Episodes

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April 5, 2023

RESCUE, part 12: Technological Innovation

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...
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March 22, 2023

RESCUE, part 11: Earth Law

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. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly ins...
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March 15, 2023

RESCUE, part 10: UNCLOS and Biological Diversity

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. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean scie...
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March 8, 2023

RESCUE, part 9: UNCLOS, A Plan in Hand

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 publ...
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Feb. 28, 2023

RESCUE, part 8: Policy Applied

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. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean ...
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Feb. 22, 2023

RESCUE, part 7: Policy That Works

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. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean adv...
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Feb. 15, 2023

RESCUE, part 6: The Fallacy of Consensus

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,...
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Feb. 8, 2023

RESCUE, Part 5: Policy

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. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Pe...
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Feb. 1, 2023

RESCUE, part 4: The Fallacy of Denial

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 spec...
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Jan. 26, 2023

RESCUE, part 3: Observation and Science

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. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong oce...
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Jan. 19, 2023

RESCUE, part 2: Ocean Science Imperative

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. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate and maritime expert. Episode...
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Jan. 12, 2023

RESCUE, part 1

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. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive in...
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Jan. 5, 2023

Year Out, Year In

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. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate and maritime expert. Episodes offer pers...
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Dec. 29, 2022

Holiday Episode: A Reading of At the Fishhouses

Our annual gift to World Ocean Radio listeners. In this episode, host Peter Neill reads "At the Fishhouses" by Elizabeth Bishop, a poem from 1955 that distills Bishop's seaside meditations and evokes the clarity of meaning contained in personal encounters with the ocean. A favorite of ours, with profound relevance for the New Year. Please enjoy. About World Ocean Radio A weekly audio broadcast of five-minute essays covering a broad spectrum of ocean issues from science and education to advocacy...
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Dec. 21, 2022

Christmas at Sea

This week on World Ocean Radio we have a special seasonal 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 extreme weather, storms, and especially nor'westers. Merry Christmas to all from the World Ocean Observatory. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate and maritime expert. Epi...
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Dec. 14, 2022

The Ocean and Religious Doctrine

This week we're examining religious beliefs around the world and religious commitment to the ocean and to the protection of natural resources, and reading from various doctrinal statements by leaders of the major religions of the world that pertain to ocean and water. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate and maritime expert. Episodes offer perspectives on global ocean issues and viable sol...
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Dec. 8, 2022

What COP 27 Might Have Been

In this episode we provide three examples of initiatives, proposals and financial solutions that could change the shape of our climate future, including the Bridgetown Initiative by Mia Amor Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, whose radical plan lays out specific actions to reform the global financial architecture to respond to the critical impacts of climate. Each of the initiatives discussed were cautiously embraced by world leaders and the status quo. Is change possible? What will it tak...
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Nov. 30, 2022

COP 27 Implementation Plan

The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP 27) closed recently in Egypt. Reactions to outcomes of the climate change conference have been mixed, and the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan, which should have provided a comprehensive outline for concrete action, read more as a description of aspiration and suggestion: a plan to plan to plan a plan. Should we have expected more? About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, li...
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Nov. 23, 2022

COP27

This week on World Ocean Radio we're discussing COP27, the annual Conference of the Parties, that took place this year in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. What should we expect for outcomes of the conference? Empty pledges and resolutions unmet? Or will actionable, lasting national commitments be forthcoming and methane emissions at last curtailed? The truth will be in the details. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lif...
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Nov. 17, 2022

Desert Reflections

This week on World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill reflects on a recent trip to Egypt, a dry desert land in the heart of Africa, the civilizations of which are clustered along the Nile, the longest river in the world. The desertification on display there offers clues to universal threats and our climate future: freshwater disruption, loss of land and wetland, urbanization, saltwater intrusion, and rising temperatures. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advoca...
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Nov. 9, 2022

A Minister for the Ocean

How do we govern the ocean? This week on World Ocean Radio we introduce a concept that advocates for a centralized Ministry for the Ocean, a voice at the highest level of government to champion for ocean policy and protection. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate and maritime expert. Episodes offer perspectives on global ocean issues and viable solutions, and celebrate exemplary projects. ...
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Nov. 4, 2022

Hurricane Ian

This week on World Ocean Radio we're discussing the harsh realities of 21st century storms in the face of climate change: hurricanes more powerful, more destructive, and more impactful on our ways of life. And we're asking, what will we pay if we continue to deny the realities of our climate challenges, and when will we accept responsibility for such disasters now and into the future? World Ocean Radio: 5-minute weekly insights in ocean science, advocacy, education, global ocean issues, marine ...
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Oct. 26, 2022

A Natural Capital Revolution

This week on World Ocean Radio we're discussing an Executive Order entitled "Change in Natural Asset Wealth" signed by US President Joe Biden on Earth Day in April 2022, and the recommendations laid out in the 15-year plan that will measure economic value of natural resources, recognizing that a robust economy depends on a healthy natural environment. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate a...
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Oct. 19, 2022

Implications of Arctic Ice Melt

This week on World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill shares observations from a recent trip to Greenland in collaboration with the Arctic Futures Institute. While visiting the four major coastal towns along the western coast, the melting glaciers that cover most of Greenland were dramatically visible. In this episode he discusses the several consequences of climate change and the rapid loss of sea ice. About World Ocean Radio 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education h...