Protecting vital sources of renewal – unscathed marshes, healthy reefs, and deep-sea gardens – will provide hope for the future of the Gulf, and for all of us.
SYLVIA EARLEIt’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?
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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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.
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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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We have been far too aggressive about extracting ocean wildlife, not appreciating that there are limits and even points of no return.
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The Arctic is an ocean. The southern pole is a continent surrounded by ocean. The North Pole is an ocean, or northern waters. It’s an ocean surrounded by land, basically.
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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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The Exxon Valdez spill triggered a swift and strong response that changed policies about shipping, about double-hulled construction. A number of laws came into place.
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The ocean certainly got my attention! It wasn’t frightening, it was more exhilarating.
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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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I have heard endlessly that fish are so resilient that there is no way that you could exterminate a species. We are learning otherwise.
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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.
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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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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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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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I actually love diving at night; you see a lot of fish then that you don’t see in the daytime.
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I love music of all kinds, but there’s no greater music than the sound of my grandchildren laughing; my kids, too.
SYLVIA EARLE






