Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast
Podcast & Audio Production
Overseeing the Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast's production, promotion, and strategic growth. Fluid Studios manages podcast development, from concept to publication, ensuring high-quality content that resonates with audiences. We develop social media and content marketing strategies to maximize engagement and reach. By collaborating with the Blue Frontier team, we maintain the podcast's vision, enhance its impact, and leverage analytics to optimize performance, drive continuous improvement, and contribute to the organization's dynamic leadership and innovative solutions.
A refreshing, irreverent dive into the lives, work, and explorations of today’s leading and diverse ocean voices.
Each half-hour episode co-hosted by David Helvarg of Blue Frontier and Vicki Nichols Goldstein of the Inland Ocean Coalition sails through lively discussions with our guests about marine life, culture, and critical issues affecting our rapidly changing seas. Informative, enlightening, and often humorous it is an invaluable resource for anyone passionate about understanding, enjoying, and protecting our salty blue world.
Restoring the Underwater Forest: Tom Ford's Kelp Crusade
In this episode of the Rising Tide Ocean Podcast, hosts David Helvarg and Vicki Nichols Goldstein welcome Tom Ford, CEO of the Bay Foundation and Director of the Santa Monica Bay National Estuary Program. They discuss Ford's journey from his first ocean encounter in high school to his extensive work in kelp forest restoration. Ford shares insights into the Bay Foundation's efforts, including restoring 75 acres of kelp forest off Palos Verdes, California, reintroducing endangered white abalones, and collaborating with commercial sea urchin harvesters. The conversation covers the challenges and successes of these restoration projects, the impact of environmental changes, and the importance of continued funding and community engagement. Ford also talks about his memorable kelp dives and the significance of creating sustainable marine ecosystems.
Behind the Glass – Kim McIntyre and the Aquarium Conservation Partnership
In the latest episode of Rising Tide, the Ocean Podcast David Helvarg and Natasha Benjamin talk with Kim McIntyre, the Executive Director of the Aquarium Conservation Partnership, a coalition of 35 aquariums working together to increase their collective impact. Along with helping revive the Peter Benchley Ocean Awards that took place at the National Aquarium in May, the 9-year-old coalition is involved in educating its members’ 40 million annual visitors around issues of sustainable seafood, climate change, plastic pollution and more.
Kim talks about the changing role of aquariums as conservation hubs for the sea, marine animal rehab and release centers and how many children are transformed by their first visit to an aquarium.
Plus, we’ll have our ‘Blue News You Can Use’: This week on the threat of Deep-Sea Mining that the Trump administration has just embraced. So, dive into our aquarium special.
From Bay to Blue Planet: Live at SF Climate Week with Ocean Defenders
On Friday April 25 the Rising Tide Ocean Podcast recorded our show with a live audience during SF Climate Week – one of the largest climate gatherings in the world. From the downtown studios of KALW – “The Voice of the Bay Area,” David and Natasha discussed global and Bay Area aspects of the Ocean and the Climate Crisis with guests Rod Fujita, a marine consultant and recently retired director of ocean research and development for the Environmental Defense Fund and Sejal Choksi-Chugh an attorney and Executive Director of the San Francisco Baykeeper. We had a lively and informative discussion about impacts and solutions for our global seas and West Coast estuary. Our live audience enjoyed it and we hope you will too.
Craig McLean & The Fight To Save NOAA
In the latest episode of the award-winning Rising Tide: the Ocean Podcast David and Vicki talk with retired NOAA Captain Craig McLean about the Trump administration’s attacks on the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. 20 percent of its workforce including weather forecasters and ocean and climate scientists have already been laid off and more than 10 percent of the budget cut and things could get worse.
Having spent his career as a ship’s master in the uniformed NOAA Corps and as a lawyer and administrator including Acting Chief Scientist during the first Trump administration when he stood up for scientific integrity during the Sharpie-gate scandal, Craig will give us his unique perspective on what’s going on, and the importance of what NOAA does day to day to help our economy, security and environment and what we can all do to protect its work. This is one you won’t want to miss.
