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We’ve said it before. We’ll say it again: Ocean Hoptimism has the best venue in the Bay Area. 😍 Last night at Faction Brewing brought receipts. Ocean science, conservation, advocacy, culture experts, consider this your invitation to speak: we make your ocean work look SO good. www.oceanhoptimism.org

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Why does Ocean Hoptimism matter to Dr. Meghan Holst? Hear it from her. Dr. Holst helps us see a place for ourselves in protecting the ocean. Help more ocean experts make that connection: support our Ocean Voices Fund, covering speaker travel so more voices can join us. www.zeffy.com/en-US/donati...

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70+ curious people, a brewery, and so much shark love! 🦈💙 Thank you, Dr. Meghan Holst, for bringing Bay Area sharks & rays to Ocean Hoptimism—and opening doors through OSEA for us to help study & protect them. To everyone who showed up: there’s a place for you in this work, too. www.oseascience.com

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Here’s where hope gets hands-on: Dr. Holst’s Ocean Science Expedition Academy (OSEA) opens access to field research and training, with community participation at its core. Volunteer, sponsor or donate to help build the science our local sharks need. There’s room for you in this story.

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How do you recognize a returning shark? Try its spots. Researchers are developing AI-assisted tools to identify young sevengills by their patterns, while investigating nursery habitats, contaminant buildup and shark health. Knowing these animals better can help us protect them.

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The stakes come into focus with sevengill sharks: research documents long-term ties to the Bay, where their habitat overlaps with recreational fishing. Understanding how these sharks use our waters can help us protect the places and life stages they depend on.

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That’s the foundation Dr. Holst is helping build: which sharks and rays use the Bay, when they’re here, where young animals grow, and what healthy looks like. Blood samples, tracking and contaminant studies help turn scattered observations into a clearer picture.

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The Bay has a long history of shark catches and research, but the last comprehensive survey dates to 1984. Individual studies offer clues. What’s missing is the baseline understanding of today’s sharks and rays needed to recognize change and guide conservation.

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A vitamin boom became a shark bust. Meghan showed how California shark landings surged after 1937 as demand grew for vitamin A, abundant in shark livers. Long before we understood much about these animals, we were hauling them ashore for what was inside them.

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There are sharks in SF Bay. But who’s here, how many, and how are they doing? Last night, over 70 folks joined us at Ocean Hoptimism as Dr. Meghan Holst explored what we still don’t know about our finned neighbors, and why answering these basic questions is essential to protecting them.

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Us in 3 hours. Be there. www.oceanhoptimism.org/save-the-date

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What’s pairing with SF Bay shark science and Faction beer tonight? Curry & Combo’s tikka masala, crispy chicken, loaded fries, salad, or wings? Come hungry for Bay science and something delicious. 🦈🍻 Ocean Hoptimism • 7–8 PM Faction Brewing, Alameda • Free!

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The old “protect this, not that” framing misses the point. Nearshore habitats urgently need protection. Remote reserves also safeguard biodiversity and can support recovery through larval export and spillover. Protect both—and don’t let offshore acreage excuse gaps closer to shore.

You wanted sharks. We’re giving you sharks. TONIGHT. 🦈🍻 Meet SF Bay’s sharks, rays & skates w/ Dr. Meghan Holst—and discover how you can take part in their research and conservation. 📍 Ocean Hoptimism, Faction Brewing, Alameda 🗓 Tonight, 10/1, 7–8 PM 🎟 FREE Come curious. Leave a little sharkier.

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Help Create More Ocean HoptimistsThe ocean’s future won’t be written by a handful of heroes. It will be shaped by millions of people who discover they have a…

Since June 2025, we’ve built Ocean Hoptimism one gathering at a time. People keep showing up. More speakers want to join us. Now, as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, we want travel costs to be one less reason someone can’t. Our Ocean Voices Fund launches today. Help us grow—and please share.

zeffy.com

Ocean Voices Fund

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Deeply conflicted about an entire book/movie built around “sperm whale swallows diver.” Entirely unconflicted about needing to eat popcorn out of a sperm whale bucket. Apparently scientific reservations are no match for butter delivery systems.

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Dinosaur snacked on seaweed washed up on North American coasts, fossil teeth suggest

Before dinosaurs evolved to become today’s chicken nuggets, some may have enjoyed a seaweed salad. Fossil teeth suggest coastal herbivores ate seaweed washed ashore around 100 million years ago. Feeding giants from the beach buffet: another reason to appreciate algae.

phys.org

Storms routinely wash marine material ashore, providing food for land animals and other organisms. This is known as marine subsidization (MS). Today, MS is particularly common in coastal ecosystems an...

