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.
World Ocean Observatory
30 Episodes
Episodes
Science is one of the best tools available to humanity for understanding the complexities of the unknown and of life on earth. NOAA (the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration of... more
How do we value nature? How do we price it and define its asset value? This week we're looking to a recent report issued by the UK Office of National... more
As we'll demonstrate this week, climate denial is a foolish mistake. We'll show the ways that denial of climate change allows us to ignore prospects of sea level rise, extreme... more
Regulate is a verb with many nuanced meanings: to standardize, to classify, to monitor, to supervise, to coordinate, to administer, to rectify. Government and the courts are designed as the... more
The World Economic Forum recently published a Global Risks Perception Survey which lists both long-term and short-term risks, their impacts, and a severity index by category: environmental, geopolitical, societal, and... more
The Ocean Foundation is calling for a National Commission on the Regenerative Ocean that will be charged with addressing six outcomes over two years as summarized in this episode. A... more
This episode will summarize two recent Maine-based conferences dedicated to ocean issues: the first focused on the blue economy--particularly the emerging aquaculture opportunities along the Atlantic coast, and the second... more
As we address the social and environmental challenges of the day, we are prone to double down on past ideas and approaches. This week on World Ocean Radio we'll argue... more
This week Peter Neill is spending time with his library of books, sharing three titles that quietly evoke the emotion of loss, and the paradox of things lost. “An Exaltation... more
The crisis of water around the world has been the focus of alarm for decades. Millions worldwide do not have adequate water supply for drinking, cooking, and basic sanitation. With... more
We are at war. There can be nothing good about it. Climate crisis, drought, sources of fresh water at risk, population growth, nuclear weapon development, our preoccupation with oil, the... more
How do we generate the energy we need to meet the demands of consumption for the future? Any plans to meet future climate challenges and technological advancement will require not... more
A recent report by InfluenceMap, a UK-based think tank that tracks pertinent climate trends, declared that 32 companies emit more than half of the world's CO2 emissions. Negative consequences of... more
Over the past several years, US national investment in challenges of climate change and ocean policy has collapsed. This week on World Ocean Radio we lay out an incomplete and... more
Water is part of an integrated system worldwide. What happens downstream? Consider waste water--from home and from manufacturing--that is corrupted by use, disposed of, treated (or not), and returned to... more
This week we're wrapping up a four-part series dedicated to Morocco and its relationships to ocean and fresh water. Morocco is one of the only nations in the world to... more
This week on World Ocean Radio: part three of a four-part series dedicated to Morocco and its relationships to ocean and fresh water. Morocco provides myriad examples of real success... more
This week on World Ocean Radio we're exploring an extraordinary museum in Marrakesh, Morocco that celebrates the long history of the sustenance and management of water in the region, from... more
In September, Morocco became the 60th country to ratify the UN High Seas Treaty, designed to protect marine biodiversity and establishing new high seas marine protected areas: a precedent and... more
A special 4-minute reading of "Christmas at Sea", an evocative poem written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1883. Stevenson, the son of a lighthouse engineer, had intimate, first-hand knowledge of... more
This week on a new 5-minute episode of World Ocean Radio we're discussing the word "Hydromancy", its meaning and signs, water in its many forms, and its implication for our... more
This week we are reporting on COP30 (the 30th Conference of the Parties) hosted in Belem, Brazil. The annual gathering is a response to the challenges of climate change; there... more
This week on World Ocean Radio we are reflecting on a time and place no longer familiar: traditions and accepted norms unrecognized, histories forgotten, futures uncertain. How do we recapture... more
Devastating weather and water events abound worldwide, causing havoc in ports, waterfronts, and elsewhere. These are neither new nor are they going away any time soon. How do we rebuild... more
This week Peter Neill, founder of W2O and host of World Ocean Radio, argues that wars, particularly those in the Middle East, are all about the water: rivers, access to... more
The most substantial by-product of human consumption is waste, thus far omitted on balance sheets and in calculation of individual and gross national product. Waste comes in many forms: polluted... more
This week on World Ocean Radio, our host Peter Neill is thinking about the word "solastalgia", described as a deep grief over changing landscapes that were once familiar; feeling ‘homesick’... more
This week on World Ocean Radio we are discussing the September 2025 news that Morocco has become the 60th nation to ratify the High Seas Treaty, a two-decades long process... more
Nature is a significant factor on the global balance sheet, and the cost of nature loss affects many key economic sectors. Denial or exclusion of nature's true value is flawed... more
“Climate change has been one the greatest failures of risk management in modern history.” So states the Back to Blue Initiative, an Economist and Nippon Foundation project. A recent article... more