Human Relationship with the Ocean: Why Losing This Connection Could Cost Us Everything

0:00 When you meet someone who has shaped Ocean communication for more than two decades, you expect a pretty big story. What you do not expect is someone who never saw the Ocean until they were 18, then built one of the most influential virtual Ocean platforms in the world. Peter Neal has spent his life asking two simple questions. What if we tried something bold for the Ocean? And why not do it now? That's what we're gonna be talking about in today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, Marine biologist and science communicator who's here to tell you what's happening with the Ocean, how you can speak up for the Ocean, and what you can do to live for a better Ocean by taking action.

0:41 And this podcast is part of the larger Speak Up for Blue Podcast Network where we podcast with the purpose. And today the purpose is to kind of go over the history of science communication for the Ocean by interviewing the Peter Neal. Peter Neal has been doing science communication. For over two decades, probably more than that. He saw a calling at one point in his life. He's had a lot of different points in his life where he's done some pretty incredible things. At one point he said, Hey, there's a call to do something about the Ocean. In the early two thousands when the internet was still in its infancy. And he said, Hey, you know what? I'm gonna take this on.

1:21 I'm gonna build a virtual platform that talks about the Ocean. I'm gonna build programs that are free and accessible to everybody, and we're gonna basically educate and make aware of millions of people about the Ocean and what's happening within and what they can do to better protect it. This is a man who's had the World Ocean Radio for 21 years and he's had the World Ocean Observatory for even longer. And it's somebody I can't wait for you to meet and to hear how he started all this stuff. If you want to go over to the World Ocean Radio and listen to his three to five minute episodes, you can do so. I'll put the links in the show notes, so check that out.

2:02 But until then, here's the interview with Peter Neil. Enjoy and I'll talk to you after. Hey, Peter, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Are you ready to talk about podcasting, science, communication, the Ocean and everything that falls under and in between and all over? I'm always ready. That's, that's all I do. Indeed. It is. You know what, you know, it's really, it's really interesting to have you on the podcast because I don't know of anybody who's been, uh, podcasting or doing radio longer than I have, which is, it's kind of, this is, this is really surreal to be able to talk to you. Uh, we've talked before in the past and we've kind of, you know, talked online and, and, And so forth, but this is the first time we've had, you know, you on, on the podcast.

2:49 And I'm super excited to kind of get the history around your activities, around the Ocean, uh, and get, you've been doing this for a long time and I want to get your perspective of where you began, where you've been, And then where you think everything is going. Uh, because I think it's really important. We're at a, a, a lot of. Um, you know, junctions in our life as we, as we speak, cop 30 is, uh, getting ready to go, or if it's not already gone or it's already happening. Uh, and we're starting to see some of the things that have come out of that. And obviously, you've, you've been around for a lot of cops and, and, uh, you know, probably analyzed them and begrudge them as well as with, with some of their, their, uh, you know, the, their, their results And so forth.

3:32 But we're gonna talk all about that and talk about your, your work in starting, uh, world Oceans Radio and the World Ocean Observatory, and where it's going and where it's at, and all the stuff that you've done in between. So I'm super, super excited, but, uh, what I want to do right now is just get to know who you are. So, Peter, before we get into all of that stuff, let us know who you are and what you do. Uh, well, I'm Peter Neal. I'm director, founder, and, uh, now senior advisor, uh, to the World Ocean Observatory. Uh, I come out of, um, a kind of creative path of travel Army, uh, published, uh, fiction, uh, in the seventies, taught And then got involved.

4:15 Uh, uh, I actually never saw the Ocean till I was 18. I was born in St. Louis. Uh, my Ocean was the Mississippi River, which of course is part of the Ocean. Yes. Um. But, um, I, uh, at one point moved out of teaching, uh, at university to, uh, running a small environmental organization in New Haven, Connecticut that had sailing vessel, uh, and was taking young people, uh, sailing to give them introductions to Marine science and sea experience. And then I went on from there to become the director of the Maritime Program for the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington. Went thereafter on to run the South Street Seaport Museum, uh, in New York City for 20 years.

5:00 And then around 2005, I moved Maine and I brought with me, uh, an idea, uh, uh, for the World Ocean Observatory. Uh, it was not mine. Mm-hmm. In 1998, there was an international commission on the future of the Ocean, which was chaired by Mario Schwarz, the former president of Portugal. A great man. And that same year he convened also a, um, uh, uh, an independent commission on, on freshwater. Mm-hmm. Outta the freshwater came the World, world Water Manifesto, the World Water Forum, and began the whole, uh, sort of concept of an international.

5:43 Uh, appreciation, understanding, and promotion of research about the freshwater part of the system. Uh, at the same time, the Commission on the Oceans published a report, which is called, uh, the Ocean, our Future, uh, published by Oxford University Press. I founded in a dollar bin in it, Cambridge, uh, Massachusetts, uh, book, book, book store, and sat down and read it at. In a sitting, um, and my life was changed. Uh, the penultimate recommendation was that there be a web base utility, uh, about the Ocean defined as an integrated global social system so that it looked beyond the conventional definition of the Ocean as a, as a place for species and habitat for research and policy.

6:32 Uh, and looked at the much, much, much larger interconnection of all aspects of the global contribution of the Ocean, the freshwater saltwater continuum, uh, to the history of human endeavor and civilization. Uh, it's a big idea, uh, and I was about to say that's a big idea. But, and I did some due diligence. I, I actually went to see, um, uh, Bob Gagosian, who was head of Woods Hole at the time, and now mm-hmm. Was, And then went to Noah. Um, I went to see Julie Packard out on the west coast at, at, at the Monterey Aquarium.

7:13 I was in touch with, um, um, uh, her deepness, uh, Sylvia Earl, who was always generous and supportive. Mm-hmm. Um, and, uh, And then also a fellow by the name of Patricia Burnell, who at the time was the Executive SEC Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanic Commission of the un. And he had been on the swish panel. So he knew the project and I went to see him in the lobby at the un. I had no qualifications, no, no degrees, um, no, no real experience other than sort of maritime history ships and experience.

