World Ocean Radio

This week we continue the Earth Optimism Series, a 24-episode project in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution's Ocean Portal to address ocean solutions and innovative projects in the context of the Global Earth Optimism Summit to be held Earth Day Weekend in April 2017. In this edition we outline projects that reflect the initiatives and dedication of people around the world confronting ocean problems with solutions and inspiration.

This week we continue the Earth Optimism Series, a 24-episode project in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution’s Ocean Portal to address ocean solutions and innovative projects in the context of the Global Earth Optimism Summit to be held Earth Day Weekend in April 2017. In this edition we discuss marine protected areas and their importance to biodiversity and to the mitigation of climate change and other destructive forces at work on the planet. The Earth Optimism Series is brought to you by the World Ocean Observatory in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution’s Ocean Portal, to raise awareness of the Earth Optimism Summit during Earth Day weekend, April 21-23, 2017 in Washington, D.C. and around the world. Share your ideas at earthoptimism.si.edu.

After water, the largest volume of natural material used to support global growth is sand. Demand for sand has grown exponentially in the last two decades as Arab and Asian nations grapple with ways to expand land mass, economic zone, and geo-political standing. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill outlines the impacts of sand extraction on the environment, the true measure of its cost, and the prospects for international protection and oversight.

In September the World Ocean Observatory was invited to attend the Our Ocean Conference hosted by the U.S. State Department in Washington D.C. During the 2-day gathering more than 4 million square km (1.5 million sq. miles) of ocean were newly pledged to protection and sustainability, and more than 1 billion dollars were pledged to ocean protection, research, and the blue economy. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we offer a report of the various pledges, commitments, and advancements made during Our Ocean 2016.

World Ocean Radio is set to embark on a series highlighting optimistic projects, perspectives, and organizations helping to raise awareness at the individual, community, and national levels for the health and future of the earth and ocean. In this episode, host Peter Neill begins with some economic ideas as outlined by Gar Alperovitz of the Democracy Collaborative and the Next System Project.

Where does water come from? We know from science that water evaporates from the ocean reservoir, is captured in clouds, fog and rain, descends to seep into the underground aquifer or be distributed via lake and stream. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill reminds us that the ocean exists at both ends of the water cycle--at mountaintop and abyssal plain--and essential to the sustainable ocean is the protection and conservation of the vast, fluid passage that each of us on this earth relies upon.

e·thos / ˈēTHäs noun. the characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its beliefs and aspirations. The environmental and political turmoil we face in the world today is symptomatic of a failing system unable to support and sustain us. We are facing a bankrupt value system. The question is, “what’s next?” In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill tackles this head-on, arguing for a new paradigm for the 21st century, a “hydraulic society” enabled by a healthy ocean and the fresh water cycle.

"Are we training our best new minds in the worst ways?" In this week's episode of World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill asks this question and more of scientists and educators working for sustainability and environment, urging them to question conventional thinking and to provide students with the research skills, curiosity, and necessary knowledge to create new ways of thinking to bring us into a sustainable future.

(with a new book by Greenpeace Captain Peter Wilcox) Summertime again, and what better time to pack a few books and head to the beach? In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill suggests some of his favorite books for ocean lovers. His list runs the gamut from complicated and comprehensive to entertaining and mystical. And he recommends a new book by Captain Peter Wilcox, an adventurous non-fiction book that has action and intrigue, and highlights public consciousness, public awareness and protest of ocean issues that Wilcox’s Greenpeace has been dedicated to for more than forty years.

Product labeling is a thorough and complicated business, from nutrition facts and ingredients on food labels to non-GMOS, organics, recycling information and much more. But a key component is missing from all of this labeling and accountability: the calculation of water used to grow, mine, process, produce, package, transport, and dispose of the infinite things consumers consume. In this episode of World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill will ask if it would not be useful to know a rating of water use—how much is used, where it comes from, and how production waste is disposed of—before we make an educated, mindful purchase?

The Polar Code is a new document of the International Maritime Organization to begin to frame the safe use of the Polar region by the inevitable increased shipping traffic to the Arctic. In this episode of World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill outlines the code and hails its thoroughness while questioning the preparedness of increased maritime traffic and the risks involved to this highly vulnerable natural ecosystem.

In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill discusses a recent report entitled "The State of Sustainability Initiatives Review: Standards and the Blue Economy" and the state of global fisheries. The new IISD report provides research, analysis, and suggested standards that might serve as policy and guidelines to address both the crisis and viability of ocean resources.

World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill recently returned from the Arctic Circle Forum in Nuuk, Greenland, where he made some interesting observations about those in attendance and the shifting attitudes away from the business-as-usual interests in Arctic resources toward more assertive ideas by Greenlanders to create new opportunities using their resources and investing in the area's people within the context of historical values and cultural traditions.

In this fourth and final episode in a series on writers who have shaped his interest in the ocean and the natural world, host Peter Neill discusses the work of American author, essayist, and fiction writer Barry Lopez, whose “Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape” stands as a classic--one of the most encompassing and evocative portraits of a natural place ever written. Learn more at worldoceanobservatory.org/radio-item/barry-lopez-arctic-nature-writer

In the third of a four-part series on writers who have shaped his interest in the ocean and the natural world, host Peter Neill reads from essayist Robert MacFarlane's best selling non-fiction work "The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot", a blend of natural history, travel writing, and more. In it, MacFarlane encourages an understanding of the natural world as a means to discover better paths, new imaginings, and inspirational ways forward.