Environment Ocean

There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation.

Who can forget the sense of wonder with which they discovered the creatures of the deep? In this vibrant hymn to the sea, Callum Roberts - one of the world’s foremost conservation biologists - leads listeners on a fascinating tour of mankind’s relationship to the sea, from the earliest traces of water on Earth to the oceans as we know them today. In the process, Roberts looks at how the taming of the oceans has shaped human civilization and affected marine life. Like Four Fish and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Ocean of Life takes a long view to tell a story in which each one of us has a role to play.

The ocean is the last remaining source of profound mystery and discovery on Earth. With eighty percent of it still largely unexplored, it is endlessly fascinating. In Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid, journalist Wendy Williams introduces one of the ocean’s most charismatic, monstrous, and enigmatic inhabitants: the squid. More than just calamari, squid species are fascinatingly odd creatures, with much to teach us about our own species.

In 2004, an enigmatic charter captain named Al Anderson caught and marked one Atlantic bluefin tuna off New England’s coast with a plastic fish tag. Fourteen years later that fish—dubbed Amelia for her ocean-spanning journeys—died in a Mediterranean fish trap, sparking Karen Pinchin’s riveting investigation into the marvels, struggles, and prehistoric legacy of this remarkable species.

Our planet is suffering from serious environmental problems: coastal flooding due to severe storms caused in part by atmospheric pollution, diminishing natural resources such as clean water, and so on. But while these problems plague planet Earth, two-thirds of our globe is ocean. The seas can be home to pioneers, seasteaders, who are willing to homestead the Blue Frontier. Oil platforms and cruise ships already inhabit the waters; now it's time to take the next step to full-fledged ocean civilizations.

Our world has ended five times: It has been broiled, frozen, poison gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth's past dead ends, and in the process offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the 21st century have analogs in these five extinctions.

Deep is a voyage from the ocean's surface to its darkest trenches, the most mysterious places on Earth. Fascinated by the sport of freediving - in which competitors descend to great depths on a single breath - James Nestor embeds with a gang of oceangoing extreme athletes and renegade researchers. He finds whales that communicate with other whales hundreds of miles away, sharks that swim in unerringly straight lines through pitch-black waters, and other strange phenomena.

The paths of the great American robber barons were paved with riches, and though ordinary citizens paid for them, they also profited. Les Standiford, author of the John Deal thrillers, tells how the man who turned Florida's swamps into the playgrounds of the rich performed the almost superhuman feat of building a railroad from the mainland to Key West at the turn of the century.

In Blue Mind, Wallace J. Nichols revolutionizes how we think about these questions, revealing the remarkable truth about the benefits of being in, on, under, or simply near water. Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with compelling personal stories from top athletes, leading scientists, military veterans, and gifted artists, he shows how proximity to water can improve performance, increase calm, diminish anxiety, and increase professional success.

In an age of unprecedented exploration and innovation, our oceans remain largely unknown, and endlessly fascinating: full of mystery, danger, beauty, and inspiration. Bill Streever - a longtime deep-sea diver himself - has masterfully woven together the science and history of Earth's last remaining frontier: the sea.

A prominent seafaring environmentalist and researcher shares his shocking discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean, which inspired a fundamental rethinking of the Plastic Age and a growing global health crisis.

For centuries, mariners have spun tales of gargantuan waves, 100-feet high or taller. Until recently scientists dis​missed these stories - waves that high would seem to violate the laws of physics. But in the past few decades, as a startling number of ships vanished and new evidence has emerged, oceanographers realized something scary was brewing in the planet’s waters. They found their proof in February 2000, when a British research vessel was trapped in a vortex of impossibly mammoth waves in the North Sea - including several that approached 100 feet.

Part odyssey, part pilgrimage, this epic personal narrative follows the author’s exploration of coasts, islands, reefs, and the sea’s abyssal depths. Scientist and fisherman Carl Safina takes readers on a global journey of discovery, probing for truth about the world’s changing seas, deftly weaving adventure, science, and political analysis.

Around eight o'clock a.m. on December 26, a massive earthquake registering 9.1-9.3 on the Richter Scale struck off of Sumatra, Indonesia, making it the third strongest earthquake ever recorded by seismographs. On top of that, the earthquake shook for nearly 10 minutes and generated incredibly strong tsunami waves. Thanks to the element of surprise, people in the region had virtually no warning of what was coming. The tsunami waves pulverized entire towns and swept away hundreds of thousands of people across Southeast Asia.

In Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean, writer, sailor, and surfer Jonathan White takes listeners across the globe to discover the science and spirit of ocean tides. In the Arctic, White shimmies under the ice with an Inuit elder to hunt for mussels in the dark cavities left behind at low tide; in China, he races the Silver Dragon, a 25-foot tidal bore that crashes 80 miles up the Qiantang River; in France, he interviews the monks that live in the tide-wrapped monastery of Mont Saint-Michel; in Chile and Scotland, he investigates the growth of tidal power generation.

Through personal stories, history and cutting-edge science, Ocean uncovers the mystery, the wonder and the frailty of the most unexplored habitat on our planet—and the one which shapes the land we live on, regulates our climate and creates the air we breathe. The book showcase the oceans' remarkable resilience: they are the part of our world that can, and in some cases has, recovered the fastest, if we only give them the chance.

In this remarkable, groundbreaking audiobook, a documentarian and conservationist, determined to dispel misplaced fear and correct common misconceptions, explores in-depth the secret lives of sharks - magnificent creatures who play an integral part in maintaining the health of the world’s oceans and ultimately the planet.

Combining rich historical detail and a harrowing, pulse-pounding narrative, Close to Shore brilliantly re-creates the summer of 1916, when a rogue Great White shark attacked swimmers along the New Jersey shore, triggering mass hysteria and launching the most extensive shark hunt in history.

A Silent Spring for our era, this eloquent, urgent, fascinating book reveals how just 50 years of swift and dangerous oceanic change threatens the very existence of life on Earth. Legendary marine scientist Sylvia Earle portrays a planet teetering on the brink of irreversible environmental crisis.

The story of the ocean is as old as the earth itself. Overfishing, pollution, and oil spills have highlighted the need to take better care of our oceans so that the story can continue to be told.