7:54 And I said, can I do this? And he said, well, it was supposed to be done by a group of guys in Malta. They're never gonna do it. Mm-hmm. Uh, why not? I love it when people say to me, why not? Uh, uh, it, it, it's, it's, uh, why not to me is the perfect answer to my question. What if, right? Um, what do we do with this? Well, why not? Yeah. And so there with literally no resources, uh, it began, and that was now 20, 22 years ago. Uh, and with no resources, I basically put together a new model at the time, truly an innovation, which was that we were to be from the beginning mm-hmm.

8:45 A, um, a virtual organization that we did not need a building. We did not need a facade. We did not need massive overheads. Uh, we did not need huge staff. Uh, and we started with myself and a halftime, uh, person. Mm-hmm. And out of it came a kind of plethora of ideas that basically has been an iteration of the first drawing on the napkin when I lay out, well, what's it going to be and how is it going to work, Um, So I like to, I like to think that, that, uh, our budget is a fraction of the pizza budget of a major environmental organization.

9:27 Uh, uh, we reach measurably. Millions of people worldwide. Yeah. Uh, trying to understand that. Yes, it's great that we, we, we deal with, uh, all the con the existing organizations and the conferences. It's all good. I don't ever want to disparage it. I do want to say, however, ask the question. Um, uh, when the, uh, UN Secretary General looks at the global response to the challenge of climate, which is Ocean. Yep. And Ocean are the same.

10:08 Yep. Principle driver of climate is Ocean. Agreed. Uh, and you, um, and he says, well, um, uh, uh, you know, not enough. Not not, and not in time. Not enough. Not in time. And to me, that is a massive, uh. Stunning, crazy true evaluation of enormous amounts of energy and money. Mm-hmm. And good intentions that have been invested in the Ocean movement, the Ocean conservation press, sustainability movement, um, for, for decades.

10:53 Um, and, uh, the, if you look at the current director of IOC and he talks about, you know, transformation. And my argument is that if you're trying to look at the transformation of knowledge to action, uh, you, there are four stages. One is research. You have to, you have to know what the knowledge is. So research and data, um, that typically gets, uh, it's, its, it's its own sort of amplifying feed, uh, endless loop, uh, where literally generations of scholars train generations of scholars in their disciplines, in their approaches, uh, judging their PhD, uh, dissertations.

11:41 And, and it's all a kind of self, self-fulfilling organizational mm-hmm. Structure. Um, but the good news is it exists. It's a huge amount of new information, um, and it in many cases has been taken and moved into policy. Hmm. So policy has essentially become the focus of many, many, yeah. Uh, governmental organizations, uh, many, many independent, not-for-profit organizations. Uh, how do you take the data, turn it into policy, apply the policy worldwide, um, and, um. While we do data and, and science, great. Uh, we don't do policy as well. True.

12:21 And the problem with that is, is that we are compromised often by, um, you know, vested interests and fear of change. Mm-hmm. Uh, and that those two negative destructive forces, um, slow our momentum. But in the progression from science to policy, there are two more stages. And one stage is education, and I now mean informal and formal education from the bottom up and from the inside out. Mm-hmm. And the fourth one is communication. That is how do you take this message, let's call it cumulatively Ocean literacy and extend it.

13:06 Worldwide to, yeah. The people who will be the intergenerational constituency to perpetuate the science perpetuate and apply the policy and actually provide the political will to make something happen so that we can say soon it's more than enough in time. Mm-hmm. And when I raise the question and I say, well, what we have done, I can't, I, I, I don't wanna criticize what we have done. I'll let other people do that For me, what I say to people is, if it hasn't succeeded to our expectation, then let's ask the question, what have we not done?

13:54 Mm-hmm. And when you look at that, you come back to education. Beyond higher education. Yeah. And you come back to communication beyond the confines of your own institutional agenda mm-hmm. Or personal career aspiration or all, all of that. Um, So the World Ocean Observatory created this model in which we could apply that perspective effectively and economically. Yep. Uh, on a very, very small amount of annual investment on which we can demonstrate an astonishing return.

14:35 When I get a grant or when I get a gift from somebody, a contribution to somebody, my, my argument to them is, measure us by the return on investment. And we'll prove to you that what we are doing is reaching people with responsible science, with responsible policy, with, uh, educational innovation, and with global communications. So how do you, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. How do you, how do you do that, like right from the get go? I mean, it's, it's a big undertaking you took from the get go, putting up a site, virtually reaching out to people. Even at that time, the internet had caught on, but not everybody was on the internet like you see now.

15:19 It wasn't part of our daily lives. Like we had desktop computers, maybe laptops were coming out. At that point. People were starting to use them, but even then they weren't like crazy popular that, that the age that we're in now, uh, almost the age of ai. But even before that, where we had, we had phones and stuff like that, those are just starting to come out. Um, even maybe a little bit after, like the iPod may have just started to come out at that point. How did you get to reach so many people through the website? Like how did you build it to get, like, to make those connections? Were they, was it a slow growth or was it something that caught on quickly because we hadn't seen anything like it? Well, both, uh, it caught on quickly 'cause we hadn't seen it.

16:01 And, uh, it has been slow inexorable growth every year. Um, the, the, the, the, the rate of participation and engagement goes up and up and up and up and the budget hardly moves at all. Right. And what I I, it's an interesting question. Nobody's really ever asked me this before 'cause I don't claim prescient. Right. But what I do would, would, is offer, as an explanation is that when I was running the Maritime museum in New York City, I had an enormous story to tell. The maritime contribution, uh, to the history of the state, the city of the state, and the nation is an astonishingly powerful story.

