![Cycles and connections, from the mountaintop to the abyssal plain Fresh Water](https://www.worldoceanobservatory.org/files/imagecache/exhibit_grid_image/category_pictures/FRESH-WATER-mid-size.jpg)
In this episode of World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill reflects on a landscape of special importance to him on the coast of Iceland, and the ways that the experience of visiting it for the first time shaped his future and his dedication to sharing the meaning of the ocean with others, and to its contributions for the health and welfare of us all.
Carbon offset programs offer ways for retailers and consumers to help address the challenge of climate impacts and environmental consequences, and can provide an effective means of contributing to conservation and sustainable practices . In this episode of World Ocean Radio we share a carbon offset initiative in partnership with South Pole and UCapture that supports progressive action toward a carbon-diminished future.
Since the mid 2000s, economists have spoken of Black Swans, disruptive financial events that embody three special characteristics: they are rare, wide-ranging and extreme, and they are explicable only after the fact. Now there are Green Swan events, a new scientific classification for climate catastrophes that can trigger systemic financial crisis unless authoritative action is taken. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill argues that due to the global disruption caused by the Coronavirus outbreak, we may now be in the midst of our first major global Green Swan event.
The climate is in crisis, and the next generation is committed to and has been successful in raising awareness, demanding political action, seeking legal recourse for offenders, and developing inventive responses to the problems we face. This week on World Ocean Radio we discuss the many ways that climate change is becoming part of the larger conversation around the world, entering into educational systems and curriculum, and calling young people to activism and demand for change around the globe.
This week on World Ocean Radio we highlight the innovative work of the Sasagawa Peace Foundation in Tokyo, Japan, an organization using philanthropy to stimulate practical and transformative change for ocean communities in the Pacific, innovating through community, partnership and social engagements to bring about real and lasting change for communities, fishers, harvesters and others affected by severe weather, economic uncertainty and climate change.
Moken is a Thai word meaning sea people, people of water, sea nomads or sea gypsies. The Moken are a group of Austronesian people of an archipelago claimed by both Myanmar and Thailand. Their way of life is under pressure by assimilation, subversion, suppression, climate change, and corporate greed. This week on World Ocean Radio we discuss their way of life, the challenges the Moken face, and the ways that some in Western civilizations are seeking a similar, simpler way of life, opting out of consumerism in pursuit of a deeper engagement with nature, land and sea as a means to achieve sustainability and community connection.
In the middle ages, alchemists for a time believed they could turn base metal into gold. This early endeavor may be the origin story for modern invention and transformative technologies that benefit mankind. This week on World Ocean Radio we introduce listeners to GivePower, an NGO working in coastal communities around the world challenged by the fresh water crisis, to turn brackish seawater into enough drinking water for more than 35,000 people each day. Could desalination be the new modern alchemy for a sustainable future: turning undrinkable water into liquid gold?
Each year during the holidays, longtime World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill reads "At The Fishhouses", a poem by Elizabeth Bishop. This is a perennial favorite of ours for its succinct distillation of Bishop's seaside meditations, the evocation of the clarity of meaning contained in personal encounters with the world ocean, and its profound relevance for the New Year. Our very best wishes to you from all of us here at the World Ocean Observatory.
This week on World Ocean Radio we have a special reading of "Christmas at Sea", an evocative poem by Robert Louis Stevenson written in 1883. Stevenson, the son of a lighthouse engineer, had intimate knowledge of nor'westers... Merry Christmas to all from the World Ocean Observatory.
This week on World Ocean Radio we explore the lessons of the ocean and the concept of adversity: adversity at sea due to weather, unpredictability, wind, tide, and waves, adversity among a ship's crew, and adversity caused by racism and inequity.
This week on World Ocean Radio we tell a tale of two cities--Newtok, Alaska (pop. 380) and Jakarta, Indonesia (pop. 30 mil)--6,000 miles apart yet facing similar realities of turmoil and social uncertainty due to fresh water stress and the myriad disruptive consequences of climate change.
How many ways do we hear the sound of water? In this episode of World Ocean Radio we explore water, the most essential element on earth, and the ways that we need it to thrive and survive, to nourish our bodies and our souls, and to sustain our families and our communities.
