Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast

In our conversation with artist Isabella Kirkland we talk about her detailed paintings of biodiversity both terrestrial and ocean-based and the exacting research that goes into her beautiful works. The late biologist and author EO Wilson called her works “classic in the original and best sense of the word.” Join us in a lively informative talk as we discuss nudibranchs large and small, what inspir...

In this episode we talk with Dr. Ian Ralby founder and CEO of I.R. Consilium, a firm that consults with law-enforcement and navies around the world on maritime law and security issues.   As a logical follow up to our last talk with Undersecretary of State Monica Medina we’ll discuss Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing and strategies to defeat it, piracy and armed security at sea, oil dumpi...

In this extended 40-minute episode we talk with Monica Medina, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. As a lawyer, former army officer and past official with the Department of Defense, U.S. Senate, NOAA and others, she now represents the United States on a range of international issues. We’ll cover a number of them including illegal...

In our latest episode David talks with marine ecologist, acclaimed ocean and wildlife author and MacArthur “genius” fellow Carl Safina about his earliest connections with the sea, also his life’s journey, conservation work and writing methods. You’ll learn how defending tuna evolved into his seminal book, ‘Song for the Blue Ocean,’ and his connections to eels, owls and his recent best seller, ‘Bec...

In this episode we talk with Farah Obaidullah about her life traveling our ocean planet, her years as Senior Oceans Campaigner with Greenpeace and her founding of Women4Oceans bringing gender justice and equity to the ocean community.  We also discuss her work as a leading figure in the global fight for a moratorium on deep-sea mining and how that battle’s proceeding.  So, lots to cover and well w...

In our latest episode we talk with Ocean and Polar Explorer Don Walsh. A Retired Navy Submariner, as a young Captain he and Jacque Picard became the first 2 humans to reach the deepest part of the ocean – 7 miles down in the Challenger Deep aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste.   He talks about their journey and a near disaster, why ocean exploration didn’t go on to compete with the space race and today...

In our latest episode we talk with Peter Fiekowsky, an MIT trained physicist and engineer who has worked at NASA, on Artificial Intelligence, as an inventor, entrepreneur and more. He’s now authored, ‘Climate Restoration – The only future that will sustain the human race.”    We discuss 4 key ideals and technologies he believes can help bring down excess CO2 in the atmosphere generated by the burn...

We speak with Fabien Cousteau, third generation ocean explorer and documentary producer. Along with talking about his life and adventures – including in a one-man sub disguised as a white shark - we learn about his newest project. Having lived 31 days underwater doing science and education in an aging habitat off Key Largo, he’s now working to build a larger “international space station for the oc...

In this episode we speak with Francesca Koe, Board Member of the Greater Farallones Association of California. She’ll talk about how she became a dive instructor and free diver and her love of the kelp forest that got her nicknamed ‘Kelp princess.’ Unfortunately kelp is the new coral in terms of being endangered. With 95 percent of northern California’s kelp forest gone Francesca is now playing a...

We hear from activist Hilton Kelley. Raised in the segregated west side African-American community of Port Arthur Texas, the most polluted coastal town in America, he went on to join the Navy and become a successful actor. But at 39 he returned to help restore his community and fight pollution becoming a leading environmental warrior, winning battles around air pollution, PCB incineration and the...

We talk with Marine evolutionary biologist Les Kaufman about his decades of study of ocean and freshwater fish, coral reefs, human behavior and natural systems and the possibility of restoration and hope for heavily polluted and climate-impacted ecosystems from Florida’s coral reefs to Africa’s massive Lake Victoria. Plus he used to teach our Blue Frontier Associate Director Natasha Benjamin who j...

In this episode, host David Helvarg and Vicki Nichols Goldstein sit down with Dionne Ybarra, director of the Wahine Project, whose path to the ocean was anything but direct. Raised in an inland Mexican American farmworker family, Ybarra didn't find surfing until she was 38 years old — and when she did, she looked around the lineup and didn't see many people who looked like her. Rather than paddle...

We talk with world-renowned science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson about his life and his novels, including his last, ‘The Ministry for the Future’ that’s been widely hailed as both a riveting story and a plan for how we survive and transcend the climate emergency. We also talk about Ocean themes in his works from New York to California to light years beyond earth, plus his bodysurfing and hi...