16:47 It basically is the history of the acculturation of America, uh, the, the, and the arrival of goods, people and ideas. It's a huge story to tell. Mm-hmm. Two, it's in a huge market. Mm-hmm. Three. Uh, if it was going to remain a maritime museum of the conventional ilk, it was already in trouble and it was going to die. And when I came there, um, not trained as a museum professional, as director as I was already multimillion dollars in debt. So you, when you are faced with an insurmountable problem, it may well be that you say, Hmm, what we have been doing isn't good enough and not right time.

17:35 And so what do you do? You create, you invent something that you haven't done. And so we would, uh, from the beginning I argued that, uh, museums in, in, in New York state are, are chartered by the, uh, board of Regents, the educational organization, state level. Your charters an educational organization. We did no education. So what we did then was to say we are going to become not just a repository of, of global, of imminent collections. Eminent collections. Uh, we have, you know, 140,000 objects and paintings. We also had the largest fleet of historic ships in the world.

18:18 Right. Through thousand tons of ships that had to be restored in the water. Yeah. And we, well, alright, we're not gonna just restore them as passive objects, uh, uh, tied to the dock. We're gonna sail them. And so we restored them to sailing condition. We took people, uh, people out on the water so they could have the experience of a of a, of a Gloucester fisherman. Yeah. And then we went even beyond that, we just, we, it wasn't just simply, oh, go, let's go for a boat ride on an old boat. We suddenly started creating programs that were social history programs, expeditionary learning programs. Uh, we took, um, uh, we, we were given a grant of half a million dollars to take this a hundred year old schooner, uh, with, with, uh, uh, young men who were just ending up in the welfare system in the state of Maine.

19:10 It turned out, uh, and they were gonna be let free with a hundred bucks in their hand, and that they, they, they had no, no prep, right? So we took them with social workers, how all the way to Argentina and back in a hundred year old sailing vessel. Wow. And when they came back, yeah, they, they were transformed because it was before the mast. It was the, and when you look at experience at sea, let's just talk about it for a minute. What do you, what do you learn? Well, the captain is a violet in violet authority. Whatever he says, she says goes. Yeah. One, two, yeah. There is a line of communication that starts at the top and goes down, and it has to be direct and clear, received and understood.

20:01 The value of time. You understand the, the, the, the what, what the meaning of time. You understand what it means to be on time to stand watch. You also know that there are times when timelessness requires that no matter what the time is, you get up and you get out of bed and you go to the four deck, or you go aloft. Mm-hmm. Uh, you learn respect for competence and skill. You understand that the whole life of the vessel could be at risk by the failure of a single knot. Yeah, so competence, you are in nature 24 hours a day, you're living close with people And so you have to understand human relationships.

20:49 So you take all of that and you say, alright, we're turning that boat, that boat, that historic vessel that you could just put on the dock and charge a few dollars and people would walk on board and Hmm, fine. Yeah. And turn it into a progressive teaching platform. It changes the entire value and the economics. Absolutely. And so, absolutely we're beginning to get half a million dollars to go to Argentina. We got, uh, major grants. Here's another one. We took blind children sailing. So we had a different vessel, also historic landmark, um, flat, uh, uh, hard shine, shallow draft in New York Harbor.

21:32 And we would get funds to bring blind children, usually between, you know, uh, 14 and 16, 12 to 1416 with their chaperones. And we would go out into New York Harbor, we'd turn off the edges, we'd raise the sails. We'd ask the kids to lie down on the deck and we'd sail until we, just the point when they would, we were afraid they might fall asleep. And we would say, alright, let's sit up and sit in a circle. Mm-hmm. Sailing there, the Statue of Liberty going by and ask them, what did you see? Yeah.

22:13 And invariably, invariably it brought us all to tears. I can imagine. 'cause these children were articulating their senses, their the sounds and the feel of, of an experience in the natural world, unlike incredible anything they've ever done before. Yeah. And they were asked to tell you what it seemed like. What did they see? And it was astonishing. So if you look at that way of looking at collections, you realize that, um, uh, you've changed the nature of the place.

22:54 Mm-hmm. And people's wake up, people start to come. People start to say, we did the first history of black exhibition in the United States on, on the history of slavery. Wow. It had never been touched by maritime museums. It is a immigration, maritime immigration story. Right. And it, and it transformed America. Yeah. Yeah. The cultural impact of slavery on America Yeah. Is alive and well and astonishingly powerful still today. Absolutely. But we can go about all this history and we can bitch on this, complain about this and that, and have racist conversations to all the rest. But the cultural impact of slavery is alive and well and part of our national culture and identity.

23:39 And we had the first exhibit I brought a priest from, from uh, uh, from Africa to bless the exhibit. And we marketed it to the black churches of New York. And suddenly in the Maritime Museum where the audience was 99% white, we were inundated with people of that were all the descendants of slaves. Right. And we respected them. We invited them in. We asked for their participation. We asked for their sensibility, and we were then suddenly an entirely, uh, different place again.

24:23 So by essentially becoming a participatory place, a place for invention, um, a place for, uh, um, uh, uh, attacks on the con on the conventions, uh, and the prediction, uh, the expectations. People began to say, well, yes, we we'll support that. Yes, we'll support that. Yeah. Yes, we'll support that. And we raised $40 million and we built a new, we took an 1807 building in New York, lower Manhattan, right opposite the Brooklyn Bridge. And we turned it into, but we also were the landlord of the Fulton Fish Market. And it became an exhibit. I said, okay. Huh. The fish market is alive and well, it's a living exhibit.

25:04 Yeah, it's not a fake little demonstration No. Of an outdoor museum. It's the real bloody thing. And so we would have programs through the, through the, the Fulton mish market in the middle of the night. And so that we became the largest elder hostile provider. Um, in, in, uh, in, in the program actually, we, I was the single largest buyer of hotel room nights in New York. And I would go and cut deals where I'd get a $250 hotel room for $72 a night. Right. And then we would turn that and we'd market that to, uh, elder hostel. And then we brought thousands, thousands of mature travelers, interested, educated travelers.

