Absolutely

right.

Yeah, the risk of stranded assets, considering that these are decade-long investments in the infrastructure we're talking about, if it's pipelines or port infrastructure, even things like road connections, rail connections around that, the likelihood that they could be stranded is rather high, especially although we do have a rather uneven energy transition underway at the moment, and there's a lot of speculation obviously around whether that will get cheaper and whether there'll be an uptake of green technology and resources in other parts of the world.

But you've also got that to consider, the fact that perhaps we're moving away from fossil fuels and oil as well.

So the very assets which would be invested in to export this energy to the world, the rest of the world is starting to move away from as well.

So that looks a very finite window of maybe opportunity.

But the kind of investments required, the kind of timeframes, I think, is a lot longer than five years.

If you're going to make all of these big investments to try and make the Strait of Hormuz redundant, wouldn't those on-land installations, no matter where they are, be vulnerable to that kind of attack too? We're talking about people who have control of rockets.

And isn't that really the fundamental problem it's about? Do you invest the capital or not? And for the moment, it probably wouldn't be rational to.

Absolutely right.

Yeah, the risk of stranded assets here, considering that these are decade-long investments in the infrastructure we're talking about, if it's pipelines or port infrastructure, even things like road connections, rail connections around that, the likelihood that they could be stranded is rather high, especially although we do have a rather uneven energy transition underway at the moment.

And there's a lot of speculation, obviously, around whether that will get cheaper and whether there'll be an uptake of green technology and resources in other parts of the world.

But you've also got that to consider, the fact that perhaps we're moving away from fossil fuels and oil as well.

So the very assets which would be invested into exports this energy to the world, the rest of the world is starting to move away from as well.

So that looks a very finite window of maybe opportunity.

If you're going to make all of these big investments to try and make the Strait of Hormuz redundant, wouldn't those on-land installations, no matter where they are, be vulnerable to that kind of attack too? We're talking about people who have control of rockets.

I mean, there seems to be a big oil slick there as well, which is spreading, and that must be the result of some kind of successful attack by Iran.

Yeah.

The, um, off the, uh, south coast of Oman, a ship which was, uh, sanctioned called the Caroline Bazingui, uh, unfortunately, um, uh, flagged by Cameroon, uh, falsely flagged.

Uh, the Cameroonian, uh, government realized that its, uh, shipping registry was being exploited, and it, uh, kicked the vessel out.

Uh, because it was loading Russian oil, it, uh, and subject to sanctions from the United States and the European Union, its insurance is effectively rendered null, and its insurance, such as it might have had, might have only existed really on paper, maybe a Russian insurance company, uh, saying that if anything happens, we'll cover the cost.

Now, this has happened.

Uh, nobody's actually claimed responsibility for this attack.

And it must also be quite expensive to use a whole lot of smaller vessels when y-- I mean, people used to use one for a reason.

I mean, there seems to be a big oil slick there as well, which is spreading, and that must be the result of some kind of successful attack by Iran.

Yeah, off the south coast of Amman, a ship which was sanctioned called the Caroline Bazingi Unfortunately, flagged by Cameroon, falsely flagged, the Cameroonian government realized that its shipping registry was being exploited and it kicked the vessel out.

Because it was loading Russian oil and subject to sanctions from the United States and the European Union, its insurance is effectively rendered null and its insurance, such as it might have had might have only existed really on paper maybe a russian insurance company uh saying that if anything happens we'll cover the cost now this has happened uh nobody's actually claimed responsibility for this attack uh but the oil the ship has been drifting for several several weeks there is a salvage company currently trying to um to do something about it but the costs could be astronomical this is actually in a marine protected area quite important for amman uh among sea life so The risk of this actually getting worse, the cost it could have, and who bears that cost, are substantial.

And this is, like I say, in Amman, this is actually south of the Strait of Hormuz.

But the risk of another vessel like this being attacked, even one of those smaller vessels, and even though I say small vessels, they are substantial in terms of the hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil they can carry.

If something like that were to happen, the risk, the cost could be astronomical.

And insurance companies are obviously naturally very, very true about this.

