World Ocean Radio

By Peter Neill, World Ocean Observatory

What's World Ocean Radio about?

World Ocean Radio is a weekly series of five-minute audio essays on a wide range of ocean topics. Available for syndicated use at no cost by college and community radio stations worldwide.

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World Ocean Radio episodes:

04.09.2024
Nocturn
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...
04.09.2024
Distillation
What are the five areas of our collective existence on earth where the ocean matters most? If we are looking for a context to drive motivation and action, we have in our view the necessary clear focus through these absolutes--water,...
03.20.2024
Nature's Balance Sheet
In business, as in life, there is a balance sheet, a statement of assets, profit and loss, income and expense, showing whether our accounts are in balance, or not. In a consumption and production driven society, we must understand the...
03.13.2024
What About the Land?
40% of the planet is used for farming and livestock, often degraded by unsustainable or destructive practices. Coupled with coastal, wetland and reclaimed land development in the name of urban expansion, we are fast-approaching a tipping point wherein infrastructure exceeds...
03.07.2024
Aqua-Cultural Thoughts
Seafood is a world staple, under siege by increased consumption and over-fishing. Aquaculture is the necessary alternative, yet is a polarizing issue in coastal communities. What are we to do? This week we explore two Maine-based successes in aquaculture that...
02.22.2024
Ecological Overshoot, part two
"We are not blind to the overall problem, and if we were in doubt, recent climate-explained events, near and far, should open our eyes more widely. With climate conditions constantly in the news, public awareness must follow," says Peter Neill,...
02.14.2024
Ecological Overshoot, part one
In this episode and the next, World Ocean Radio reports on the status quo, business-as-usual, tunnel vision conclusions at COP28 in Dubai, hosted by the United Arab Emirates, December 2023. While many millions of dollars and intentions were pledged toward...
01.24.2024
Global Climate Events
Devastating weather and water events abound worldwide. Rain, flooding, strong winds, extreme high tides, coastal erosion and inundation have caused havoc in ports and on waterfronts. These events are neither new nor are they going away any time soon. While...
01.10.2024
700 Episodes of World Ocean Radio: Thanks for Listening!
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...
12.27.2023
An End-of-Year Reading of "At the Fishhouses"
At each year's end, World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill reads "At The Fishhouses" by Elizabeth Bishop. This poem, a perennial favorite, was chosen not only for its relevance for the New Year, but also because it distills years of...
12.20.2023
Christmas At Sea
This holiday season on World Ocean Radio we return with 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...
12.15.2023
Marine Biomimetics, part three
In part three of this 3-part series, we continue to explore the recent publication related to marine biomimetics and the deep sea, identifying the seven broad categories of biomimetic design, discussing each with examples of application, technological invention, and as...
12.08.2023
Marine Biomimetics, part two
In these three episodes of World Ocean Radio we are exploring a recent publication entitled “A Forgotten Element in the Blue Economy: Marine Biomimetics and Inspiration from the Deep Sea,” authored by Robert Blasiak from the Stockholm Resilience Center in...
11.08.2023
Marine Biomimetics, part one
Over the next few editions of World Ocean Radio we will be discussing a recent publication entitled “A Forgotten Element in the Blue Economy: Marine Biomimetics and Inspiration from the Deep Sea,” authored by Robert Blasiak from the Stockholm Resilience...
11.02.2023
Two Steps Forward in a Changing Climate
This week on World Ocean Radio are two forward-looking government-proposed initiatives that offer opportunities for progress in climate policy, investment, resiliency and sustainability. The first is Bridgetown 2.0, proposed by the Prime Minister of Barbados, to urge UN member states...
10.18.2023
Insurance in a New Climate Era
We are aware of the key role played by insurance, more so as we face increasing events of extreme weather destruction. Government agencies are signaling policy and coverage shifts, and there is a growing realization that existing policies and programs...
10.12.2023
Megaphonics: Ocean Communication Heroes
This week on World Ocean Radio we're talking about the megaphonics of ocean communications. How do we as communicators break through? How do we create messaging that resonates and reaches the millions of citizens whose lives are so dependent on...
10.05.2023
Ocean Storytelling
This week on World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill talks about the power of storytelling and the vast catalog of tales of adventure, sailors, song, battle, Captain's logs, letters home, and more that tell the stories of our ocean culture...
09.27.2023
Change Is In the Details
This week on World Ocean Radio we're discussing a topic close to our home waters in Maine: the dispute between the lobster fishery and environmentalists over gear modification and the entanglement of migrating right whales. And we highlight the Maine...
09.20.2023
Rescue, part 33: A Personal Call to Action
This week on World Ocean Radio we wrap up the 33-part RESCUE series with a 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. About...
09.13.2023
Rescue, part 32: World Ocean Ethos
This week on World Ocean Radio we are discussing the means to accelerate the urgent response required to visualize, plan, and implement for a new ocean future. ETHOS is defined as the spirit of a culture, era, or community as...
09.07.2023
Oceanic Feeling
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...
08.31.2023
World Ocean Culture
This week on the RESCUE series we're continuing our discussion of the water cycle and the ways it defines our cultural identity from global to local. We are surrounded by evidence of our cultural ocean: we see it at all...
08.23.2023
Rescue, part 30: Water and World Ocean Health