25:49 They would come in, they'd stayed in the lo uh, Manhattan and New York. They'd walk the Brooklyn Bridge, they'd go to the field market, they'd go to the slavery exhibition. They'd go sailing on the historic vessels. And it became an entirely new, um. Uh, uh, touristic, let's say. Yeah. Uh, uh, you know, expeditionary experience. So the argument here is not, um, necessarily to just bemoan the, the, the change. The idea is to drive change. Yeah. To invent change. And when you do that, you begin to say and reach people who've never been touched before.

26:36 Yeah. Social media at the time, Facebook was all there was. Yep. But that was good enough. Yep. And we, it just astonished me to watch the, the line of participations and followers mm-hmm. And the comments and the, and the forwards and the reposts and all that sort of stuff. And then with LinkedIn I said, okay, we're not gonna just do generic LinkedIn. We're gonna say, you have to be in this group. You have to be, um, um, you have to be a professional. Right. You have to be scientist. A policy. Yeah. Whatever future, whatever it may be in the Ocean sphere. And, uh, I think we're at 16,600.

27:17 That's a really good list. Absolutely. Those are people who can make a difference. Yeah. Right. Um, And then two more, uh, if you, uh, um, uh, if you want to. Expand your audience. You can, you can be a museum. So we started doing online exhibits. We took online exhibits from other maritime museums and promoted them. Uh, then there came Road, world Ocean Radio wrote World Ocean Radio. I just ra wrote and recorded today the 775th edition of Worlders and Radio. Amazing.

27:57 And it's heard all over the world. Yeah. Both Coastal Africa, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, uh, across the United States through, uh, not-for-profit radio, NPR AquaPORT, uh, audio port and uh, uh, PRX. Uh, and, um, all of these things represent, um, a contribution to our calculation of value, which is our job is to bring together a global community of citizens of the Ocean. Right. And the tools allow us to reach those people anywhere.

28:39 And then I'll give you one more. All right. Um, we decided about four years ago, I said, look, we have to do more than we have to become educators. Mm-hmm. Um, beyond what we have already been doing. So we created, um, something called World Ocean, Ocean Explorer. I had founded two high schools in the Marine environment. One in New Haven called the Harbor School, and the other, uh, no, called the Sound School. And the one in New York on Ellis, uh, on Governor's Island called, um, uh, the, uh, the Harbor School. And these are, yeah, these are public high schools, uh, that run by the local systems, education departments of education.

29:20 Mm-hmm. But the entire, uh, curriculum is water based, is Ocean based. That's so cool. And they've been going for 20 years now. Uh, and the, the, so everybody who goes through that school goes through that program. It goes through. That's program. It's not a choice, not elective. Yeah. Um, it has professional training, it has agricultural training. Yes. It sort creates, it creates jobs for people. Mm-hmm. These are inner city kids, right? Mm-hmm. New Haven, poor, multiracial, inner city kids. Sometimes those kids are an hour on the train to get to the trophy, to get to the ferry, right. To get, uh, to the school on time. They miss the ferry.

30:01 They're, they, they lose the day. Right. So the discipline of just going to school, it's huge. Is, is, is part of the process. Yeah. Anyway, so the idea was to create a virtual aquarium, and, uh, it was, uh, and we. We, uh, we, I had myself and one other person part-time. Uh, And then we brought in another person, part-time, who is a, uh, a, a, a designer. Uh, he has a PhD, but he's a platform designer, software guy. Great man, great guy. And he and, uh, and the, and the, and the managing director and myself essentially started to build this, this thing, uh, it's going to have 10 modules.

30:45 It, it's going to document as a virtual aquarium, you literally, it's built on a gaming platform. Yeah. You walk in, you can go to through exhibits, you can participate. There's an associated curriculum. Um, and it's been funded. The, the first one on the Deep Sea has been funded now for three years by the Schmidt Ocean Institute. Yeah. Uh. Uh, other organizations and funders are seeing it as a, as a really incredible return on investment mm-hmm. Of, of reaching millions of people with a very small, focused contribution. Uh, and we now have, uh, are have cohorts of teachers in all around the world, um, and they are testing the, the, the program in the schools.

31:32 We have photographs and videos. We're now essentially creating teaching stations that can go into any environmental organization in the world, uh, for free. Mm-hmm. It's available to you for free, no barrier entry accessible to everybody. You just have to go on the website, on any device, anywhere at any time. Yeah. Uh, no barrier entry, including language next month, this December we will try, it will be translated into, uh, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. So that opens us up into, uh, more into Africa and into Latin America. Yeah. Yeah. South America, uh, and uh, also German and Arabic. Um, And so that the, what the Asian languages are to come Chinese and Japanese, but ultimately even that barrier to entry will be eradicated.

32:22 Right. And it, it is all available at no cost. I think that's a, that's a really important aspect is the accessibility, because, you know, a lot of these things, these games, you know, there's always a payment. There's always a monthly plan, a monthly subscription and things like that. But, you know, you, you know, we need to educate everybody. It's not just a specific sector of, of the population, you know, whether it be in the US or, or elsewhere. Uh, having this aspect. Um, have you seen just an uptake in the amount of people there? Are you already seeing an uptake in the amount of people that are, that are playing it? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And the, and our best marketeers are the, our best marketers are the teachers.

33:05 Yeah. And the teachers. The teach the, the thing in the past, as you heard, you have a package, uh, and you're trying to, you, you have to sell it. And so the administrator, the principal, or the Board of education said, oh, there's no money now. You can't do that. You don't have enough money to buy paper and pencils so you can Right. You can't afford this. No. Completely bypassed. This is available to the teacher. Teacher has their stem and steam. There are all these criteria and standards. Yeah. All of it's met it by design. Yeah. But what happens is, is that the teachers are looking around for the easiest, best, most effective tool. And these kids are all computer.