Fish markets are the noisy, colorful, exiting, authentic and lively centers of any coastal city, the place where mongers and customers, tourists and workers, auctioneers and bidders go to trade in the bounty of the sea. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we celebrate the allure of such places of commerce and connection, and their place in history and modern life.
In this episode of World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill reflects on the coming of winter and the collection of the last of the harvest to sustain us--and Nature's creatures--through the cold and into the spring. And he muses on the correspondent seasonal changes that occur in the maritime world: the shifts in the ocean that vary from the temperature of the water to the distribution of elements in the food chain to the migration of ocean species.
A scientific paper published in May 2019 states that eight urgent, simultaneous actions are needed to head off potential ecological disaster in the global ocean. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we discuss the questions and priority actions laid out in the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) report and the warning contained therein that failure to act within the next ten years to halt the damage caused by human activities could result in catastrophic change to how the world ocean functions and pose imminent threats to vital ocean ecosystems.
This week on World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill reflects on the magic of water and the ways it defines our urban spaces. This episode focuses on Tokyo and its network of often unseen and forgotten rivers, streams and canals, and a budding plan for their restoration and revival.
Increasingly, people around the world are experiencing a fresh water crisis. More than 17 countries are under high water stress, and one fourth of the world's population faces running out of water. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we discuss the ramifications of continued and increased disruption if we cannot solve the water supply crisis through local action, conservation, protection, infrastructure improvements, and regulatory enforcement.
There has never been a better time to become a citizen scientist: curious individuals interested in collecting data to build toward solutions, expanding public awareness and to help develop concrete actions for the protection of the ocean. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we list some interesting examples of ocean science initiatives for the curious at heart: from penguins to clouds, phytoplankton to whales, and many other fascinating features of the ocean world.
How do we describe the relationship between human society and nature? This week on World Ocean Radio we discuss what it means to be a stakeholder, and how the word itself has evolved from one of business, ownership and investment to that the larger context of environmentalism and ecological connection. We argue that we must understand the interactions between humanity and natural systems, using collaboration, partnership and integration if we are to invent a new way forward toward a sustainable future.
This week on World Ocean Radio we conclude our four-part series devoted to "The Outlaw Ocean", a new book by award-winning New York Times investigative journalist Ian Urbina. In this episode we ask, "After four years of reporting across the world on vivid and corrupt aspects of the ocean, what comes next? What conclusions can be made? How can we apply what is to be learned from this remarkable adventure?"
This week on World Ocean Radio we offer part three of a four-part series devoted to "The Outlaw Ocean", a new book by award-winning New York Times investigative journalist Ian Urbina. In this episode we discuss the crime of ocean dumping--oil and waste, spent munitions, nuclear material, malfeasance in the cruise ship industry, plastics and airborne pollutants such as mercury and carbon dioxide.
This week on World Ocean Radio we offer part two of a four-part series devoted to "The Outlaw Ocean," a new book by award-winning New York Times investigative journalist Ian Urbina. In this episode we discuss the potential for corruption not only at sea but at the many ports around the world. More than 90% of the world's goods are carried to market by sea, and bribery in ports adds hundreds of millions of dollars each year in unofficial import taxes and transport costs.
The outlaw ocean, a space apart, hidden from view, a place of rampant criminality and exploitation. This week on World Ocean Radio we offer part one of a four-part series devoted to "The Outlaw Ocean," a new book by award-winning New York Times investigative journalist Ian Urbina. In this episode we read select excerpts from this remarkable journalistic endeavor that begin to shine a light on just some of the dark side of life on the world ocean of which most of us are completely unaware.
In the United States, planning and reparation for coastal flooding and damage has been administered under a National Flood Insurance Program that since 1978 has paid more than $40 billion in claims. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we outline some of the reasons why the program is not working, especially as extreme weather becomes more prevalent and levels of destruction more severe.
In this episode of World Ocean Radio we call upon the Canadian government to amend and expand their June 2019 legislative action--the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act--to include a global reserve for whales, dolphins, porpoise and other cetaceans in the fertile Hudson Bay near Manitoba where an estimated 60,000 beluga whales migrate each year to feed and mate.