About Our Guest:

Most of us live our whole lives on the thinnest possible layer of Earth and call it “the world.” We walk around on soil, glance at the sky, and forget that the real living space on this planet is not the land—it’s the ocean. 

In my interview with Dr. Edie Widder today, she reminded me (with the calm authority of someone who has actually been there) that the average depth of the ocean is around 4,000 meters—and because of that depth, the oceans represent more than 99.5% of Earth’s “livable space.”  That number alone should make us sit up straighter

The Ocean Lightshow We’ve Barely Noticed

What that number means is that we on Earth are actually living on a few dry “islands” called continents, surrounded by a vast watery world we barely understand. Dr. Widder has spent her life going into the deep, dark unknown, and coming back with the kind of stories that leave you feeling both so small and wildly alive.

Edie is not only a pioneering deep-sea explorer and a MacArthur Genius Fellow; she’s also the CEO of the Ocean Research & Conservation Association (ORCA), an organization doing science that creates triage and hope at the same time. 

Their work is grounded in a simple, urgent truth: we protect what we understand, but most people have never been shown what’s really happening beneath the surface of this planet.

One of Edie’s core revelations—one she’s built inventions and entire research systems around—is beautifully simple: sunlight doesn’t reach most of the ocean…but the ocean is not dark. It’s lit, not by the sun, but by life. 

Land of the Language of Light

For a long time, humans assumed the deep sea was essentially a black void, because sunlight can’t penetrate. But in reality, the deep ocean is full of bioluminescence: light made by living creatures—real light, chemical light, used for communication and survival. 

In the open ocean, there are no bushes, no trees, no hiding places—the only way to hide is to go down into darkness. So the animals adapt: better eyes, better signaling, better strategies—a whole world shaped by light. Blue light becomes the common currency because it travels farthest through seawater, but then there are the delicious exceptions—like “stoplight fish” that can make and see red light, essentially using it like a private flashlight to sneak up on prey that can’t detect it like an underwater spy.

Bioluminescence isn’t a quirky oddity, either. Dr. Edie Widder explains that it has evolved dozens and dozens of times—now believed to be over 90 times in evolutionary history—which is nature’s loudest possible way of saying ‘this matters.’

The Dive That Changed Everything

Edie told me about one of her earliest deep ocean experiences, and I could practically feel the scene around her. She went down in a diving suit called WASP—a metal, tethered “spacesuit” developed for the offshore oil industry. It had pincers instead of hands, thrusters instead of legs, and she described being like a “tea bag on a string,” bouncing as the surface boat moved. 

Late in the dive, she turned the lights off. She expected she’d have to wait to dark adapt, but instead she was immediately surrounded by what can only be described as an underwater Fourth of July: sparkles, sprays, and spews of icy-blue light everywhere. When she activated the thrusters, the water erupted with glowing embers—like tossing a log onto a campfire—except the sparks were made of ocean light. Then she turned the lights on… and saw nothing recognizable.

That moment cracked something open in her: If living creatures were spending precious energy to make light down there, then it couldn’t just be decoration—it was a primary language of survival; a major biological economy. 

A whole conversation is happening right under our noses in the depths all across our planet, and for a long time, we didn’t even have the humility to realize we were missing it.

The Deep Sea Is Not Just Beautiful—It’s Useful

I want to say something plainly: wonder is not the only reason to care about the ocean. It is, to use an outdated metaphor, the “gateway drug.” 

Dr. Widder offers an example that should be shouted from every rooftop: bioluminescent organisms have profoundly shaped human medicine and cell biology. The discovery and use of green fluorescent protein (GFP)—originally isolated from a jellyfish—has been described as having an impact comparable to the invention of the microscope, because it allows scientists to “light up” what’s happening inside of cells.

Bioluminescent tools have transformed parts of cancer research by making it possible to track tumors over time in living models, rather than relying on slower, more destructive methods. This is why basic research matters, even when you can’t predict the payoff in advance: The ocean has been quietly inventing solutions for millions of years; our job is to notice them before we bulldoze the laboratory.

If you want the line that should be stamped on humanity’s forehead, Edie gave it to us: Explore before we exploit. Historically, humans explore a region, and then exploit it—but in the ocean, we’ve reversed the order, to disastrous results. We’re exploiting the ocean before we’ve even truly explored it—dragging heavy equipment across the seafloor and wiping out ancient ecosystems for a short-term haul. 

It’s out of sight, it’s out of mind…until someone like Edie shows us what we’re losing, and suddenly we can’t un-know it.

A Canary in the Water

Edie talked about bottom trawling in a way that made it heartbreakingly concrete: deep-sea “gardens of Eden” are being scraped and flattened for a single catch, and the recovery time can stretch far beyond a human lifetime. It’s happening right under our noses—like the Oculina Reef offshore Florida, an extraordinary deep-sea coral ecosystem that was badly damaged by trawling. Even now, after protections were put in place, there have been repeated efforts to open it again. 

