I would love to slip into the skin of a fish and know what it’s like to be one. They have senses that I can only dream about.
SYLVIA EARLEWe wouldn’t be able to survive. We would have a hard time surviving if we were transported to the time when dinosaurs were around.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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Far and away, the greatest threat to the ocean, and thus to ourselves, is ignorance. But we can do something about that.
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If you think the ocean isn’t important, imagine Earth without it. Mars comes to mind. No ocean, no life support system.
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People still do not understand that a live fish is more valuable than a dead one, and that destructive fishing techniques are taking a wrecking ball to biodiversity.
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Health to the ocean means health for us.
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They have curiosity. ‘Who, what, where, why, when, and how!’ They never stop asking questions, and I never stop asking questions, just like a five year old.
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They are so beautiful, a pair is in the Museum of Modern Art. The set I have are ruby red. I call them my ruby flippers.
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I am not in any hurry to grow up.
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Humans are the only creatures with the ability to dive deep in the sea, fly high in the sky, send instant messages around the globe, reflect on the past, assess the present and imagine the future.
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There are some who would like to see the oil rigs removed right down to the ground once their job is done, and there are others, and I count myself among them, who think that once they are in place they begin to be adopted by life in the ocean as a habitat.
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I actually love diving at night; you see a lot of fish then that you don’t see in the daytime.
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My parents moved to Florida when I was 12, and my backyard was the Gulf of Mexico.
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There is a terribly terrestrial mindset about what we need to do to take care of the planet.
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Photosynthetic organisms in the sea yield most of the oxygen in the atmosphere, take up and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide, shape planetary chemistry, and hold the planet steady.
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Look at the bark of a redwood, and you see moss.
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Our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels and the corporate mandate to maximize shareholder value encourages drilling without taking into account the costs to the ocean, even without major spills.
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Everyone has power. But it doesn’t help if you don’t use it.
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I’m friends with James Cameron. We’ve spent time together over the years because he is a diver and explorer and in his heart of hearts a biologist. We run into each other at scientific conferences.
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What we once used as weapons of war, we now use as weapons against fish.
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The best scientists and explorers have the attributes of kids! They ask question and have a sense of wonder.
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Bottom trawling is a ghastly process that brings untold damage to sea beds that support ocean life.
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You should be afraid if you are in the ocean and don’t see sharks.
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We wouldn’t be able to survive. We would have a hard time surviving if we were transported to the time when dinosaurs were around.
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And there’s no question that it is a factor, but it’s preceded by the loss of resilience and degradation.
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Is a slow but accelerating impact with consequences that will greatly overshadow all the oil spills put together. The warming trend that is CO2-related will overshadow all the oil spills that have ever occurred put together.
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The end of commercial fishing is predicted long before the middle of the 21st century.
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If you peer beneath the bits and pieces of the moss, you’ll see toads, small insects, a whole host of life that prospers in that miniature environment.
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