33:46 Literate. They know how to do it. They know how to operate game, a game on a gaming platform. Yep. And so we make it not, there's no guns, there's no explosions, there's no rewards, none of that stuff. It's school. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But it, uh, but it can be, let's call it education, but it, so it can be, uh, a homeschooling parent can use it to great advantage. Yeah. Uh, an aquarium or a museum, American museum could use it inside their, um, uh, uh, education department. Yeah. In a way that they don't have to go out and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to build an interactive exhibit.

34:30 They've got it for free in seven languages. I love it. Think, but you have to, what you have to do. Where's the, where's the tie up? The tie up is the conventional thinking. The teacher that says, uh, I don't know, or the administrator says, well, we can't afford that. We've never done it before. Yeah. That it's getting, that, that's convincing them is selling them on the, the fact that not only is it free, but it's beneficial. But the teacher's, your agent, the teacher is your, is your agent, your subversive agent? The teacher says to the science coordinator in the department, Hey, I'm supposed to teach these principals. Yeah. All of those principals are in here.

35:11 Look at the kids' faces. Look at what's happening. Look at what they're doing. They're now making models of whale falls. They're doing Yeah. They're doing interactive things with, with high hydrothermal vent. They're doing all of this stuff that, that before was just nonsense to them. They're now doing it in an excited and participatory way, and that's how they're learning. Yeah. I argue that everything that we do is to that end at that level of, of, of, of sophistication and at that economy of cost. Unreal. Unreal. And why? And you know what?

35:51 I, I, you know who, I have to be careful, you know, I'm a bit of a, I, I do, uh, I do speak my mind and that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Well, certain times, but often, um, you approach a funder and the funder says, well, you know, we have our program. The parameters and this, that, and the other thing. And, And then, or you, you've, uh, or you, you finally find your way into a foundation. Very, not so easy to do. They just don't write, open up the website. No, for sure. Oh, see, finally, weasel your way in. Somehow, somehow, uh, and you've gotta contact and the connection you get there and you're, oh, excited.

36:35 I got to put this down. Meets all the criteria. It's winner, right? Oh, no. Julia just retired or left to go have her third child, And so we're going to have to hire a new program officer. Oh, and by the way, we're going to do a reevaluation of our, of our, uh, our program, uh, parameters. And, uh, we may not even be interested in the Ocean in 12 months. Yeah. I'll give you another example. The worst one of all, uh, a major international foundation with a long history in, in a particular subject. Uh, I had met the director. I had met the staff people I had been encouraged to apply.

37:19 We were in their suite spot. It was about a amount of money. Well, within the, their capacity. Yeah. They took the, they, they gave us an incredibly difficult format. We met the format, put it all in there. They kept it for 365 days and sent us a rote, formulaic email of rejection. And I said to myself, okay, I, people have said, I've heard no so many times. Yeah. I was a fiction writer for years.

37:59 I was submitting to stories, to the, I was submitting to the New Yorker or the, the, the Kenyan Journal or whatever it may be. I got, I have a file here filled with nos notes from editors and you know all, oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no, no. I've heard a million nos. Yeah. That one hurt more than anything. Mm-hmm. Because what do you do? Well, you, you, you, you walk away and you just live a fight again. You've done a lot of work so that work can be picked up and taken someplace else, and you then, you never know. You, you walk into a place one day and somebody says, what you do what? And, um, I said, well, I, I can show it to you.

38:42 I can show it to you on my. I'll show it to you on my phone. I like right here I can, we can walk through it. You can see a whole video if you wanna see it, see how it works. See the kids laughing and playing and doing. Mm-hmm. Uh, and they said, this is an incredible, uh, how are you funded? And I said, well, we're funded by, we're funded by prescient individuals, people who have the capacity of an openness to look forward, not stuck in the moment. Mm-hmm. And not stuck in the past. Yeah. So, um, you know, uh, And then we, not only, we have a publications program. We've done a whole bunch of books, uh, mine and others.

39:25 Um, uh, and my swan song is next year, which is basically called, uh, volution How the Ocean Will Save Civilization. We don't have a plan. We don't have a plan. Yeah. National. We have a, at one point we had two national Ocean plans in the United States. Doesn't matter. Nobody's implemented them. Now there's nobody responsible for actually doing anything with them. Right. There's no money Um, So how do you expect there, uh, there to be a national agenda or a national progress if there is no plan? And the plan, if it's only driven by science and policy has already essentially proven that it doesn't work.

40:08 Right. Yeah. And so what's the plan? So I'm writing a plan. I like it. I like, I like it. I like it. This is what I like. 'cause you and I are similar in, in a lot of ways. Uh, it's, if it's not there, you're gonna do it. Right? Yeah. Like, if it's like, you know, you, you felt the call at, you know, right from the beginning. Okay. We need a virtual platform to reach out to people, to educate people. We need to make it accessible. We need to make it interesting. We need to ensure that people are ready for this and they can access it and they can enjoy it, and they can learn from it. You built that. You didn't wait for, you know, the UN to build it. You didn't wait for the US government to build it.

40:50 You didn't wait for other governments to build it, or other big, large organizations who could have built it. Nobody built it. You were like, all right, I'm gonna build it. I'm the same way with, with the podcast. For me, I was like, nobody's talking about this stuff. You know, nobody's talking about specific, you know, projects. Nobody's talking about the, to the people and getting interviews and this and that. At that time, nobody was talking about it. Obviously, more people are talking about it now, but it's like, it's that conservation aspect and conservation. So I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna start it. You know? We doesn't have to do it with a huge budget. You know, it's actually kind, kind of interesting Peter, and I'm sure we could say the same thing for you when you, when you first started with your team. I had a friend of mine who, who I, a good friend of mine who, who I was talking to a couple weeks ago, and he said, you know, Andrew, he is like, everything you do, I was telling him all the stuff I do, like my whole process for, for the, to publish an episode in each podcast.