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Tomorrow at Ocean Hoptimism: shark T-shirts to give away in every size you can imagine!* *Provided all you can imagine is medium and large. The ocean is vast. Our size selection is not. 🦈👕 While supplies last. SF Bay Sharks with Dr. Meghan Holst Oct 1 • 7–8 PM Faction Brewing, Alameda • Free!

Yeah! That’s right… BONUS Ocean Hoptimism TOMORROW! 🦈 Kick off sharky season w/ Dr. Meghan Holst. Meet SF Bay’s sharks & flat sharks, learn how YOU can help protect them, & enjoy our shark swag giveaway! 7–8 PM • Faction Brewing, Alameda Free. Come get sharkier. www.oceanhoptimism.org/save-the-date

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Ocean Hoptimism stands with Canadian neighbors on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. We honor Indigenous children, survivors, families, and communities—and commit to listening, learning, and supporting Indigenous-led healing and justice here in the U.S. too.

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Done. But… does this look right?

Ocean Hoptimism @oceanhoptimism.org · 29/09/2026

Join us this Thursday and kick off sharky season with… your finned neighbors! 🦈 Dr. Meghan Holst dives into SF Bay’s sharks & rays—and how YOU can help protect them. Plus shark swag! Ocean Hoptimism • Oct 1 • 7–8 PM Faction Brewing, Alameda • Free! www.oceanhoptimism.org/save-the-date

Ocean Hoptimism @oceanhoptimism.org · 28/09/2026

Ocean protection cannot reset with every president. Trump’s rollbacks expose a deeper failure: fragile laws, chronic underfunding and too little accountability. Durable conservation needs staffed, connected protected areas, shared power with Tribes and communities, and proof that protection works.

escholarship.org

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Ocean Hoptimism @oceanhoptimism.org · 28/09/2026

Your neighbors have fins. How well do you know them? 🦈 Meet SF Bay’s sharks & flat sharks with Dr. Meghan Holst—and discover your part in protecting them. Ocean Hoptimism, Oct 1, 7–8 PM at Faction Brewing, Alameda. Free. Come curious. Leave a little sharkier. www.oceanhoptimism.org/save-the-date

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We were today years old when we discovered Rose Schmits’ wonderfully weird ceramics. Tentacles! Spidery legs! Exquisite, functional art that looks ready to crawl off the table. Apparently what’s been missing from our lives is pottery with just the right number of appendages. roseschmits.com

Niʻihau doesn’t owe us access, spectacle or storm footage. Respecting Hawaiian culture includes respecting boundaries. If “forbidden” places trouble us, let’s direct some of that scrutiny toward billionaires fencing off Hawaiʻi. Curiosity isn’t a claim of ownership.

Women mark 50 years of swimming against the tide at S.F. clubs that once banned them

In case you missed this milestone: 50 years ago, six women fought to enter SF’s men-only Dolphin and South End clubs. Hundreds formed a “50” in the Bay swim event to honor them. Here’s to women who swam against the tide—and held the door open for all who followed.

sfchronicle.com

The first women to join San Francisco’s swimming clubs in 1976 said they struggled against discrimination but found empowerment and community in the water.

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That may be the most honest hope deep time offers: the future is constrained, but not fully written. What we cut, protect, restore and stop destroying now will help determine which species—and which version of the ocean—cross into the future with us. Hope isn’t certainty. It’s leverage.

The fossil record also shows that rapid changes in carbon, temperature, oxygen and ocean chemistry can push ecosystems beyond their limits. Our trajectory is dangerous. But unlike past drivers, this one comes with a species capable of understanding—and changing—its behavior.

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Half a billion years of history says life is remarkably resilient—but that is not the same as saying everything will be fine. After mass extinctions, the ocean recovered on geological timescales, often with very different ecosystems. Survival is real. So is irreversible loss.

