The Exxon Valdez spill triggered a swift and strong response that changed policies about shipping, about double-hulled construction. A number of laws came into place.
SYLVIA EARLEI have lots of heroes: anyone and everyone who does whatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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When I write a scientific treatise, I might reach 100 people. When the ‘National Geographic’ covers a project, it communicates about plants and fish and underwater technology to more than 10 million people.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Just as we have the power to harm the ocean, we have the power to put in place policies and modify our own behavior in ways that would be an insurance policy for the future of the sea, for the creatures there, and for us, protecting special critical areas in the ocean.
SYLVIA EARLE -
You should be afraid if you are in the ocean and don’t see sharks.
SYLVIA EARLE -
I’m not against extracting a modest amount of wildlife out of the ocean for human consumption, but I am really concerned about the large-scale industrial fishing that engages in destructive practices like trawling and longlining.
SYLVIA EARLE -
If you think the ocean isn’t important, imagine Earth without it. Mars comes to mind. No ocean, no life support system.
SYLVIA EARLE -
There’s no place that we know about that can support life as we know it, not even our sister planet, Mars, where we might set up housekeeping someday, but at great effort and trouble we have to recreate the things we take for granted here.
SYLVIA EARLE -
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.
SYLVIA EARLE -
The end of commercial fishing is predicted long before the middle of the 21st century.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Large areas of the Gulf have escaped being scraped by trawls, crushed by more than 40,000 miles of pipelines, or displaced by one of 50,000 oil and gas wells drilled since the middle of the 20th century. Some places have been deliberately protected.
SYLVIA EARLE -
For heaven’s sake, when you see the enemy attacking, you pick up the pitchfork, and you enlist everybody you see.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Bottom trawling is a ghastly process that brings untold damage to sea beds that support ocean life.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Nothing has prepared sharks, squid, krill and other sea creatures for industrial-scale extraction that destroys entire ecosystems while targeting a few species.
SYLVIA EARLE -
The Arctic is a place that historically, during all preceding human history, has largely been an icy realm with an impact on ocean currents.
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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.
SYLVIA EARLE -
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 EARLE