Peter de Menocal | The Ocean, the Future, and the Responsibility to Know

What can the ocean—and Earth’s deep history preserved beneath it—teach us about the future?In this conversation, Peter de Menocal, President and Director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, sits down with guest host Basil Smikle explores the intersection of science, climate, leadership, and human possibility. A marine geologist and paleoclimatologist, de Menocal has spent his career reading ocean sediments as archives of climate history, using the past to better understand the forces shaping our future.But his story is about more than science. From an unexpected encounter with an oceanographer as a college student, to his leadership at Columbia and the founding of its Center for Climate & Life, de Menocal has built a career around turning curiosity into knowledge—and knowledge into action.The conversation explores how scientists can help society navigate challenges that are increasingly interconnected—from climate change and food and water security to the health of our oceans and communities—and what responsibility institutions have to put knowledge in service of the public good.At its heart, this is a conversation about curiosity, stewardship, and our responsibility to understand the world well enough to help shape what comes next.