World Ocean Radio

Series produced by World Ocean Observatory

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5-minute audio essays on global ocean topics by Peter Neill, Director of the World Ocean Observatory

World Ocean Radio is a weekly 5-minute audio feature for web listeners, podcasts, and worldwide distribution through community radio stations and partners. WOR provides weekly 5-minute commentary from longtime host Peter Neill, offering a unique perspective on important and relevant ocean issues. Thanks to private and foundation funds, we are able to offer World Ocean Radio for syndicated use at no cost.

Broadcast affiliates: We automatically send emails every Monday with mp3 file, episode summary, and links to image file and broadcast page. Episodes are also available for direct download from The Pacifica Network and The Public Radio Exchange.

We hope you'll find World Ocean Radio programming engaging and relevant for your listening audience. It is our belief that the sea connects all things. No matter where your listeners live, these broadcasts offer meaningful and relevant information for us all about the state of our world ocean.

Please let us know what you think: CONTACT US at director@thew2o.net so that we may begin sharing World Ocean Radio weekly broadcasts with you and your listening audience.

The WORLD OCEAN OBSERVATORY is a major utility for ocean communication as a means to advance public awareness and political will, and is dedicated to providing information and education about the health of the ocean. We believe that informed citizens worldwide can unite to sustain the ocean through mitigation and change of human behavior on land and sea. Our focus is the full spectrum of ocean issues: climate, fresh water, food, energy, trade, transportation, public health, finance, governance, security, recreation, and culture. It is our belief that the sea connects all things. Hide full description

World Ocean Radio is a weekly 5-minute audio feature for web listeners, podcasts, and worldwide distribution through community radio stations and partners. WOR provides weekly 5-minute commentary from longtime host Peter Neill, offering a unique perspective on important and relevant ocean issues. Thanks to private and foundation funds, we are able to offer World Ocean Radio for syndicated use at no cost. Broadcast affiliates: We automatically send emails every Monday with mp3 file, episode summary, and links to image file and broadcast page. Episodes are also available for direct download from The Pacifica Network and The Public Radio Exchange. We hope you'll find World Ocean Radio programming engaging and relevant for your listening audience. It is our belief that the sea connects all... Show full description


639 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
Caption: Coral Reef of Marsa Shagra in the Red Sea (Egypt) , Credit: Francesco Ungaroon Unsplash | @francesco_ungaro
"The ocean supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems." So states the fifth Ocean Literacy principle, a series of fundamental concepts to he...

  • Added: Apr 20, 2020
  • Length: 04:39
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This week we bring you an abbreviated special edition of World Ocean Radio in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic. In this edition we'll reite...

Bought by KMXT


  • Added: Mar 30, 2020
  • Length: 02:02
  • Purchases: 1
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We interrupt our Ocean Literacy Series to bring you a special episode related to the Covid19 global outbreak. This week on World Ocean Radio we con...

Bought by KMXT


  • Added: Mar 24, 2020
  • Length: 05:50
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau Alaska, Credit: Wikimedia Commons
"The ocean and life in the ocean shape the features of Earth." So states the second principle of the ocean literacy curriculum, a series of fundame...

  • Added: Mar 16, 2020
  • Length: 04:44
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"The Earth Has One Big Ocean With Many Features." So states the first principle of the ocean literacy curriculum, a series of fundamental concepts ...

  • Added: Mar 10, 2020
  • Length: 04:21
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This week's episode of World Ocean Radio kicks off a multi-part series on the key principles of Ocean Literacy. The next eight episodes will provid...

  • Added: Mar 04, 2020
  • Length: 04:14
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Alternative energy is needed more today than ever before. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill asserts that the fossil fuel era i...

  • Added: Feb 24, 2020
  • Length: 04:59
Caption: Black Sand Beach in Reynisfjara, Iceland, Credit: Wikimedia Commons
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 th...

  • Added: Feb 18, 2020
  • Length: 05:52
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Carbon offset programs offer ways for retailers and consumers to help address the challenge of climate impacts and environmental consequences, and ...

  • Added: Feb 11, 2020
  • Length: 10:51
Caption: https://www.techinasia.com/talk/startups-worry-black-swans, Credit: Infographic by Call Levels
Since the mid 2000s, economists have spoken of Black Swans, disruptive financial events that embody three special characteristics: they are rare, w...

  • Added: Feb 04, 2020
  • Length: 05:52
Caption: Youth Climate Strikes (aka Fridays for Future, Youth for Climate) is an international activist movement born of one teenager's staged protests each Friday outside of Sweden's parliament building in August 2018. Greta Thunberg began striking for climate an, Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The climate is in crisis, and the next generation is committed to and has been successful in raising awareness, demanding political action, seeking...

  • Added: Jan 27, 2020
  • Length: 05:31
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This week on World Ocean Radio we highlight the innovative work of the Sasagawa Peace Foundation in Tokyo, Japan, an organization using philanthrop...

  • Added: Jan 21, 2020
  • Length: 05:48
Caption: A Moken fisherman of the Myeik Archipelago, Myanmar, Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Moken is a Thai word meaning sea people, people of water, sea nomads or sea gypsies. The Moken are a group of Austronesian people of an archipelago...

  • Added: Jan 14, 2020
  • Length: 05:32
Caption: Fresh drinking water from brackish seawater in Kiunga, Kenya , Credit: © GivePower
In the middle ages, alchemists for a time believed they could turn base metal into gold. This early endeavor may be the origin story for modern inv...

  • Added: Jan 07, 2020
  • Length: 04:31
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Each year during the holidays, longtime World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill reads "At The Fishhouses", a poem by Elizabeth Bishop. This is a perenni...

  • Added: Dec 30, 2019
  • Length: 04:38
Caption: A heavy sea crossing the deck of the Parma (1902) , Credit: Alan John Villiers, 1933 © National Maritime Museum Collections
This week on World Ocean Radio we have a special reading of "Christmas at Sea", an evocative poem by Robert Louis Stevenson written in 1883. Steven...

Bought by WCAI / WNAN Cape & Islands, Mass.


  • Added: Dec 24, 2019
  • Length: 03:23
  • Purchases: 1
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This week on World Ocean Radio we explore the lessons of the ocean and the concept of adversity: adversity at sea due to weather, unpredictability,...

  • Added: Dec 10, 2019
  • Length: 05:09
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This week on World Ocean Radio we tell a tale of two cities--Newtok, Alaska (pop. 380) and Jakarta, Indonesia (pop. 30 mil)--6,000 miles apart yet ...

  • Added: Dec 03, 2019
  • Length: 05:22
Caption: Kalhuthukala Magu Malé, Maldives
How many ways do we hear the sound of water? In this episode of World Ocean Radio we explore water, the most essential element on earth, and the wa...

  • Added: Nov 26, 2019
  • Length: 04:45
Caption: Varvakeios Municipal Fish Market, Athens, Greece, Credit: Aris Sfakianakis
Fish markets are the noisy, colorful, exiting, authentic and lively centers of any coastal city, the place where mongers and customers, tourists an...

  • Added: Nov 19, 2019
  • Length: 05:23