We are nearing the end of the RESCUE series. This week, in its 30th edition, we're talking about water: the well-spring of world ocean health and the essential natural system that sustains us all, thus its protection and sustainability are...
08.16.2023
RESCUE, part 29: Trans-Generational Urgency
We are nearing the end of the 33-part RESCUE series. This week we turn our attention to the young people around the world that are approaching outdated conventions with resilience and resolve. Thousands upon thousands of youth activists are having...
08.09.2023
RESCUE, part 28: A Transformational Tool for Ocean Literacy
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a highlight of the World Ocean Explorer virtual aquarium project of the W2O, an innovative tool by which to present responsible science, innovative education, and a unique virtual experience freely accessible...
08.02.2023
RESCUE, part 27: How to Advance Ocean Literacy
This week on World Ocean Radio we continue the RESCUE series with recommendations to further protect the ocean--by building ocean literacy into every level of education and action around the world. About World Ocean Radio Peter Neill, Director of the...
07.19.2023
RESCUE, part 26: The Missing Links--Education and Communication
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a shift from suggestions for change to analysis and observation of those things that are missing from the equation--namely ocean education and communication. And we assert that the need for ocean...
07.13.2023
A Night Sky
This week on World Ocean Radio we are re-broadcasting an episode in which we look to the night sky, to ponder the wonder contained therein, and to explore the danger of polluting it forever in the name of modern navigation...
07.05.2023
RESCUE, part 25: How to Transform the Ocean Apparat
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a proposed solution to advance successful connection and communication within and with those who fund and communicate ocean programs and projects. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action...
06.28.2023
RESCUE, part 24: Ocean Finance Reform: Step by Step
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series by listing some of the most critical changes and improvements required to create a new, sustainable ocean economy--in essence a checklist for step-by-step actions toward future governance, regulation and investment in the...
06.21.2023
RESCUE, part 23: Financial Instruments for a New Ocean Ethos
This week on World Ocean Radio as part of the multi-part RESCUE series we revisit the concept of ecosystem services accounting and propose that, in order to create a culture of investment for our future, we must apply energy, imagination...
06.14.2023
RESCUE, part 22: What is Net Zero?
The multi-part RESCUE series continues this week with a discussion of the reality of carbon offsets, corporate accounting, and the concept of net zero. In this episode we lay out three paths forward toward a sustainable future: 1. remove subsidies...
05.31.2023
Ecosystem Services Accounting: An Example
This week the multi-part RESCUE series continues with a hypothetical tale of investment, manufacture and accounting, and the financial analyses of both sides of the balance sheet: the initial investments and benefits to investors and the long-term debits of extraction,...
05.24.2023
RESCUE, part 20: How to Account for an Ocean Economy
This week the multi-part RESCUE series continues with a breakdown of a 2020 Report by the World Resource Institute High Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy that offered some revised definitions and pathways toward a more sustainable future, including three...
05.17.2023
RESCUE, part 19: Valuing Ecosystem Services
This week the multi-part RESCUE series continues with a call for a new valuation of ecosystem services and natural resources that reflects the true costs of goods, services and ecosystem functions inclusive to habitat, food, water, regulation and recycling that...
05.10.2023
RESCUE, part 18: Opportunity for Ocean Finance
This week the multi-part RESCUE series continues with a turn toward the topic of finance. This episode lays out a plan for future editions that focuses on examples that calculate the value of the ocean including ecosystems services, accounting and...
05.03.2023
RESCUE, part 17: Technology and the Ocean Pharmacopeia
This week the multi-part RESCUE series continues with an examination of familiar products derived from the ocean that we use to support our ways of life, our well-being and our health: from vitamins and supplements to pain and cancer treatments....
04.26.2023
RESCUE, part 16: Technology and Ocean Farming
This week the multi-part RESCUE series continues with an advancement of the sub-theme of technology. We're talking about the pitfalls of modern agriculture, examples of sustainable fisheries, and the innovative ways that we might farm the marine environment that positively...
04.20.2023
RESCUE, part 15: Technology Food and Health
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with the topic of seafood consumption. While more than 3 billion people worldwide rely on wild-caught and farmed seafood as a significant source of animal protein, unsustainable and illegally caught seafood harvest...
04.12.2023
RESCUE, part 14: Technology and Climate Action
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with an outline of the four technological focus areas of the recently announced Ocean Climate Action Plan, the organizing connection of which is technology. Guiding the actions of the plan are a...
04.05.2023
RESCUE, part 13: The Democratization of Technology
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with defined programs and relationships that apply technologies toward public good, such as a universal grid system, battery generation and storage, desalination, and better understanding of natural systems and our relationship to...
04.05.2023
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...
03.22.2023
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...
03.15.2023
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...
03.08.2023
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....
02.28.2023
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....
02.22.2023
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...
02.15.2023
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...
02.08.2023
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...