The economy is a scale issue.

I mean, doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that's not sustainable.

No, absolutely not.

Uh, yes, the, the only real way Iran is able to exer-- uh, uh, ex-- um, extract some kind of, uh, fee, it's talked of at the moment.

At the moment, uh, the, the deal, as I understand it, talks of, uh, of, of no fees being, uh, levied on any ships for about sixty days.

Very similar, very similar to the United States MOU with Iran, uh, of, of a few weeks ago, which I know has been, um, sort of, uh, President Trump has, uh, has been tearing up or, or trying to tear up in some respects.

But it does follow actually some of the pathways laid out in that MOU.

Um, there's a lot of other things to negotiate as well.

You're suddenly going to have issues like that and bigger powers, [clears throat] think China, thinking, "Well, if they can do it, so can we, and the US will let us."

so the risk i imagine for the shipping community is that um i mean there's been some analysis and some reporting in the u.s it can be quite difficult to know where you are with reporting in the u.s because some of it's very pro-trump and some of it's very against him um that trump is actually desperate for a deal he just wants this to end which which would be rational to assume that so the risk then is that he takes a bad deal yeah

absolutely the um 160 days in, it's enough time to reflect on the reasons why the United States launched its attack and Iranians chose to react in the way they did.

And it's a tremendous blunder.

And the conflicting signals, the ambiguity of listening to the president and some of his spokespeople and government officials complicates that tremendously.

There does seem to be, in a way, two parallel negotiation processes going on.

There is the actually existing one between what's going on with Iran and Oman right now, which does seem to be heading towards some kind of regional agreement.

I'm not quite sure still how Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states will agree to this.

will let us.

How do you get something like that through what I imagine was a very narrow stretch of water right off a coast without anyone seeing you?

Good evening, Stephen.

Uh, good evening to everyone listening.

Thanks for having me on the show.

Yes, it's a, a dark vessel is something which has really, uh, burst into the kind of maritime security analysis scene in the last, uh, last few years.

Um, really threading the needle, as you mentioned.

It's a very narrow stretch of water through which these ships have been passing.

It, it is, to my mind at least, that simple.

How do you get something like that through what I imagine was a very narrow stretch of water right off a coast without anyone seeing you? Good evening,

Stephen.

Good evening to everyone listening.

Thanks for having me on the show.

Yes, a dark vessel is something which has really burst into the kind of maritime security analysis scene in the last few years, really threading the needle.

As you mentioned, it's a very narrow stretch of water through which these ships have been passing, only a few nautical miles north of the coast of Iran as they go through the Strait of Hormuz.

And what going dark mostly refers to is that most ships of a certain size, so we're talking about 300 tons or more, have to carry a an automated identification system, a transponder, which automatically broadcasts their location and their name and their details every few minutes.

um and so you could literally use something very old or very slow to bring it down which i'm presuming means that the u.s must be providing some kind of as you say a drone security or something really quite impressive because so much hinges on this i mean if iran can keep the straight closed they win if the u.s can keep it open they win it is to my mind at least that simple we're

That discussion led to Walker fishing for weather information from the logs of local whaling ships and comparing it to the meteorology in the same coordinates today.

They're going to places where other ships don't go because merchant and, and military ships by the 1650s or so, they're following seaborne highways that they know is the most efficient way to get from place to place.

The whalers are following the whales who go to some of the most remote parts of the world's oceans, and so they're recording weather data in places where we simply don't have any other way of knowing what the weather was like on a particular day at a particular place 150, 200, 250 years ago.

And this kind of information for climate scientists is absolutely priceless.

As we ha- have a better sense of how storms and, um, in particular, wind patterns that are associated with extreme events, um, how they have changed in the past, that gives us, uh, more confidence into how they are going to change in the future.

We can point to data and we can speak to climate skeptics and say, "Yes, this is really happening," and we have to inform ourselves so that we're in a better position to react to a changing climate.

And that's another goal of our project, is to be able to provide the tools for public policy, for homeowners along the coast to be able to deal with what's coming along the path (thunder rumbling) in the 21st century regarding climate change and extreme weather events.