Darcy Dugan is the Director of the Alaska Ocean Acidification Network. She lives in Anchorage with her husband and two sons and has been with the Alaska Ocean Observing System since 2009.
How did the Alaska Ocean Acidification Network start?
We launched the network in 2016; at that time we were the 4th regional ocean acidification network in the US. Some groundwork on OA monitoring had been put in place by Jeremy Mathis and UAF and there was a growing understanding that Alaska was going to be impacted more than other parts of the world due to natural factors (our cold water!) This puts us in a more vulnerable position from the get-go and started attracting attention. I’d say there was a mix of concern, curiosity, and interest in working together to tackle this issue – both through increased monitoring and public engagement. At the end of the first year we hosted a State of the Science workshop which helped get the ball rolling.
OA can be a depressing topic. What keeps you excited about working on it?
I think two things really drive me – the energy created by collaborations, and the knowledge that there are a lot of value-added initiatives or materials we can create to improve our understanding and ability to prepare. I look around and see a huge number of things we could do. Some are low hanging fruit, some are more challenging. Can we get the State Legislature to help fund monitoring? How can we get to know shellfish growers better and work with them? How can we take what we’re learning in the Bering Sea and translate that into actionable understandable terms? Can we start a one-on-one lunch program that helps connect researchers and coastal leaders through personal conversation? How do we better synthesize data collected by community samplers? Alaskans are interested and committed. There are so many ways to harness that energy and it’s exciting to be in a position to think up ways to do it and implement them.
What’s one of your favorite parts about the job?
I get to ask a lot of questions! I don’t consider myself an expert but I work with a lot of experts and untangling science concepts is fun. I’m constantly learning. I really love the Alaska ocean acidification community – it’s full of people who care a lot about what they do and have a diverse and complementary set of skills. One of my roles is to figure out how to bring together those skills to advance this topic in meaningful ways.
How would you describe Alaskan’s understanding of ocean acidification?
I think it’s starting to become a topic of familiarity, even if it’s just the term. It’s showing up in news articles, social media posts, op-eds – often not the focus of the article but mentioned in some way – either as a threat we are working to address, or a factor that can be mitigated by something we can do. A UAF study in 2013 showed Alaskans were more likely than the average American to know what OA was, but didn’t believe it would impact them disproportionately. We haven’t replicated that survey but I think that’s changed — if you talk to fishermen, coastal community members, etc – they are concerned about what may happen in Alaska during their lifetime. Public education is expanding, even if it doesn’t hit the complexities (it’s often better if it doesn’t!) Every conversation you have in your own circles can help.
What’s your biggest hope and fear?
Honestly, I like to stay on the hope side. I hope we can get people excited about learning about science, to treat this both as something we need to better understand and also approach from a solutions perspective. We need to stay in learning and problem solving mode instead of paralysis from potential catastrophic outcomes. A big hope is that people can simultaneously learn about their environment while also linking this topic to decisions they make or larger policy efforts on the carbon emissions that they could weigh in on or support. We often talk about OA research as putting headlights on the car. At the same time, we need to slow down that car. There is proof that this is achievable; we just need to work together.