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.
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.
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism for the ocean. This week we are discussing an innovative company in Iceland that has developed a product from fatty acid-rich fish skin to treat chronic wounds so that new skin can grow. Called Omega 3 Wound and developed by Kerecis Limited, this FDA-approved skin is grafted onto damaged human tissue such as a burn or a diabetic wound, and is ultimately converted into living tissue. This product illustrates the capacity to use 100% of the fish, thereby maximizing the value of the catch and accelerating economic opportunity around the globe.
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.
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism for the ocean. In this episode we highlight The Catalogue of Life, an online database of the world's known species of animals, plants, fungi and micro-organisms. It holds the essential information on the names, relationships and distributions of over 1.8 million species worldwide, helping to address the concerns of sustainability and biodiversity on our fast-changing planet.
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism for the ocean. This week we outline the myriad ways that UNESCO World Heritage sites both on land and at sea are an essential part of a strategy to conserve and protect the ocean’s vast contributions to our scientific knowledge, and their importance for our cultural history, for protection, conservation, diversity, sustainability, survivability, and as treasured pieces of our cultural heritage, connecting us all for generations to come.
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism for the ocean. This week we're discussing visualization as a powerful tool for understanding beyond data, opening our minds and enabling transformative change through a new way of seeing. The Spilhaus World Ocean Map, a projection of earth centered on Antarctica, makes the ocean the focus of an astonishing worldview, pushing the land to the outer edges of the square and re-organizing our global geography around the true natural systems of the world ocean.
Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity consumes from Nature more than the planet can provide, either as natural or renewable resources in a year. In 2022, Earth Overshoot Day falls on July 28th, showing the start reality that we are living far beyond Nature's means to sustain our growing demands.
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism for the ocean. In this episode, host Peter Neill discusses a recent full-moon rise he witnessed from an island perch in Maine. The silent, stealth-like way that it rose in the sky got him ruminating about water, tide, sun, current, power, light, nature, human emotion, and the often under-appreciated, surreal force of the moon.
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism in ocean news, science and advocacy. In this episode we're discussing Tampa Bay, Florida, whose revival of seagrass and cleaner waters have served as an example of engagement, cooperation, determination, and leadership. What can be learned from this success in order to meet environmental challenges and solve today’s problems?
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism in ocean news, science and advocacy. In this episode 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.
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism in ocean news, science and advocacy. In this episode we discuss the need for more funding and energy directed toward the still largely unknown ocean, and the importance of scientific endeavor and observation, and we highlight the General Bathymetric Chart for the Oceans (GEBCO), a project dedicated to completing the full mapping of the world ocean by 2030.
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean episodes that highlight optimism in ocean news, science and advocacy. In this episode we're talking about the history of oysters, New York Harbor, and the Harbor School—an innovative high school on Governor’s Island in New York City, highlighting their Billion Oyster Project, designed to revive the defunct oyster populations through an ambitious goal of restoring no less than one billion oysters to New York harbor. Harbor School's restorative ecosystem service activities are reconnecting the harbor to the 30 million people living within its vast urban watershed.
We have focused the last few World Ocean Radio episodes on the value of ecosystems, how we assess, monetize and protect with new practices that are constructive and sustainable. How do we move forward? This week we are discussing potential approaches that include protection of resources and new regulations against abuse and irresponsible consumption, and we propose expanding the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a multi-lateral trust fund, to include a new ocean sustainability bank that incentivizes change and lends funds based on sustainability principles and a new definition of return on investment.
Each year on June 8th we celebrate World Oceans Day, a day set aside to recognize our relationship with the ocean through global connection. What is Oceans Day meant to do? Is it working? Are the voices and the will of the people translating into a voice for change toward a healthy ocean and a sustainable future?
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.
This week on World Ocean Radio we're talking about the latest OUR OCEAN Conference in Palau and the contradiction of mangrove protection and invested monies for environmental protection interests. What happens with all the promises made at OUR OCEAN? Where does the money go? What have past commitments achieved and how are outcomes measured?
Climate change is accelerating change to all global systems. Do we have the power and the will to break the systemic corruption of the global water cycle and take risks to intervene and change?
Pharmaceutical pollution is as important and critical a factor for public health as microplastics and other chemical wastes that enter the water cycle, marine biota, and our bodies. A recent study by researchers at the Global Monitoring of Pharmaceuticals examined 258 rivers around the world and found that pharmaceutical pollution is contaminating water on every continent.
Last week we discussed the vast bio-region of the Amazon River, one of the most productive and important ecosystems on the planet. This week we highlight another system--the taiga--an enormous boreal forest and wetland at the top of Canada and part of the Russian federation. Both of these systems are more valuable sustained than exploited.
The Amazon is one of the most productive and important ecosystems on the planet. What will continue to be lost if we fail to protect the last great wilderness area on Earth?
Is economic growth antithetical to the overall health of society? This week on World Ocean Radio we discuss the concentration of capital and offer two examples of an ocean economy currently dominated by special interests, including the recent creation of Natural Asset Companies designed to turn ecosystem services into tradable commodities.
The biggest single problem facing ocean conversation is the lack of public awareness and political will. Public engagement efforts by agencies, institutes and NGOs are more fulsome than ever, yet the campaigns and power of those invested in the status quo to undermine the data, resist the alternatives, and misinform the public are also as robust as ever. Enter The Economist Magazine--connected to more than 100 million worldwide, and their latest effort to inform the public about marine chemical pollutants. With access to such a vast audience of change agents, it is an opportunity ripe with recruitment opportunity, and an invitation for alliance and amplification.
This week on World Ocean Radio we're discussing the ways we are connected through shared ocean memory and experiences. This episode offers reflections on the ocean as a healing place, where we can use its power to offer hope for generations to come.
This week we're referencing a recent Medium post entitled "The Knowledge-Implementation Gap in Conservation Science: Exploring the Space Between Knowing and Doing" which speaks to what may be the most crucial problem faced by ocean scientists and policy leaders, and offers suggestions for how the situation might be improved by new behaviors, collaboration, and public engagement.
