© 2025 KUNR
Illustration of rolling hills with occasional trees and a radio tower.
Serving Northern Nevada and the Eastern Sierra
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Congress voted to defund public media. Now more than ever, we need your help protecting this vital service.
Learn what you can do to support KUNR today ➡️

Jean-Michel Cousteau visits Lake Tahoe: Education is key to protecting our waters

Carrie Vonderhaar
/
Ocean Futures Society

This past Saturday, oceanographer Jean-Michel Cousteau joined Keep Tahoe Blue for a special event at UNR’s Lake Tahoe campus. It’s part of a new speaker series focused on protecting our waters.

KUNR’s Maria Palma spoke with Cousteau and Keep Tahoe Blue’s Jesse Patterson just hours before the event. They talked about Lake Tahoe, the future of our water, and what connects a mountain lake to the world’s oceans.

Oceanographer Jean-Michel Cousteau (left), KUNR’s Maria Palma (center), and Keep Tahoe Blue’s Jesse Patterson (right) at the KUNR studios, University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe on Aug. 23, 2025.
Chris Joseph
Oceanographer Jean-Michel Cousteau (left), KUNR’s Maria Palma (center), and Keep Tahoe Blue’s Jesse Patterson (right) at the KUNR studios, University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe on Aug. 23, 2025.

PALMA: Jean-Michel, you've explored oceans around the world. When you come to Lake Tahoe, what strikes you most as an oceanographer?

COUSTEAU: Lake Tahoe fascinates me. I’ve been all over the ocean, but never here until now and what people need to understand is that Tahoe is part of the ocean. If you protect Lake Tahoe, you protect the ocean. And when you protect the ocean, you protect yourself.

PALMA: People often see oceans and lakes as separate, but you have said that they're more connected than we think, how does what happens here in Tahoe tie into the health of our oceans?

COUSTEAU: It's very critical in many places on the planet. Here in Lake Tahoe, it's water that evaporates, creating clouds. Some of it comes back to make more water, but some of it goes somewhere else, and that water is supporting every life, whether it's animals or plants on land or in the ocean, and every creature, every human being, so that water is something we need to pay attention a lot more than we have up to now.

PALMA: Your father, Jacques Cousteau, inspired millions through film and exploration, and you have carried that legacy forward in your own way. But what feels different about the challenges you face today compared to his era?

COUSTEAU: We're making a lot of progress thanks to communication, but we need now to make sure that the young people who are reached and can absorb the information, the decision makers of tomorrow, who are and will be doing a much better job than we are doing.

PALMA: As you may know, here in Tahoe, there are other challenges as well, like climate change, wildfires, invasive species, and they are constant concerns. From your perspective, which one of those threats feels most urgent right now?

COUSTEAU: Well, I think the most urgent is education. And taking care of the water system is very critical, because a lot of it is affected by the rest of the planet, which means not the planet, but the people we're responsible for climate change, and the climate change is affecting a lot of people who would like to see things the way, that maybe, they used to be.

PALMA: Jesse, this is Jean Michel's first time in Tahoe, but it's not the first time you two have crossed paths. Can you tell us about that?

PATTERSON: I was inspired by Jean Michel and his father's movies growing up, and they inspired me to take the path I took. Our paths crossed, more specifically in the early 2000s when I was working in the oceans with the ocean future society, in particular Jean-Michel's organization to film movies about protecting the environment and marine sanctuaries at the time. So we got to film with them, and I realized the power and the benefit of storytelling.

PALMA: if I'm someone living here in Tahoe, or if I'm someone visiting Tahoe, what is one small action I could take that really makes a difference?

PATTERSON: Number one is to understand the place and understand your role in it. So it could be as simple as leaving it better than you found it, and whatever way that is. I think when you come to Tahoe, you see what's so special about it. Litter on the ground is not appropriate anywhere, in my opinion, but certainly not Lake Tahoe. You see trash on the ground, you pick it up. Doesn't matter if it's yours or not.

PALMA: Finally, Jean-Michel, as you take the stage for Keep Tahoe Blue’s speaker series. If there's one message people walk away with, what would it be?

COUSTEAU: Well, basically, if you protect the ocean, you protect yourself, and if you protect Lake Tahoe, then you become part of 70%, 71% of the planet. And we are all connected to that water system one way or the other, and we need to do everything we can to protect it.

Maria joined KUNR Public Radio in December 2022 as a staff reporter.