World Ocean Radio - Ocean Optimism
This week on World Ocean Radio we're talking about global communication, asking how we as ocean communicators break through, and how we create messaging that resonates and reaches the millions of citizens whose lives are so dependent on the ocean’s bounty. And we highlight two ocean heroes, Dr. Sylvia Earle and Sir David Attenborough, whose quiet successes have combined to communicate with and to reach millions of citizens of the ocean worldwide.
This week on World Ocean Radio, two new books for readers to consider this fall: "The High Seas: Greed, Power, and The Battle for the Unclaimed Ocean" by Olive Heffernan, and "What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World Ocean" by Helen Scales. Both books evoke hopeful possibility while exploring the extent of the ocean and the implications of ongoing exploitation and excess.
This week we are discussing two technological innovations—both bright ideas that could have huge impacts for useful, sustainable change for the future. The first is WaterCube, a machine that pulls vapor from the air and condenses it into liquid form for household use and disaster relief; the second is Sway Seaweed Packaging, a farmed seaweed application designed to create a compostable packaging that is biodegradable and chemical free.
On June 8th each year we come together as a global community to celebrate World Ocean Day, a date set aside to recognize our relationship with the ocean. Public awareness of ocean issues in the United States barely advances year on year, despite consistent efforts by conservation, ocean, and other environmental organizations like World Ocean Observatory whose mission it is to inform and educate. What is World Ocean Day meant to do? Do we have the will to coalesce around a single issue, to be informed and changed into a voice for change?
This week on World Ocean Radio we're sharing some methods and means to make small and large changes that can have effects on the climate and sustainability challenges that are caused in large part by the consumer choices we make every day.
A nocturne is a short musical composition: dreamy, romantic, suggestive of the night, a passage from one place to the next. This week we're asking: What comes next for our collective energy and focus? What it is that will get us safely from this place of climate crisis and uncertainty to another place of reinvention, newly-conceived solutions, and sustainability? We are committed to talking about it, and we urge you to join us as we dream of a new way forward.
The sun is the greatest energy source available for our needs, thought we view it more today as an enemy than a resource and friend. If we are to accept the sun as the solution rather than the problem, how do we capture its enormous energy potential at scale? This week on World Ocean Radio we explore some encouraging progress, from individual to collaborative to collective, to public and private and political, as a means to design a practical response to enable the possibility of accelerated change.
This week we are celebrating our 700th episode of World Ocean Radio--5-minute reflections featured as podcast and interstitial radio syndicate for 14 years. From these ongoing observations have come four books and continuous contribution toward a strategy to communicate the importance of healthy climate and ocean, a succession of examples, emphasis, and explanation of how Nature and ocean are all-encompassing and connects us all.
Where we live in the northeastern United States, we are celebrating the holiday of Thanksgiving. In that spirit, what can we do to show our gratitude? What if we accept such reciprocal relationships with Nature as our obligation and our contribution to the public good? Let's all give thanks for the sustainability the ocean provides.
This week on World Ocean Radio we wrap up the 33-part RESCUE series with a checklist of steps and questions for a practical, personal plan and strategy to embrace the transformational change required to sustain the deteriorating world ocean.
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a discussion of Earth law, a framework built upon the idea that ecosystems have the right to exist and thrive, and that Nature should be able to defend those rights in court. Can we ratify a collective treaty toward the protection of Nature? RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.
This week, part two of a two-part series laying out steps with examples that represent a coherent and provocative way forward toward a plastic-free future. In this episode we discuss the list of specific recommendations from the Pew Foundation / SYSTEMIQ Report, actions to redress the plastic pollution crisis--in effect a coherent Plan for Plastic.
A new analysis by The Pew Charitable Trusts, in association with SYSTEMIQ, finds that without immediate and sustained action, the annual flow of plastic into the world ocean could nearly triple by 2040. The study also identifies solutions that could cut this volume by more than 80% if we use technologies available today and if key decision-makers are willing to make the changes required. This week and next on World Ocean Radio we are laying out steps with examples that represent a coherent and provocative way forward toward a plastic-free future. Part one of a two-part series.
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism for the ocean. In this episode we discuss two examples of innovative practices and their relationships to each another: 1. ocean research and data collection and the connection to geothermal energy generation, and 2. offshore wind energy and its relationship to desalination plants and the energy required to operate.
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism for the ocean. This week we outline the myriad ways that UNESCO World Heritage sites both on land and at sea are an essential part of a strategy to conserve and protect the ocean’s vast contributions to our scientific knowledge, and their importance for our cultural history, for protection, conservation, diversity, sustainability, survivability, and as treasured pieces of our cultural heritage, connecting us all for generations to come.
A recent report from the Yale Program on Climate Change, measuring public awareness and political views on issues related to climate, shows that opinions are changing. Survey results show that in the last year alone there has been a significant upward shift by registered voters in terms of understanding and concern of human-caused climate change. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we break down the report and the proposed national policies impacting public opinion.
The ocean, in its constant motion, offers solace and support for the human spirit and provides an immersion in nature for renewal and regeneration. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we offer thoughts on the dynamic character of the ocean as a celebration of vitality, recreation, and rejuvenation. World Ocean Radio offers you, our listeners, very best wishes for a healthy and happy new year.
Ocean news is often bad news these days. We are bombarded with stories of pollution, overfishing, of sea level rise and the dire consequences of extreme weather and CO2 emissions. This week on World Ocean Radio, however, we're focusing on some good ocean news. In this episode we share some optimistic and encouraging headlines from the March/April issue of ECO magazine: a collection of stories highlighting progressive ocean solutions in the US and around the world.
In September of 2016, World Ocean Observatory began a collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution's Ocean Portal to promote the Earth Optimism Summit in Washington, D.C. during Earth Day weekend in April. For the past six months we have searched for and reported on examples of ocean optimism and innovative projects around the globe. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, our final episode in the Earth Optimism Series, host Peter Neill hails the work of the Smithsonian Institution and the Ocean Portal in their preparation for this global event, and outlines the mission of the summit as well as the need for optimism and why it should be celebrated.
This week we continue the Earth Optimism Series, a 24-episode project in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution's Ocean Portal, to address ocean solutions and innovative projects in the context of the Earth Optimism Summit, April 2017. In this episode, host Peter Neill praises the work of the Center for Biological Diversity in Oregon, a group of individuals dedicated to using the legal system to advocate for species on the verge of extinction.
On June 8th we celebrate World Ocean Day, a day to recognize our relationship with the ocean through global connection and stewardship. In this episode of World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill will discuss what World Ocean Day is meant to do and will ask, "What does it take for the will of the people to coalesce around a single issue, to be informed and changed into a voice for change?"
