In this episode we have a powerful conversation with Tez Steinberg of United World Challenge and endurance artist. Both his personal story and the hero's journey he is on are deeply inspiring and show us that we can all bravely cross the ocean of challenges facing us.

After losing his father to suicide, Tez Steinberg, founder of the United World Challenge, solo-rowed 2,700 miles from California to Hawaii in the summer of 2020. The expedition raised $77,000 for scholarships for peace and global awareness about ocean conservation. Now this November, Tez takes on a second challenge – a world-first attempt to row 5,000 miles non-stop from Hawaii to Australia. Tez hopes to finish the expedition in 115 days and arrive in Cairns, Australia mid-March 2024.

In Tez’s first expedition to Hawaii, he rowed through immeasurable amounts of plastic. Inspired to help, he quit his day job at Deloitte Consulting and went full-time as CEO of United World Challenge. Together with the nonprofit’s leading partners such as Ocean Conservation Network, The International Seakeepers Society, and CRDC Global, Expedition 2 will be a zero-waste mission and gather critical data for ocean research. The oceans are hotter than ever before due to Global Warming, and with El Niño in full effect, ocean temperatures will continue to break records. Tez will document the impact of these temperatures and the impact of the ocean plastic crisis for researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and EQO.Life.

By gathering eDNA data to show a “fingerprint” of biodiversity and data on microplastic prevalence, the United World Challenge and their research partners aim to discover the impact of microplastics on marine health, and to help answer the mystery of where most ocean plastic goes. Up to 90% of ocean plastic is “missing” – researchers do not know where most plastic goes after flowing into the ocean – and this expedition aims to help answer that question. In addition to gathering data for research, United World Challenge will run a global crowdfund to invest in infrastructure projects alongside their Partner, Sungai Watch, to prevent the flow of plastics into the ocean in Indonesia.

“World Economic Forum research shows that unless we change course, we’ll have more plastic in our oceans than fish by 2050,” says Tez. “That’s why the United World Challenge is raising funds and action to help solve this crisis, by stopping plastic before it flows into the ocean.”

“The ocean plastic crisis is a monumental threat, not only to marine life, but to our entire world,” says Tez. “It feels insurmountable, but I like to remind myself that, although one oar stroke doesn’t seem to make a difference, two million strokes take you 5,000 miles. All those strokes together show that no ocean is too great to cross.”

Learn More & Follow:

Support: unitedworldchallenge.givingcircles.io/?r=OceanLove

Website: unitedworldchallenge.org

FB & IG: @UnitedWorldChallenge

YouTube: @UnitedWorldChallenge

Connect and share the Ocean Love at: oceanlove.show

BIG Ocean Love to our sponsors:

Center for Regenerative Design & Collaboration (crdc.global)

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Produced by Joshua Sage for AKOZ (akoz.io).

In this episode we dive into climate data & reporting with Julia Kumari Drapkin of ISeeChange: honoring all forms of knowledge, being a good neighbor to build resilient communities at both local and global scales…. And the power each of us has to witness and share stories of our changing climate in ways that impact meaningful change through policy and infrastructure. 

Julia is the CEO and founder of ISeeChange. She founded her award-winning climate change tech company after over a decade of reporting natural disasters and climate change across the globe and in her own backyard on the Gulf Coast. Julia is connecting the stories to the data, ensuring all voices are heard and producing unprecedented information related to climate change for use across numerous industries and communities. Under her leadership, ISeeChange has received national and international recognition from the Obama White House Climate Data Initiative, NASA, MIT Solve, Echoing Green, TechStars, the United Nations, Grist, AGU, and the AAAS. 

Learn More & Connect: 

iseechange.com 

TWTR: @ISeeChange 

FB: @ISeeChange 

IG: @YouSeeChange 

Connect and share the Ocean Love at: oceanlove.show 

BIG Ocean Love to our sponsors: 

Center for Regenerative Design & Collaboration (crdc.global) 

Anthropogenic (anthropogenic.com) 

YES! (yesworld.org) 

Produced by Joshua Sage for AKOZ (akoz.io)

Ocean Love features some of the most inspiring people and projects working to protect and enhance the health of the ocean. We celebrate ocean champions to empower collective action. Hosted by marine ecologist and environmental engineer Cassia Elizabeth Jayani.

Connect and learn more at oceanlove.show