What can whale earwax tell us about our impact on theocean?
In this episode, I dive into the strange, poetic, and troubling world of animal senses — from humpback whales dying in nets they can’t see, to the invisible pollution of our noise, light, and chemicals that disrupts ecosystemswe barely understand.

We explore:

• How whale earwax holds decades of environmental data — an archive of our pollution
• Why humpback whales have poor eyesight — and how it’s killing them
• The concept of Umwelt: the sensory worlds unique to each species
• What happens to our own world when we ignore, erase, or overwhelm the senses ofothers
• The climate cost of sensory extinction — and why noticing is a radical act

Mentioned in this episode
• On Whale Earwax: Ed Yong’s The Atlantic article
• Ferdinando Cotugno – Areale Podcast (Italian)
• Book: An Immense World by Ed Yong – on animal senses and the richness of perception
• Book: The Blue Machine by Helen Czerski – on the ocean as a system of movement and rhythm