speck, all of Bermuda dissolving into the
eggshell blue around it. I push the seat back,
massage my sore snorkeling legs, and refuse
the flight attendant’s offer of a plastic cup
for my water three times. OCONTRIBUTING EDITOR ROWAN
JACOBSEN ( @ROWANJACOBSEN)
IS THE AUTHOR OF SEVEN BOOKS,
INCLUDING SHADOWS ON THE GULF
AND THE LIVING SHORE.“OK, sure.”
Soon Steve is everybody’s buddy, a float-
ing coatrack, and we’re all dolphining under
the sargassum.
In the water, I forget all about the plastic.
I’ve snorkeled the Caribbean, barrier reefs,
and crystalline lakes, but never in mile-deep
ocean. I gaze down through the bluest blue
I’ve ever known, and my mind goes as blank
and content as a child’s.
Eriksen shoots beneath me in a MORE
OCEAN LESS PLASTIC T-shirt. Rosenwaks
mermaids by in a wetsuit, shooting video
on her two-handed camera. Skinner is deep
underwater holding a GoPro straight over-
head, slowly pirouetting toward the surfacelike Esther Williams. Everyone looks like
X-Men against a blue screen.
I churn sargassum beneath the surface
with my arms and dive down through it. The
color makes me gasp through my snorkel,
golden galaxies in a cobalt cosmos. When I
surface, a petrel has come winging over to
see what the heck we’re doing in its world,
and then Rosenwaks pops up beside me.
At that moment, the Resolute and the Zo-
diac are somewhere in the distance behind
us, and it’s just her and me and the sea and
this sleek little bird turning gyres around
us. Rosenwaks says she feels so small, and
I babble unintelligently about the blue be-
fore coming out and saying what I’m really
thinking: It’s the color of God, and I can’t
believe it’s still here.as we head BACK toward Bermuda, 100
miles and closing, the design sprint pushes
well past dinner. In the morning, we’ll arrive
in port and head back to our lives, and you can
feel a hint of panic set in. We know that one
of the world’s most challenging problems is
not going to get solved in three days on a boat;
we just need to know that we’ve turned this
icebreaker in the right direction.
Late at night, the bleary-eyed teams share
their ideas. A few sound refreshingly real.
Mary Kay announces a new rewards pro-NO ONE ACTUALLY KNOWS
WHAT EFFECT PLASTICS
ARE HAVING ON OUR LUNGS,
GUTS, BLOOD, OR BRAINS. THE
SCIENCE IS TOO NEW. THE
REALITY IS THAT WE DON’T
KNOW SH--T.