And there’s no question that it is a factor, but it’s preceded by the loss of resilience and degradation.
SYLVIA EARLEMy first encounter with the ocean was on the Jersey Shore when I was three years old and I got knocked over by a wave.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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For heaven’s sake, when you see the enemy attacking, you pick up the pitchfork, and you enlist everybody you see.
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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.
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Sharks are beautiful animals, and if you’re lucky enough to see lots of them, that means that you’re in a healthy ocean.
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Hold up a mirror and ask yourself what you are capable of doing, and what you really care about. Then take the initiative – don’t wait for someone else to ask you to act.
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With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you’re connected to the sea.
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The concept of ‘peak oil’ has penetrated the hearts and minds of people concerned about energy for the future. ‘Peak fish’ occurred around the end of the 1980s.
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Nearly 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.
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Why is it that scuba divers and surfers are some of the strongest advocates of ocean conservation? Because they’ve spent time in and around the ocean, and they’ve personally seen the beauty.
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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 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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I personally have stopped eating seafood.
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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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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 heard endlessly that fish are so resilient that there is no way that you could exterminate a species. We are learning otherwise.
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If we could magically transport ourselves back to the young Earth, when it was only a billion years old or two billion years old or three billion years old or four billion years old.
SYLVIA EARLE