Take away the ice and snow, increase the temperature by even a little, and the realm that makes their lives possible literally melts away.
SYLVIA EARLEPlaces change over time with or without oil spills, but humans are responsible for the Deepwater Horizon gusher – and humans, as well as the corals, fish and other creatures, are suffering the consequences.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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I personally have stopped eating seafood.
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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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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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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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For humans, the Arctic is a harshly inhospitable place, but the conditions there are precisely what polar bears require to survive – and thrive. ‘Harsh’ to us is ‘home’ for them.
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I’ve always said, ‘Underwater or on top, men and women are compatible.’
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I want everybody to go jump in the ocean to see for themselves how beautiful it is, how important it is to get acquainted with fish swimming in the ocean, rather than just swimming with lemon slices and butter.
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We need to respect the oceans and take care of them as if our lives depended on it. Because they do.
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My first encounter with the ocean was on the Jersey Shore when I was three years old and I got knocked over by a wave.
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What we once used as weapons of war, we now use as weapons against fish.
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Anything injured, or any unusual creature somebody found, they would always come to our doorstep.
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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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My mother was known as the ‘bird lady’ of the neighborhood.
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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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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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Forty percent of the United States drains into the Mississippi. It’s agriculture. It’s golf courses. It’s domestic runoff from our lawns and roads. Ultimately, where does it go? Downstream into the gulf.
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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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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.
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I hope for your help to explore and protect the wild ocean in ways that will restore the health and, in so doing, secure hope for humankind.
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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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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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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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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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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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The most important thing for people to know about the governance of the Arctic is that we have a chance now to act to maintain the integrity of the system or to lose it.
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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