41:39 And, and he is like, everything you do, it would take like 12 people in a nonprofit organization to do Exactly right. And I'm just like, I don't understand how that's happened. Like, for me it's just like, let's just do it. Like if we, if it needs to get done, I'll figure out a way to get done. And, and we are, I'm very fortunate in the time that we live in today, you know, I can, I can do it. Like, I can schedule posts, I can do stuff. Like, it's easy to start a podcast. Like for you when you did radio, it must have been a lot more challenging to do, but you did it and we've, we, we both find ways to do stuff to bring it to the people, whether it's going to be. Super, super popular or just reach small audiences around the world and make it accessible.

42:24 And being able to educate people and grow that, and grow that and grow that. And then we get into a big, we get into a point like, you know, for me, I've had almost 3 million downloads for you. You've reached millions and millions of people across the world, you know, over over 20 some odd years. And we've been able to do that. Just being like, yeah, this, this is the call to action. Okay, let's do the call to action. Nobody else is gonna do it. All right. You're not gonna, you know, you're not gonna fund it like multimillion dollars a year. Okay, fine. We'll just kind of piece it together through grants and, you know, like with this explorer through the Smit Ocean Smith, Smit Ocean Institute, things like that. People who can get it and sell it and work your butt off as sort of like a, like an independent organization that's bringing all these people together, right.

43:09 Well, take me, take me through like that. Like, do you get I get frustrated every once in a while by people not doing it on a bigger scale. Do you get frustrated by the, like, you know, you, you talked about some of the frustrations that you get, you seeing it as people want it, you seeing it's accessible, but not getting the funding for it. When you get frustrated like that, what do you do? What's the next step when you go through that process? I, um, I, I, I go, um, I go to my Ocean space. I go to my Ocean place. Uh, I, it's, uh, seven or eight minutes away.

43:52 Yeah. Uh, and uh, I just go and sit there. Right. I've written a book, a book called Oceanic Feeling and, and, uh, wrote about it this morning. Today, you know, you, you, there is no finer place to be alone. Um, and to have the full force of experience with nature at every element of your senses. Mm. Uh, and it doesn't take much. You don't have to buy clothes to sit for yoga. You don't have to drive someplace. Uh, you don't have to do any of that.

44:33 Um, and, you know, all the great religions have seen the Ocean and water as a place for sustenance and solace. Um, we used to, uh, I used to marvel at, um, uh, Saturday morning attendance spikes at the museum, Christian Adams, uh, at the, uh, uh, uh, attendance spikes at the, uh, uh, museum. Mm-hmm. And it was, uh, Orthodox Jewish couples. And, uh, you know, big Orthodox community out in, in Brooklyn, uh Right. They would come there to court and it was con it was safe and by the water.

45:18 Mm-hmm. And just was a place that was conducive to getting to know somebody. Right. Uh, and um, the same thing happens for me when you go out on the water, say with my wife and we go sailing. She's the captain because she's very good at it. Um, uh, our relationship. Is reduced to essentials. Yeah. And we know what our roles are and we know where we are and we know mm-hmm. Why it's valuable for us. And we've taught it to our children and we've taught it to other people's children. And we then engaged in education and organization that teach it to other people's children. So the whole thing is part and parcel.

45:59 I, when I was in St. Louis at age 14 or 15, you could, for 10 cents, you could take a street car and go down to the river. Mm-hmm. And I would go down to the river and sit in front of the old courthouse in St. Louis. Uh, and it was a slave place. It was a slave market. And I knew enough about it to go and sit there, and I'd go and sit there and there'd be nobody there. And I'd sit in a historic place in a kind of highly emotional evocation. Both real and metaphor of of of, of a, of a national, of a, of a, of a national identity crisis. I would see the working waterfront, I would see the, the raw nature of the river passing through the big city and all of those things factored in.

46:51 Yeah, of course. In some way. Um, I, uh, I remember one night I was, I, I was working for the newspaper there, summer job. And I went down and I, I, uh, I, uh, uh, got a call to go out and as I went down, there were guy, a couple of guys on the riverside and they had a truck down there and they just pulled a big turtle out of the big, huge turtle out of the river. And uh, uh. And I just marveled at that. And they had this thing and they were lifting up, throw it in the trunk of the car, and they're gonna take it back and they're gonna, they're gonna eat the truck. But I was on my way to the, to the river police boat, uh, and we went out and within 30 minutes after seeing the turtle, we, we pulled what's called a floater out of the river.

47:40 That's the first time I'd ever seen a dead person. Mm-hmm. I'd never seen a dead person since in that condition. Uh, it was a, an enormously powerful evening where I had seen people without food, harvesting food from the river. Yeah. And then I went out and I found somebody that the river had taken back. Right. Right. I mean, come on. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's all there. That's the beautiful thing about it. And you don't have to pay, you don't have to show your credit card. No. You don't have to do any of that kind of stuff. Um, and, uh. So the sea connects all things.

48:21 Yeah, it does at every level of human civilization, including the psychological, the psychological level. Absolutely. And uh, and that's why water is, is part at the core of every religion. Uh, and, and, and in, at the heart of many civilizations, I just was in Morocco. Morocco, I had no idea. It's a desert country where, yeah, think about it. They've got an Atlantic coast, but it's mostly desert. And, uh, they have a, a, a national water policy, uh, that I, I knew nothing about. I spent hours in this museum that was where there was nobody inside.

49:01 Mm-hmm. Looking at really interesting exhibits from statements in the Koran right up through the latest minister of, of, of, of environment and water. Essentially outlining a revision to the National Water policy or Morocco ratifying the, the, the, the International Ocean Treaty. Understanding the interrelationship between freshwater and saltwater. Yeah. The Ocean begins at the mountaintop and it ends at the abyssal plane and everything. In condition. In, in, in, Yeah. In, in the inclusive circle is the, um, uh, uh, there was a, um, uh, God rest his soul.

