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Welcome to World Ocean Radio…
I’m Peter Neill, Founder of the World Ocean Observatory.
Over time, we have explained things differently: by superstition, then religion, then science. We have conducted a voyage of explanation through exploration and observation, research and invention, education and communication to provide contextual information for natural phenomena and relation to the success of human enterprise and quality of life. Science has enabled the splitting of the atom, organic chemistry, genetics and human biology, policy and law, climate understanding, weather-forecasting, and many other understandings ,glimpsed through inquiry and adaptation, to enhance how we live: safely over the life span of individuals, generic public health and community development, and the betterment of peace and global understanding.
To deny science is a most ignorant contradiction. It is evident, clear and present, leading us backwards into the dark ages from which we have come. Does science explain everything? No. But it is, in parallel with imagination and creativity, the best tool available for understanding the complexity of the unknown and the future of successful life in Nature on the Earth in which we live.
Let me give you one current example: The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States -- arguably the most advanced utility for the investigation of natural systems, in the world -- providing research and information to inform our understanding of weather, changing systems and impacts, and planned or emergency response to the natural phenomena that can so drastically bring unexpected destruction and unforeseen decline. Weather forecasting, air and water circulation, temperature change, and so much more, knowledge of which permits us to avoid, adapt, mitigate, and invent against the consequence of not knowing, of not planning, of not anticipating a way forward that is safe and secure in the present, and the future.
A new 2026 NOAA budget has been presented by the present administration of the United States. A recent analysis by the Ocean Conservancy, estimates that the overall cuts proposed will exceed $1.6 billion – a reduction of one third over the previous year, with the elimination of such programs as Sea Grant education, the Integrated Ocean Observing systems (buoys and satellites), the National Estuarine Research Reserves, and Coastal Management grants, added to the already eliminated Ocean Acidification and Coral Reef programs, Fisheries and Protected Resources Science and Management, and almost every other established program additionally cut. Various others, such as the Endangered Species and Marine Mammal Protection, would be moved to other agencies with marginal responsibility. Ironically, a new agency is recommended – A Marine Minerals Administration – that would combine the function so the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Environmental Enforcement, responsible for offshore energy and mineral exploration, siting, leasing, permitting, and royalty management.
It does not take much to see the intent here: to dilute the science, diminish environmental analysis, management, and enforcement, enable commercial exploitation, advance private investment, and direct any revenues derived from public funds to corporate entities and shareholders. Truth is in the numbers: how much, for what, by whom, under what restrictions, for whom, beyond the public interest.
Those questions asked, and honestly answered, will tell us if this has anything to do with what President Abraham Lincoln defined in his Gettysburg Address as democracy: “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
So, let’s be clear: what we have here is an another example of pre-mediated, cynical, self-interested denial, not just of science, but of a form of government that has flourished for 250 years, and contributed so much to our quality of life and the beneficial return on our investment in better understanding of natural systems, carefully investigated and sustained, for the benefit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is the death of democracy, by a thousand cuts.
The sea connects all things. What will it take?
We will discuss these issues, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio.
We will discuss these issues, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio.
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