“It’s not just an environmental issue. It’s a human imagination issue. We don’t destroy what we love; we destroy what we don’t understand.”

Now, fast-forward to what Edie is doing through ORCA, and you begin to see how a lifetime of curiosity turns into a toolkit for communities. ORCA builds real-time water quality monitoring systems called Kilroys, and these devices help locate, track, and understand pollution in places where it’s changing an ecosystem in real time. Here’s the problem she ran into, though: if you want to test for every possible pollutant, the cost and time are insurmountable. 

So Edie did what great scientists do—she went looking for an elegant proxy.

The brilliant and deeply “Edie” solution was to use bioluminescent bacteria as a broad-spectrum bioassay, like a canary in a coal mine. Because bacterial light output is tied to respiration, toxins that interfere with respiration dim the light. That means you can mix bacteria with sediment samples and quickly map toxicity. 

ORCA can create pollution maps that resemble weather maps—except instead of hot and cold, you’re seeing toxic and non-toxic zones. It doesn’t automatically tell you which toxins are present, but it tells you where the trouble is, so that you can aim your attention and resources precisely where they matter most.

Turning Awe Into Action—Right Now

Near the end of our conversation, Edie said a phrase that landed like a bell ringing in the center of my chest: convert awe into action. That’s what ORCA is building toward right now through their ORCA Blue Planet Scholars Program, which supports summer internships to train the next generation in transdisciplinary, community-connected environmental work. 

Edie explained that $15,000 can fund a named scholarship, and smaller contributions help build the program too; the goal is to equip people who can go back into their own communities and help others understand what’s happening in their local waters—and what to do about it.

So if you’re someone who loves the ocean, or you love science, or you love the idea of young people being trained to become capable stewards of the future, this is your moment: Donate, and share this episode… you never know whose eyes and ears it might land on, and they could be the key to the next big breakthrough!

Here’s why the timing of support matters: this episode publishes the day before ORCA’s Gala, which means if Edie’s work lights something up in you (and I suspect it will), you’ll have an immediate chance to turn wonder into something practical. Make a donation, drop them a line if you have a connection that might advance their great work. 

That’s how great things happen… with the help of many small points of light and support!

A Final Thought: We Need Dreams, Not Nightmares

Edie made a point I wish every environmental communicator would tape to their laptop: Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t build a movement by saying “I have a nightmare.” He said, “I have a dream.” That’s the shift Edie embodies: truth-telling without despair-selling. Because yes, there are wake-up calls in this story, but there is also breathtaking beauty, practical solutions, and a growing network of people who are not willing to let our life-support system degrade on their watch.

References Mentioned:

📌 Edie Widder & ORCA — Start Here

• Ocean Research & Conservation Association (ORCA) — Edie’s nonprofit
• ORCA — Donate / Blue Planet Scholars Program (support summer internships & training)
• ORCA — Kilroy Water Quality Monitoring (Edie’s pollution-mapping work)
• ORCA — Get Involved / Citizen Science

📖 Edie Widder’s Story + Documentary

• Below the Edge of Darkness (Edie Widder memoir)
• A Life Illuminated (doc about Edie’s work, touring festivals)

🎥 Bioluminescence — Video & Visual Wonder

• Edie Widder TED Talks (bioluminescence & ocean light) — YouTube playlist
• Edie Widder — Marine Science Pioneer Award video
• Nature of bioluminescence explainer (Smithsonian Ocean) — background + some video clips

🐋 Companion Ocean & Science Stories

• Patrick and the Whale (PBS Nature) — Documentary referenced
• SnotBot / Ocean Alliance — context for Dr. Iain Kerr’s work with whales

🎙 Conspiracy of Goodness Podcast Episodes Mentioned

• Dr. Iain Kerr: Saving Whales to Save Ourselves: (CoG Episode 116)

📚 Education & Curiosity Thread

• Zoe Weil — New York Times feature & Solutionary work
• Maine Solutionaries Project (education context) — Resource on solutions-focused education

Chapters:

• 00:00 – Intro & Welcome
• 04:11 – How Deep Is the Ocean, Really?
• 08:37 – Turning the Lights Off to Truly See
• 13:36 – How Life Communicates in Darkness
• 18:00 – From Jellyfish to Cancer Research
• 24:22 – Courage, Curiosity, and Her Mother’s Influence
• 28:52 – Break
• 31:30 – Near-Death, Blindness, and a Deeper Connection to Light
• 43:40 – Using Bioluminescence to Detect Pollution
• 53:53 – Wonder, Hope, and What’s Worth Saving