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Welcome to World Ocean Radio…
I’m Peter Neill, Founder of the World Ocean Observatory.
In a recent essay by Dr. Natasha Chassagne, an independent researcher, writer, and Associate at the University of Tasmania’s School of Geography and Spatial Sciences published by The New Republic, and republished on Medium, I came across the word “solastalgia” which Dr. Chassagne describes as “a deep grief over changing landscapes that were once familiar – feeling ‘homesick’ while still being at home because of rapid alterations to the environment…stress from experiencing such changes and a loss of hope for the future.”
I understand this emotional state, and I fear I am not alone. In conversation with friends, neighbors, colleagues, and strangers, I sense this common disturbance and dislocation. Is this who we are? Is this what we want to be in the future? Is this the outcome of the loss of familiar things around us, values, accepted conventions and behaviors, our sense of security and order, in the face daily of environmental decline, social conflict, the disruption of our best sense of community and place?
Apparently, the term has been used by philosophers to describe the state of communal loss, from fire, flood, political action, and social confusion, leading to a counter-grieving resilience and determination to defy these factors through affirmed connection to environmental protection, new ideas and systems, recovery, and regeneration. Solastalgia is a two-part state of mind: first, as anxiety and depression in the face of sudden, irrational, destructive change, and second, as a counter-veiling psychological force in the face of resistance and response and recovery of personal needs, social commonality, and sense of place. It is a psychological force that motivates, not inhibits, inspires not depresses, and justifies, not denigrates a positive personal and collective plan of action for the future.
If I look at my world, near and far, first, I see first a need to restore community indifferent to political forces beyond my control, and second, I see a need to amplify my commitment to societal and natural forces within my control, specifically to the value of an informed, nurturing community, and then to the value of a singular purpose outside my control, in my particular case, advocacy, education, and communication about the world ocean. Specifically, that means participation and investment in a new online newspaper serving just the seven towns of the region in which I live: The Rising Tide, built on the premise that information about local events and profiles of organizations and individuals is an uplifting, engaging tactic for retaining and expanding community, as well re-committing to participation and investment in communication and education, locally and worldwide.
World Ocean Radio has been broadcast here, across the United States, and abroad, for 15 years, and there is immense gratification for me in these weekly connections with so many of you with common interest in the magnificence, sustainability, and future implication of our ocean world. The Rising Tide today is not even 5 weeks old, but I can sense similar gratification when I see and feel the immediate and extensive welcome and embrace by friends and neighbors to a new idea. The rising tide lifts all boats. The sea connects all things.
It is ALL about connection. Through words and deeds, we define ourselves and how we live, yes as individuals, but more importantly as participants in the ebb and flow of life we build together in every special place. Solastalgia is not melancholy, anxiety, or despair. It is rather the opposite: a condition of commitment and engagement, of dedication and invention, and of optimism and hope applied as action and service, large and small, across this time, this place, and beyond this infinite horizon.
Thanks for taking part. We will discuss these issues and more in future editions of World Ocean Radio.
WORLD OCEAN RADIO IS DISTRIBUTED BY THE PUBLIC RADIO EXCHANGE AND THE PACIFICA NETWORK, FOR USE BY COLLEGE AND COMMUNITY RADIO STATIONS WORLDWIDE. FIND US WHEREVER YOU LISTEN TO PODCASTS, AND AT WORLD OCEAN OBSERVATORY DOT ORG, WHERE THE FULL CATALOG OF MORE THAN 760 RADIO EPISODES IS SEARCHABLE BY THEME.
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