David and Vicki are joined by Wendy Benchley and Margo Pellegrino, both previous podcast guests and both fellow veterans of Blue Frontier, the ocean conservation group that works to give people who care about the Ocean the tools needed to protect their communities both human and wild.   The four discuss two decades of Blue Vision Summits, Benchley awards, ocean adventures, marches, celebrations an...

For our 50th episode we talk with Dr. Craig Downs, the Hawaiian scientist who discovered and popularized the threat petrochemical-based sunscreens and other skin care products pose to coral reefs, fish and additional marine wildlife. Along with the role of Oreo cookies in his discovery, he talks about the ‘zombification' of reefs and fish exposed to chemicals in sunscreens, what’s being done to ad...

We talk with NOAA’s Superintendent of the Greater Farallones and Cordell Banks Marine Sanctuaries off California, some of the most productive waters in the world. While she “loves the white sharks” for which the Farallones are famous, comparing one to “a school bus swimming by,” she doesn’t want anyone to forget the other fish, whales, deep sea corals, sea lions, seabirds, even an aircraft carrier...

Surfer scientist, writer and long-time Northern California marine lab director Brian Tissot talks with us about the state of California’s declining kelp forests, his years studying endangered tropical corals and more. More includes what he’s taught and learned from the upcoming generation of marine science students in his Trinidad CA. lab, his science-based science fiction, and what it’s like surf...

We welcome back Ian Urbina who was on Rising Tide's first episode. The former NY Times reporter’s Outlaw Ocean series became a bestselling book and now The Outlaw Ocean Project. We discuss his latest reporting for the New Yorker magazine on how thousands of climate refugees from Africa seeking to cross the Mediterranean are being seized by Libyan Militias who also kidnapped and beat Ian while he w...

Dive in with Chris Dixon & Jeremy Spencer the co-authors and editors of “The Ocean - the Ultimate Handbook of Nautical Knowledge,” that’s also been referred to as ‘Poseidon’s Bible’. A perfect holiday gift with illustrated sections on boating, surfing, diving, how to survive a jellyfish sting, nautical lore and more. We’ll even quiz Chris and Jeremy on what they reported and discuss everything you...

Join us in PART TWO of our Rising Tide conversation with “Her Deepness” National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Sylvia Earl and her daughter and President of the Deep Ocean Exploration and Research (DOER) marine technology company, Liz Taylor. In this second part we will hear about the climate, the carbon cycle and how we will turn the tide in ocean policy and conservation.  Rising Tide, the...

Rising Tide is a project of Blue Frontier founded by host David Helvarg. Co-host Vicki Nichols-Goldstein is founder of the Inland Ocean Coalition. In this special 20-minute episode we talk with Michael Stocker, Daniela Huson, Wallace J. Nichols and Mary Crowley, leaders of three other groups who’ve joined with us in Ten4Ocean, the unique funding collaboration sea starring ten highly effective gras...

Join us in part one of our two part Rising Tide conversation with “Her Deepness” National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Sylvia Earl and her daughter and President of the Deep Ocean Exploration and Research (DOER) marine technology company, Liz Taylor. In this initial talk they’ll discuss how their relationship evolved from parental to professional partnering in ocean exploration, some of th...

If you missed our Writers For the Sea: Fiction For the Sea, we're offering the full panel discussion on this week's podcast. Join us as our host David Helvarg dives into the creative minds of New York Times best-selling author Lisa See and syndicated cartoonist Jim Toomey, discussing their incredible ocean fiction, and their paths of how they got to where they are today. Rising Tide, the Ocean Pod...

We open season two of Rising Tide talking with Andres Soto, community organizer for Citizens for a Better Environment, multi-talented musician (that’s him on Sax) and steering committee member of Richmond, California’s Point Molate Alliance. Andres will introduce you to the diverse shoreline city of Richmond where Rising Tide is based and where he was raised. His insights into local hist...

If you missed her on NPR’s ‘Science Friday’ hear our friend Author and Journalist Cynthia Barnett share stories from her new book ‘The Sound of the Sea – Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans’ including the role ‘feminist science’ played in nature studies and who ‘She sells seashells by the seashore’ is really all about. Also she tells us why, despite Florida’s killer red tides, rising seas an...