World Ocean Radio - Solutions

Solutions
March 28, 2023

This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a discussion of alternative energy solutions, battery technology, geothermal energy production, and the adaptation of existing at-sea platforms and rigs to capture energy from the ocean as a less-polluting, renewed, refit utility, taking an old technology and transforming it into a new solution for our energy future. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.

March 20, 2023

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.

March 14, 2023

This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a continuation of UNCLOS, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. In early March, the UN finalized a consensus agreement to work toward the conservation and protection of ocean resources and ecosystems. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.

March 6, 2023

This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a highlight of UNCLOS, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a major example of a far-reaching universal agreement that was drafted in 1982 and ratified in 1984. At the recent Davos gathering, a call to overhaul the UNCLOS instrument of ocean protection went largely unheeded. Who will be willing to step up and redress priorities to conserve and sustain the ocean? RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.

February 27, 2023

This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a highlight of two policies--the Antarctic Treaty and the Hamilton Agreement for the Sargasso Sea--that are working to successfully engage parties and members and maintain oversight for ocean and ecosystem conservation. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.

February 21, 2023

This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series by featuring some successful initiatives and ocean progress, with examples of policies related to Marine Protected Areas that are working and thriving. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.

February 13, 2023

This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a conversation about consensus, a policy-making tool that has historically served to progress issues forward. In this episode we argue that, in light of recent conversations and outcomes from COP27 and Davos, consensus may have become diluted, compromised and corrupted. What's next? Might it be time for bottom-up collective action and social invention? RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.

February 6, 2023

This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a discussion about ocean policy and the myriad organizations and initiatives around the world developing guidelines that inform decisions, rules and laws for the ocean future. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.

January 30, 2023

This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with observations about the climate future and our relationship to facts and truth, the spread of misinformation, the belief in and skepticism of science, denial, inaction, and vested interest in the status quo. If we are to enact the changes required to move toward a more sustainable climate future, how do we, collectively, turn toward acceptance of scientific fact and affirmation of a new world view? RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.

January 24, 2023

This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a call for better communications of ocean science: translation, packaging, distribution and presentation to the millions around the world who live by and rely on the ocean for survival. The RESCUE series is outlining a new plan for the ocean and a new perspective to enable a new set of actions for the future.

January 17, 2023

This week on World Ocean Radio, part two of a multi-part series entitled RESCUE, outlining a new plan for the ocean and a new perspective to enable a new set of actions for the future of the ocean. In this episode we argue that science and technology are our best tools and the imperative foundation for any future ocean plan.

January 10, 2023

This week on World Ocean Radio, part one of a multi-part series entitled RESCUE, outlining a new plan for the ocean and a new perspective to enable a new set of actions: from the smallest to the largest solutions and inventions, to radical methods and policy changes for a sustainable future. RESCUE, a plan for specific action and public participation, stands for: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.

January 4, 2023

This week on World Ocean Radio we lay the groundwork for a new and upcoming multi-part series--RESCUE--outlining a new plan for the ocean and a new perspective to enable a new set of actions: from the smallest to the largest solutions and inventions, to radical methods and policy changes for a sustainable future.

October 4, 2022

This week on World Ocean Radio we're talking about the circulation of water worldwide, and the importance of canals and waterways to bring us together and sustain us into the future.

September 12, 2022

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.

September 6, 2022

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.

August 22, 2022

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.

June 1, 2022

This week on World Ocean Radio we are discussing the work of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance and their "222 Solutions to Heal, Restore and Sustain Our Ocean". We break down the report's accomplishments, results, facts and figures. The full report can be read at impact.soalliance.org.

December 14, 2021

This week on World Ocean Radio, we're discussing the final declaration of the climate pact post-COP26, in which the ocean was finally acknowledged as the intangible link between climate and biodiversity, and recognition of the need for integration of ocean-based actions into mandates and work plans. For the first time, the ocean is finally included in discussions about our climate future. While this is a start, it's too little. We argue that we must dare to envision a dramatic restructuring of law and focus that envisions the ocean as the blueprint for all further action.

May 25, 2021

In this episode, part thirty-nine of the multi-part BLUEprint series, we follow up on last weeks' examination of China's response to the climate crisis and ask readers to consider whether a democracy as vocal and divided as the United States can make meaningful change. We discuss bottom-up solutions beginning at the local level, where real transformative action and societal regeneration toward sustainability begins.

May 17, 2021

In this episode, part thirty-eight of the multi-part BLUEprint series, we examine some statistics that show steps China is taking to confront the climate crisis—one of the only nations in the world whose government has recognized the realities of climate change and all of its manifestations as measured by environmental degradation, the corruption of land and water, and the inevitable decline in economy and community, and the steps the nation has taken to develop policy, incentive, and frameworks toward ecosystem health and sustainability.

December 21, 2020

This week, as we lean into the holiday season of giving and gratitude, World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill asks us to consider the concept of reciprocity--a give and take with the land and sea. And he provides us with three examples of ways that we can give back to Nature as part of our obligation and contribution.

November 10, 2020

This week on World Ocean Radio: part thirteen of the multi-part BLUEprint series. In this episode we ask listeners to consider implementation of a new paradigm of managed growth based on the conservation and sustainability of all natural resources—particularly the ocean-fresh water continuum—if we are to experience attitude shifts and innovations that will enable progress toward a sustainable future.

November 4, 2019

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.

July 29, 2019

As we are increasingly reliant on energy to power our grids, our devices, our batteries, our electric vehicles, our computers and our systems, the requirement for storage increases exponentially. We currently derive a significant portion of this energy storage from extraction--mining for rare earth metals and uranium. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we ask, "Where are the inventive and novel ways to generate energy and store it?" And in response we propose OTEC--ocean thermal energy conversion--as a new way for nature to generate and store our energy needs into a sustainable future.