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.
SYLVIA EARLEAny 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.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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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.
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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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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.
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And there’s no question that it is a factor, but it’s preceded by the loss of resilience and degradation.
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Health to the ocean means health for us.
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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.
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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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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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A lumberman will look at a forest and see so many board feet of lumber. I see a living city.
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When I first ventured into the Gulf of Mexico in the 1950s, the sea appeared to be a blue infinity too large, too wild to be harmed by anything that people could do.
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I love my Force Fins, which are the kind of fins Special Forces use and really are adapted from the fins of fish. They’re very efficient.
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Far and away, the greatest threat to the ocean, and thus to ourselves, is ignorance. But we can do something about that.
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To lose it means that we will dismember the vital systems that make the Arctic work. It’s not just a cost to the people who live there. It’s a cost to all people everywhere.
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We have become frighteningly effective at altering nature.
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There is a terribly terrestrial mindset about what we need to do to take care of the planet.
SYLVIA EARLE