What's World Ocean Radio about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

World Ocean Radio episodes:

Nocturn

Distillation

Nature's Balance Sheet

What About the Land?

Aqua-Cultural Thoughts

Ecological Overshoot, part two

Ecological Overshoot, part one

Global Climate Events

700 Episodes of World Ocean Radio: Thanks for Listening!

An End-of-Year Reading of "At the Fishhouses"

Christmas At Sea

Marine Biomimetics, part three

Marine Biomimetics, part two

Marine Biomimetics, part one

Two Steps Forward in a Changing Climate

Insurance in a New Climate Era

Megaphonics: Ocean Communication Heroes

Ocean Storytelling

Change Is In the Details

Rescue, part 33: A Personal Call to Action

Rescue, part 32: World Ocean Ethos

Oceanic Feeling

World Ocean Culture

Rescue, part 30: Water and World Ocean Health

RESCUE, part 29: Trans-Generational Urgency

RESCUE, part 28: A Transformational Tool for Ocean Literacy

RESCUE, part 27: How to Advance Ocean Literacy

RESCUE, part 26: The Missing Links--Education and Communication

A Night Sky

RESCUE, part 25: How to Transform the Ocean Apparat

RESCUE, part 24: Ocean Finance Reform: Step by Step

RESCUE, part 23: Financial Instruments for a New Ocean Ethos

RESCUE, part 22: What is Net Zero?

Ecosystem Services Accounting: An Example

RESCUE, part 20: How to Account for an Ocean Economy

RESCUE, part 19: Valuing Ecosystem Services

RESCUE, part 18: Opportunity for Ocean Finance

RESCUE, part 17: Technology and the Ocean Pharmacopeia

RESCUE, part 16: Technology and Ocean Farming

RESCUE, part 15: Technology Food and Health

RESCUE, part 14: Technology and Climate Action

RESCUE, part 13: The Democratization of Technology

RESCUE, part 12: Technological Innovation

RESCUE, part 11: Earth Law

RESCUE, part 10: UNCLOS and Biological Diversity

RESCUE, part 9: UNCLOS, A Plan in Hand

RESCUE, part 8: Policy Applied

RESCUE, part 7: Policy That Works

RESCUE, part 6: The Fallacy of Consensus

RESCUE, Part 5: Policy