49:46 There was a fellow out in California named Jay Nichols, so I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Yeah. Jay. We love, we love Jay. Well, Jay. Jay Jay. He's another one of lot of people spearheading stuff. I thought Jay was a little this No, no. Jay had the blue marble. Yep. And blue marble. I, um, I, um, I, um. I, I went to some of his Blue Mind con conferences and at one point I, I knew, I had no idea if he was sick or whatever, how, how he died. I still don't know. Uh, but we became friends and I would see him occasionally. Mm-hmm. And, and I asked him, Jay, this is the most beautiful thing in the world, this metaphor.

50:28 Yeah. I carried him in my pocket all the time. And, uh, I've given them to kings and presidents and I've also given them to, to accidental meets on the street. Yeah. And, and it's a, it's an unforgettable gift. And I ask them, mm-hmm can I do this? May I, may I become an acolyte. A disciple. Mm-hmm. And do the blue marble. And he said, of course you can. That's, that, that, that, that'd be lovely. So I have a 500 blue marbles suit. That's amazing. I in my pocket all the time and my wife said, oh my God, he is got the blue marble. I said, no, no. This person and it, you know.

51:09 I had a heart operation. I called in the doctor and I said, I want to give you this as just as a, as a, a statement of my, my gratitude for what you have done for me. 'cause it was extremely successful. Mm-hmm. And he said, you don't understand. I moved to Maine and became a cardiology cardio cardios surgeon in Maine for a third of what I could earn in, in New York City or Philadelphia to be by my, by the Ocean and to have my Yeah. Children by the Ocean. And then later I called to make an appointment and I said, my name is Peter Neil. And the receptionist says, and I started to give her my date of birth and number.

51:51 Mm-hmm. She said, oh no, Mr. Neil, I, we know who you are. I said, well, I was only there for a day and a half and you put your hand inside my heart, but that's fine. But, uh, and she said, uh oh no. The doctor called a staff meeting. All the nurses, all the auxiliaries, all the other doctors were there. And he held up the blue marble and he said, we need to remember who these people are and what they're doing. They're not numbers, they're not social security numbers, they're not policy holders. Mm-hmm. They're not reimbursement targets. They're out there in the world as human beings. And we need to understand that and never fail to have it inform our purpose.

52:39 Mm-hmm. Well, that's what the world, that's what we are. Water planet. Yeah. We're all, we are water. So if we don't understand that we're part of this whole global, national natural system, we're, we're, we're stupider than we act. Mm-hmm. And we're acting pretty stupid. Um, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, it speak, speaking of which, um. You know, cop 30 is happening right now as we speak, as we're doing this. Yeah. And, and we've seen the, the previous two, uh, cops 28 and 29 happen in, uh, countries that, uh, are mainly about fossil fuel.

53:19 Right. Azer, Baan and, and, uh, I think it was Dubai or, or, or somewhere in the Middle East. They are, you know, it was mostly focused on how to continue to, uh, use fossil fuels and not necessarily renewable energies. We are doing COP 30. The last article that I saw out of that was, uh, a protest that was happening by, uh, indigenous, uh, people from the Amazon trying to get their voices heard and tried to get on the floor to get their voices heard as, uh, Gavin Newsom was talking. I'm sure he didn't know about this, uh, at the time, but as he was talking and security was taking them out, these, the, the, the people were trying to get their voices heard because their, their homes are being destroyed for fossil fuels.

54:05 And here is, you know, someone representing the US talking about how we need to continue to do renewables and, and we, and not. No, the, the, the whole venue not allowing the, the people, the indigenous people to speak and to get their voices heard, which is what Cop 30 is really about, is to, to speak about climate change and address the very issues that they're protesting about. You know, you've been dealing with this for a hell of a lot longer than I have. Um, you know, what are your thoughts on, on these, these, these meetings, these cops? And, and, and where do you think this needs to go to actually be more effective?

54:46 Oh, I, I've been to several, uh, earlier, right? Once, uh, before, um, uh, uh, uh, before Paris. Mm-hmm. Uh, but, you know, the, the many Ocean, many of the Ocean rural, Ocean congresses, um. I have very mixed feelings. Mm-hmm. I've made, uh, many connections. Uh, I've had my spirits lifted often, uh, I've had my spirits disappointed often, um, I, um, I've now stopped going because, um, it's, it's very expensive and I think that I have, the resources that I have are better spent doing something else.

55:38 Also, there is the price that you pay by disappointment and sadness and frustration. Uh, and I say I'd rather take the energy, limited amount of energy that I have and put it towards something that's optimistic and and possible. Mm-hmm. Um, and if it takes one little, if it's another 700 radios, uh, that's, that, that will, that will do me fine. Um, uh, and there's, there are, there are. One of the most horrible things is, uh, you're, you're in, you're in Lisbon, and everybody's had a time, and we all had workshops and panel discussions and keynotes and q and as and coffee breaks and everybody's tucking.

56:24 And then little cards and brochures are being handed by everybody's positioning, uh, and it's over. And the, the, you, you can predict the final declaration. Uh, And then they're all saying, well, I'll see you in Rio next week. Right. We're going to Rio. Or we, where are we going Now? We, where's the next one we're going to, oh, blah. We'll see Inala. Mm-hmm. And, um, it's, it's a movable circus. Mm-hmm. It's all the same people. Yeah. And, and locals are invited in. And, you know, the Amazon people, I mean, that's a big one. Yeah. Those folk, those folks either by industrial energy and industrial agriculture, um, their, not only is their culture, but their land is being Yeah.

