We have taken the manatees out of the areas in the Caribbean and really elsewhere in the world, and this disruption to the system makes such systems vulnerable to changes as they come by, whether it’s in terms of disease or terms or global warming for that matter.
SYLVIA EARLENearly all of the major kinds of life, divisions of life, phyla of animals, occur in the sea. Only about half of them can make it to land or freshwater.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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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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Nothing has prepared sharks, squid, krill and other sea creatures for industrial-scale extraction that destroys entire ecosystems while targeting a few species.
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Health to the ocean means health for us.
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If somebody dumps something noxious in my back yard, the dumper is the last one I would call on to repair the damage.
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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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Meat reared on land matures relatively quickly, and it takes only a few pounds of plants to produce a pound of meat.
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Every fish fertilizes the water in a way that generates the plankton that ultimately leads back into the food chain, but also yields oxygen, grabs carbon – it’s a part of what makes the ocean function and what makes the planet function.
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That, in turn, influences the temperature of the planet. The Arctic is now vulnerable because of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, with a rate of melting that is stunning.
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Like a shipwreck or a jetty, almost anything that forms a structure in the ocean, whether it is natural or artificial over time, collects life.
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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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It’s akin to using a bulldozer to catch a butterfly, destroying a whole ecosystem for the sake of a few pounds of protein. We wouldn’t do this on land, so why do it in the oceans?
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I have lots of heroes: anyone and everyone who does whatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it.
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All through college, I had frequently been the only girl in a science class – which wasn’t such a bad deal.
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I personally have stopped eating seafood.
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I love music of all kinds, but there’s no greater music than the sound of my grandchildren laughing; my kids, too.
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