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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

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.
SYLVIA EARLE

Advocate Conservation Driver Ocean Scuba Some Spent Strongest Surface Time
Ten percent of the big fish still remain. There are still some blue whales. There are still some krill in Antarctica.
SYLVIA EARLE

Big Blue Country Fish Krill Percent Remain Sam Some Still Thing Whale
Any astronaut can tell you you’ve got to do everything you can to learn about your life support system and then do everything you can to take care of it.
SYLVIA EARLE

Anyone Astronaut Can Everyone Everything Hero Learn Life Support System
Bottom trawling is a ghastly process that brings untold damage to sea beds that support ocean life.
SYLVIA EARLE

Bed Being Both Bottom Damage Ghastly Life Ocean Process Sea Support Trawling Untold
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

Appear Button Closely Creature First Floor Glance Look Must Nud Sandy Sea Sort Themselves Wait
As if the ocean somehow doesn’t matter or is so big, so vast that it can take care of itself, or that there is nothing that we could possibly do that we could harm the ocean.
SYLVIA EARLE

Big Care Harm Itself Matter Nothing Ocean Possible Somehow Vast
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

Could Endless Exterminate Fish Have Learn No Otherwise Resilient Species Way
Is a slow but accelerating impact with consequences that will greatly overshadow all the oil spills put together. The warming trend that is CO2-related will overshadow all the oil spills that have ever occurred put together.
SYLVIA EARLE

Accelerate Consequence Greatly Impact Occur Oil Overshadowm Spill Put Slow Together Trend Warning
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.
SYLVIA EARLE

Ability Around Creature Deep Dive Fly Globe High Human Instant Message Onky Sea Sly
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.
SYLVIA EARLE

Animal Divison Freshwater Half Land Life Major Make Nearly Occur Only Sea
I have come up at the end of a dive, and the boat was not where I left it. I had to take care of a buddy who did panic. But I was confident the boat would come back.
SYLVIA EARLE

Back Boat Buddy Care Come Confident Dive End Had Left Panic Take Where
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

Behaviour Harm Have Just Modify Ocean Place Policy Power Put Way
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.
SYLVIA EARLE

Capability Commensurate Deal Fact Life Long Move Oil Place Provision Shipments Size Spill
Ocean acidification – the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is turning the oceans increasingly acid.
SYLVIA EARLE

Acid Acidification Atmosphere Carbon Dioxide Excess Increase Ocean Turn
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.
SYLVIA EARLE

Anything Attitude Away Big Child Could Dispose Held Ocean Place Resilient Sea Ultimate Use Widely
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 EARLE

Away Even Ice Increase Literally Little Live Make Melt Possible Show Take Temperature

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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