World Ocean Radio - Climate

Climate
March 18, 2024

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 asset value, balance and imbalance of our planet's natural resources: coal, oil, gas, minerals, water, and food: the wealth of our world.

March 12, 2024

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 demand. What to do? Are we destined to repeat the mistakes of the past? Or do we possess the collective will to develop creative solutions for repair, redesign and reconstruction for our 21st century transportation, supply, and municipal needs?

February 27, 2024

The sun is the greatest energy source available for our needs, thought we view it more today as an enemy than a resource and friend. If we are to accept the sun as the solution rather than the problem, how do we capture its enormous energy potential at scale? This week on World Ocean Radio we explore some encouraging progress, from individual to collaborative to collective, to public and private and political, as a means to design a practical response to enable the possibility of accelerated change.

February 12, 2024

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 solutions, the focus and associated response was too narrow and inadequate to address the deficit consumption of our world's natural and ecological resources.

January 23, 2024

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 we will continue to rebuild and revive, the time is now to plan a response as complicated as the issues we face, to admit to mistakes made, and to welcome new policies and initiatives that build a future that works, even in the face of increasingly unpredictable climate events.

October 30, 2023

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 to consider an ambitious finance-driven program of climate-change response and implementation; the second is an ambitious climate commitment by the State of California to reach 100% carbon-free by 2045, as part of their proven commitment to environmental protection and action.

August 14, 2023

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 their voices heard and their calls to action heeded. We must reinforce their resolve, their commitment and their acceptance of RESCUE: R for renewal; E for environment; S for society; C for collaboration; U for understanding; and E for engagement.

April 10, 2023

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 commitment to be responsible stewards of a healthy and sustainable ocean, to advance environmental justice and engage with all communities, and to coordinate action across governments.

January 30, 2023

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 specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.

December 6, 2022

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 take?

November 28, 2022

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?

November 22, 2022

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.

November 1, 2022

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?

October 17, 2022

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.

October 4, 2022

This week on World Ocean Radio we're talking about the circulation of water worldwide, and the importance of canals and waterways to bring us together and sustain us into the future.

September 20, 2022

This week on World Ocean Radio: a summary of fifteen new ocean challenges as identified by the conclusions of thirty conservation experts around the world, published in a July 2022 report in the journal "Nature Ecology and Evolution."

September 21, 2020

This week on World Ocean Radio: part six of the multi-part BLUEprint series. In this episode–Climate Equity–we talk about the continued devolving U.S. response to the Paris Climate Accord and the potential pitfalls of indifference, inadequate reaction and failed governance. The "BLUEprint Series: How the Ocean Will Save Civilization" outlines a new and sustainable path forward, with the ocean leading the way.

February 10, 2020

Carbon offset programs offer ways for retailers and consumers to help address the challenge of climate impacts and environmental consequences, and can provide an effective means of contributing to conservation and sustainable practices . In this episode of World Ocean Radio we share a carbon offset initiative in partnership with South Pole and UCapture that supports progressive action toward a carbon-diminished future.

August 13, 2019

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity's annual demands on Nature exceed the capacity for Earth's ecosystems to regenerate those resources within that year. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we discuss the red alert that is this overshoot day, 2019, showing that we are living beyond nature's means to sustain our growing demands.

July 23, 2019

"Mother Earth has the following rights: To life, to the diversity of life, to water, to clean air, to equilibrium, to restoration, and to pollution-free living." So states the Law of Mother Earth, a Bolivian law passed in December 2010 as a binding societal duty. Bolivia is the first country on Earth to give comprehensive legal rights to Mother Nature, and in this episode of World Ocean Radio we explore the language contained in the legislation and assert that Bolivia may be inventing a social model that will show how we as a global community might transcend conflict and division toward a harmonious and sustainable future.

June 11, 2019

This week on World Ocean Radio we're talking about solutions to the climate challenge by highlighting some modern examples of and possibilities for conversion: industries across America shifting from conventional and failing ways of doing business to an embrace of enterprising and inventive opportunities for a sustainable future.

April 29, 2019

How does the Green New Deal integrate with the best desired practices and changes for the ocean? In this episode of World Ocean Radio we outline a paper published by The Ocean Foundation that addresses three ocean areas that must be considered as part of a vision and strategy for developing a more sustainable economy: shipping, energy production and food security.

March 26, 2019

World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill recently returned home from a trip to Antarctica aboard MS Island Sky with scientists from Woods Hole and a film crew from BBC-ONE, sharing insights and knowledge with other citizen scientists aboard. In this episode he offers reflections on his experiences in the last wilderness.

October 15, 2018

2018 was a summer of extremes: hurricanes, wildfires, drought, floods, heat, earthquakes, tsunami. It's increasingly evident that human intervention is largely responsible for these natural disasters and their outcomes. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we talk about the distribution of loss, recognizing the poorest among us to be the least resilient in the face of such disasters, and most likely to be affected by them. We discuss the growing likelihood that climate change will cause increased displacement around the planet and will make refugees out of many of us. Where will we go? What will we do when we get there? How will we survive?

August 14, 2018

This week's episode of World Ocean Radio kicks off a multi-part series on the Ocean Literacy Principles. The next eight episodes will provide an anthology of reflections, examples and illustrations that represent responses to the ocean and the environmental challenges we face. We will focus not only on ocean science and the ways that the Ocean Literacy curriculum aligns with the current educational system in the United States, but also on the ways that ocean relates to climate, fresh water, food, energy, health, work, trade, transportation and much more.