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When we asked UC Berkeley paleontologist and ocean-extinction expert Dr. @sethf.bsky.social to read his “crystal ball” for the ocean’s future, he offered some cautious optimism—in that careful way scientists do when asked to speculate. 🧵

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New analysis finds protecting 30% of the planet by 2030 remains within reach – but ocean protection is lagging – Together for the Ocean

Around 10% of the ocean is designated for conservation, yet only 3.5% is assessed as effectively protected. Even if current pledges are fulfilled, coverage would reach just 12% by 2030—not the promised 30%. Lines on a map matter, but real protection requires funding, management and enforcement.

for-the-ocean.org

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California braces for record El Niño storms as governor declares emergency

California declared an El Niño emergency, mobilizing flood and coastal-response resources before winter. It’s preparedness, not prophecy: El Niño raises risk, but can’t tell us exactly where or when. Later this year, Ocean Hoptimism will welcome an expert to help us understand and prepare.

theguardian.com

Super El-Niño has already broken temperature records and is predicted to bring an extremely wet winter to the state

oceanographicmagazine.com

100 countries have now ratified the High Seas Biodiversity Treaty, with Australia joining Sept. 24 and pledging work on early high-seas MPAs. A powerful milestone—but ratification protects no habitat by itself. The test now: fair funding, science, and enforceable protection.

100 countries in: High Seas Treaty nears universal ratification - Oceanographic

The High Seas Treaty has hit 100 ratifications following Germany, Canada, Australia and others depositing instruments at the UN.

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Sharks arrive at Ocean Hoptimism in 4 days! 🦈 Ready to kick off the Bay Area’s sharkiest season w/ a bang? We’ve got Dr. Meghan Holst, a shark swag giveaway, & a role for YOU in shark science. Just when you thought it was safe to make other plans. Oct. 1 • 7–8 PM • Faction Brewing, Alameda • FREE!

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Closer to home—and our own time—another jaw-dropper from Seth’s talk: at the last ice age’s peak 20,000 years ago, so much water was locked in ice that the Bay Area shoreline lay roughly 25 miles farther west, near today’s Farallon Islands. Your beach day would’ve required quite a commute.

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Perhaps the biggest gasps from Dr. Seth Finnegan’s Ocean Hoptimism talk last Thursday? The volcanic nightmare behind the Permian mass extinction: flood basalts in Siberia, with enough lava to cover an area the size of the continental U.S. over a kilometer deep. Deep time. Deeply unsettling.

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We’re seeing stars on October 22. And for once, it’s not the beer. Something worth making a little room on your calendar for is coming to Ocean Hoptimism. We’ll let you connect the dots a little longer. 🌟 Big reveal on October 5.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! 🦈 A special BONUS edition of Ocean Hoptimism kicks off SF Bay Area shark season Oct. 1! Meet Dr. Meghan Holst, find your role in shark science, and score shark swag. 7–8pm • Faction Brewing, Alameda • FREE!

You're cute and fresh and wholesome But science has a cure The natural look is nowhere Your hairdresser knows for sure

FREE shark swag giveaway at Ocean Hoptimism! Come for the science. Leave suspiciously well accessorized. 🦈 📅 Thursday, October 1 | 7–8 PM 📍 Faction Brewing, Alameda Bring a friend. Bring your questions. Your emotional support shark enthusiasm is welcome here. www.oceanhoptimism.org/save-the-date

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Ocean Hoptimism | Save the Date

We barely caught our breath, but sharks wait for no one! It’s sharky season in the Bay: bonus Ocean Hoptimism! Oct. 1, Dr. Meghan Holst shares how YOU can join shark research & conservation. Plus a shark swag giveaway! Faction Brewing, 7–8pm. Free. We’re gonna need a bigger calendar.

oceanhoptimism.org

Mark your calendar for Ocean Hoptimism—monthly free talks at Faction Brewing blending ocean science, stories of hope, and meaningful conversations over a pint.

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Another ocean mass extinction is a real risk. But we can still bend the curve: reduce fossil fuel use, bring others into the conversation, and vote for leaders who act on science. We’re part of the life support system we’re fighting for. Thank you, Professor Finnegan, for a remarkable night.

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Some hope came in microscopic form: plankton like coccolithophores. Their tiny carbonate plates accumulate on the seafloor, helping buffer ocean acidification over long timescales. Seth reminded us that today’s ocean has tools ancient seas didn’t. More reason to study its smallest inhabitants.

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After walking us through all that upheaval, Seth paused: “I was encouraged to try to find something hopeful about all of this.” [a few laughs] But he delivered. The fossil record reveals how profoundly life can change. It doesn’t mean our future is already written.

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By contrast, during the Permian, enormous volcanic eruptions—and magma heating coal deposits—released carbon that helped drive planetary warming and catastrophic losses of ocean life. The geography was different. The connection between carbon, climate and survival felt uncomfortably familiar.

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That survival story gets complicated. The Late Ordovician extinction, which Seth studies, wiped out species but left the major branches of ocean life intact. Other extinctions cut deeper into the family tree. Why? To understand the losses, we need to understand what drove them.

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