Blue Frontier

Our executive director’s lates op-ed in the LA Times observes: The Trump administration is pursuing an aggressive shift in U.S. ocean policy, prioritizing oil and gas extraction while moving to roll back offshore wind, coastal protections and marine conservation. The administration has committed billions in taxpayer money to persuade companies to abandon offshore wind projects and is pushing new offshore drilling in the West Coast and Alaska.

In the latest episode of Rising Tide – the Ocean Podcast David and Vicki reconnect with past guest and renown marine ecologist Dr. Nancy Rabalais of Louisiana State University. For decades Nancy has been doing pioneering work tracking and mapping a large seasonal ‘Dead Zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s the result of algae blooms fed by urban and agricultural runoff from the Middle of the country that flow down the Mississippi River every spring.

In the latest episode of Rising Tide the Ocean Podcast, David and Vicki talk with Natalie Shuman, the owner of Sun Divers Roatan on the famed island located on the Meso-American Reef 40 miles north of Honduras in the Caribbean. A certified scuba instructor, co-founder of a scuba scholarship program called ‘Roa Girls Dive’, a board member of the Roatan Marine Park, Natalie will cover a range of issues with us.

Our director, David Helvarg, is reporting on the U.S. exploration of offshore nuclear energy through new partnerships between federal agencies and private companies. Advances in small modular reactors have renewed interest in floating nuclear power plants that could supply electricity to ports, coastal infrastructure, and even commercial ships.

Our director’s latest opinion piece argues that many major U.S. television news outlets report on extreme weather – such as floods, wildfires, heat waves, and storms – without consistently explaining the role that climate change plays in making these events more frequent or severe. Advances in attribution science now allow researchers to better connect specific weather events to human-caused climate change, yet this information is often omitted from coverage.

In the latest episode of Rising Tide the Ocean Podcast David and Vicki talk with Boulder- based weather and climate scientist Dr. Daniel Swain about the emerging El Nino that’s predicted to become a major, perhaps historic one this fall on top of a new marine heatwave already impacting the Pacific coast.

In the latest episode of Rising Tide the Ocean Podcast Oceanographer and Blue Frontier board member Joy Leilei Shih and David Helvarg talk with Australian based scientist Dr. Aaron Egar, one of the world’s top kelp researchers. Based at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, he is the founder and program director of the global ‘Kelp Forest Alliance,’ also the lead author of 3 major scientific kelp reports that have come out over the last 4 years.

In the latest episode of Rising Tide the Ocean Podcast Oceanographer and Blue Frontier board member Joy Leilei Shih and David Helvarg talk with Australian based scientist Dr. Aaron Eger, one of the world’s top kelp researchers. Based at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, he is the founder and program director of the global ‘Kelp Forest Alliance,’ also the lead author of 3 major scientific kelp reports that have come out over the last 4 years.

Sea otters are vital to the health of our oceans, helping protect kelp forests through their role as keystone predators. Among other things, they’re mostly known for their voracious appetite and ability to control grazing populations of sea urchins, linking their population’s success to kelp forest conservation. Historically, they’ve been hunted for their pelts – almost to extinction.

When the waters of Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool turned green, algae became the focus of public concern. But as our Executive Director, David Helvarg, explains in his latest Los Angeles Times opinion piece, algae are far more than a nuisance – they are essential organisms that help sustain life on Earth.