57:12 Destroyed. Yeah. And, um, and, And then in the name of security, uh, I'm sure that, that they were outside the blue zone. Mm-hmm. And the greens. Oh, yes. You can't like that. Yeah. I have a hook, which I have 40 name tags. Yeah. Conference registration, IDs. And you don't have the id. You can't go to the blue. Blue. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and, um, uh, or no, you can't speak the, the, it's all been taken care of you. And, uh, so, um, uh, and you, you can hardly, I, I would often go as press and you, there's no place to ask a question.

57:54 Right. There's no press conference. You can't go and actually sit down and say, well, alright, let's talk about this. Mm-hmm. And Um, So I, as I said earlier, I think they have to keep happening. I wish, however they would be, um, they'd open their minds a little bit. If you go to the World Water Forum, they draw the line at the tide line. So you may have 300 speakers and the word Ocean may be mentioned 10 times if that. Now that's just bad policy.

58:35 Yeah, that's bad science. Yeah. That's bad sociology. The climate weeks. The climate week's, the same thing. You barely hear anything about the Ocean. You're like, and just at the beginning of this, of this episode, you mentioned the Ocean and climate are synonymous. They're the same. You know, climate is Ocean. When you talk about the climate, it's run function of basically the circulation of water. The, the basically the, the irrigation of the globe. Yeah. And climate change is simply what we've either put into effect that or what we've taken out of to defect that. Yeah. And, and, uh, uh, and, and, and we're doing it how many different ways, you know, oh, we have to put filters on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, uh, on the exhaust pipes.

59:24 Well, yes, that's, that, that's true. But you, you also might need to take a look at the, uh, uh. The, the downstream effect of, of, of, of industrial waste a hundred miles up the river. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And nobody does. It's not part of the permanent process. It's not part of the insurance coverage. It's not part of the, uh, of the emergency response plan. It's not part, the water is not even costed into the pro forma as to whether or not the project is profitable or not. Yeah. And sold to the investor with a key element of the financial aspect of the thing absent from the equation.

1:00:09 So investors are actually making a, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, their investment on a false, on a, on a, on on false premises. Yeah. Uh, and until these kinds of things change, and these are hard to do. But they become more and more reality. If, if, if you could say, well, we don't have to worry about downstream negativity or effect because we have insurance. Yeah. The insurance company says, well, you have insurance to here, but not downstream. Right. Not on the, uh, of the, the oyster bed. Uh uh. Right. 40 miles away. You don't, there's no insurance for that. And then you realize that the insurance company has actually insured itself with reinsurance and the, their, it's a, it's a house of cards.

1:00:57 Yeah. And so you say, well, everybody's figured it out a way to sort of cover their, their little bit of it and try to hold that together in the case of some. Number of pre-visualize disasters, And then the one that happens is the one that's not visualized. Mm-hmm. And we call it a black swan, no. Mm-hmm. That's not a black swan? No. That swan's been out there the entire time. White, by the way. Mm-hmm. But you just didn't look at it, or if you saw it, I don't wanna Exactly. Exactly. So it's it, sorry, go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I, I, uh, I'm venting, but, but Well, I'll tell you what, I, I, Peter, you and I can probably talk about this, uh, on, on record for, for, uh, hours and hours and hours on end.

1:01:47 I'll end it here, but I would love to invite you back to talk more about your experience and sort of your knowledge and, and, um, advice for people, uh, to take, to take, uh, you know, as we continue these conversations. Because I think, you know, you've had a lot of experience in education. You have a lot of experience in connection and communication, uh, and, and, and putting together programs that really benefit and connect people of wherever they are, uh, to the Ocean. And I think it's really beneficial for us to, you know, en enjoy that experience and hearing that experience and what can be done and, and what has been able to be done. So I think that's really, uh, important. Love to have you back on Peter, and, and, and love to having you on it already.

1:02:27 Fun to talk. Awesome. Great. See you later. You be well hold fast. Will do. Thank you, Peter, for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. It was great to have you on and I can't wait to have you back. 'cause when I talk to other podcasters and I talk to people who've done science communication for a long time, it's just, I feel like it's just easy. We're just riffing off each other and seeing what's going on. A lot of times when I plan to have a guest on, I go through this whole exercise, what questions to ask and what type of storyline do I want to put, do the research and everything. I've known of Peter for quite some time too. This is the first couple times we've met this year, but we've been able to get along really, really well. And I think as both of us have been involved in science communication for a long time, different paths of course, and we know different people, but it's really easy to talk to each other.

1:03:10 And so the planning of these types of podcasts is really just riffing off of what we have to say. At that point in time and it's just amazing to be able to have someone on that can do that and be able to talk about so many things and bring so much value to the podcast. So I love what he does. I love for you to see what he does, to hear what he does. Go over to the website, the World Ocean Observatory, and you can check it out at world Ocean observatory.org. That's world Ocean observatory.org. I'll put the link in the show notes so you can check that out. You'll have all of his contact, all of his resources there and also put it up on our website. But this is someone that you shouldn't have been sleeping on for the last 20 some odd years, but also don't sleep on him in in the future.

1:03:50 This is a great organization that's doing wonderful things and I want you to get to know him and we'll have him back on so you can get to him a little bit more each and every time we have him on the podcast. So I wanna thank Peter for joining us and I wanna thank you for listening. If you have any questions or comments. Leave those comments down below. If you're watching this on YouTube, and if you're watching this on your favorite podcast app, apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, whatever that app that you love so much to listen to this podcast on, please get in touch with me two ways. You can go to Instagram and DM me at how to protect the Ocean that's at how to protect the Ocean. And of course, if you want to get ahold of me through my personal email, you can go to speak up for blue.com/contact. That's speak up for blue.com/contact.

1:04:31 Fill out the form. Can't wait to hear from you. I'd love to talk to all of you, each and every one of you every single time. But that's it for today's episode. Again, thank you Peter, and again, thank you for listening. This has been another episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host Angela, and from the true Nord strong and free podcasting with a purpose. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.