It’s mainly the high-end luxury market now that drives much of the fishing in the sea. It’s not feeding the starving millions. It’s feeding a luxury market.
SYLVIA EARLEWhen 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.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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A lumberman will look at a forest and see so many board feet of lumber. I see a living city.
SYLVIA EARLE -
I have lots of heroes: anyone and everyone who does whatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it.
SYLVIA EARLE -
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.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Ice ages have come and gone. Coral reefs have persisted.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Bottom trawling is a ghastly process that brings untold damage to sea beds that support ocean life.
SYLVIA EARLE -
I have heard endlessly that fish are so resilient that there is no way that you could exterminate a species. We are learning otherwise.
SYLVIA EARLE -
We have been far too aggressive about extracting ocean wildlife, not appreciating that there are limits and even points of no return.
SYLVIA EARLE -
We wouldn’t be able to survive. We would have a hard time surviving if we were transported to the time when dinosaurs were around.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Some experts look at global warming, increased world temperature, as the critical tipping point that is causing a crash in coral reef health around the world.
SYLVIA EARLE -
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.
SYLVIA EARLE -
When I arrived on the planet, there were only two billion. Wildlife was more abundant, we were less so; now the situation is reversed.
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 -
For heaven’s sake, when you see the enemy attacking, you pick up the pitchfork, and you enlist everybody you see.
SYLVIA EARLE -
You should be afraid if you are in the ocean and don’t see sharks.
SYLVIA EARLE -
On a sea floor that looks like a sandy mud bottom, that at first glance might appear to be sand and mud, when you look closely and sit there as I do for a while and just wait, all sorts of creatures show themselves, with little heads popping out of the sand. It is a metropolis.
SYLVIA EARLE






