The ocean certainly got my attention! It wasn’t frightening, it was more exhilarating.
SYLVIA EARLETake away the ice and snow, increase the temperature by even a little, and the realm that makes their lives possible literally melts away.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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You don’t stand around arguing about who’s responsible, or who’s going to pay.
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There are a few oysters in Chesapeake Bay. Half the coral reefs are still in pretty good shape, a jeweled belt around the middle of the planet. There’s still time, but not a lot, to turn things around.
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We have become frighteningly effective at altering nature.
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Green’ issues at last are attracting serious attention, owing to critically important links between the environment and the economy, health, and our security.
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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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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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The end of commercial fishing is predicted long before the middle of the 21st century.
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When I arrived on the planet, there were only two billion. Wildlife was more abundant, we were less so; now the situation is reversed.
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Ice ages have come and gone. Coral reefs have persisted.
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A lumberman will look at a forest and see so many board feet of lumber. I see a living city.
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As a child, I was aware of the widely-held attitude that the ocean is so big, so resilient that we could use the sea as the ultimate place to dispose of anything.
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It’s a fact of life that there will be oil spills, as long as oil is moved from place to place, but we must have provisions to deal with them, and a capability that is commensurate with the size of the oil shipments.
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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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The sudden release of five million barrels of oil, enormous quantities of methane and two million gallons of toxic dispersants into an already greatly stressed Gulf of Mexico will permanently alter the nature of the area.
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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.
SYLVIA EARLE