Sequoias of the Sea Hits the Big Screen
The latest episode of Rising Tide – The Ocean Podcast features a conversation with Natasha Benjamin of Blue Frontier and Ana Blanco of the International Ocean Film Festival, who recently took on the role of co-directors for Sequoias of the Sea. This 54-minute documentary explores the global crisis facing kelp forests, told through the experiences of the people of Fort Bragg, California—a former timber town on the state’s north coast.
The episode delves into the challenges of making the film, as well as the struggles Fort Bragg residents face in rebuilding a blue economy after the decline of their once-thriving kelp forests. Lost jobs, shifting cultural landscapes, and the disappearance of traditional ocean sports have left the community searching for new ways forward.
The discussion also highlights the film’s upcoming premiere at the International Ocean Film Festival in San Francisco on April 13, offering listeners insight into how they can see the film and learn more about the critical role of marine forests in ocean health.
From the Vents to the Arctic: Kathy Crane’s Ocean Explorations
This fall, NASA launched the Europa Clipper spaceship on a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa to investigate the possibility of life in its subsurface ocean. In this episode of Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast, Dr. Kathy Crane, a pioneering geologist, shares her experience mapping hydrothermal vents in the deep Pacific 45 years ago—an expedition that led to the discovery of chemosynthetic life, including giant clams and tubeworms. These deep-sea organisms offer clues about potential extraterrestrial life on Europa and beyond. Crane also reflects on her experiences as a woman in geology and her work exploring the Arctic seabed during the Cold War. This episode offers a compelling look at scientific discovery and the uncharted frontiers of both Earth and space. Dive in.
Nat Herz’s Northern Beat
In our latest episode of ‘Rising Tide the Ocean Podcast’ David and Vicki check in on Nat Herz founder and reporter at The Northern Journal. After covering our 49th state (including one third of America’s coastline) for the Alaska Daily News and Alaska Public Media Nick set out on his own in 2022, creating an Anchorage-based investigative newsletter covering issues from public lands and water, energy, mining, fisheries, politics, dog sled racing, everything the Alaskan public has a right to know. Now a must read in Alaska with stories picked up by every media outlet in the state the Northern Journal is what you might get if I.F. Stone met a polar bear. We ask Nat about his take on Alaska in the world, how things might change – or not cha nge – during Trump 2.0 and what it’s like covering a beat the size of Western Europe but mostly without roads. It’s a fascinating take on journalism on ‘The Last Frontier.’
Richard Charter on Biden’s Historic Offshore Drilling Ban
In this episode of Rising Tide the Ocean Podcast David Helvarg & Vicki N. Goldstein talk with longtime anti-offshore drilling activist Richard Charter about one of President Biden’s last acts in office, his January 6th ban on future offshore oil and gas drilling permits along the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the U.S. in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the northern Bering Sea off Alaska.
Richard, whose been a leader of citizen campaigns to protect offshore waters for 48 years discusses the legal strength of Biden’s declaration, the difficulties incoming president Donald Trump will have in trying to reverse these protections and why he thinks this is one of the greatest environmental victories since the establishment of our national parks.
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You can also listen to Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast on a variety of platforms including Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Android, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Blubrry, Podchaser, Gaana, the Podcast Index, and Deezer. Additionally, the podcast is broadcast on several radio stations: KGUA Radio (Public Media for the Mendonoma Coast), KWMR (Point Reyes West Marin Community Radio), KGNU & KGNU-FM (Denver & Boulder Community Radio Stations), KKRN (Round Mountain California Listener Supported Radio), & G-TOWN RADIO (Germantown Community Radio, Philadelphia).
Check out the Our Blue Frontier on Substack for transcripts, emerging ocean & climate issues highlights, and the lighter side of the Environmental Apocalypse.