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.
SYLVIA EARLEThere are some who would like to see the oil rigs removed right down to the ground once their job is done, and there are others, and I count myself among them, who think that once they are in place they begin to be adopted by life in the ocean as a habitat.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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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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Look at the bark of a redwood, and you see moss.
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No matter where on Earth you live. Most of the oxygen in the atmosphere is generated by the sea.
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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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When I arrived on the planet, there were only two billion. Wildlife was more abundant, we were less so; now the situation is reversed.
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Ocean acidification – the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is turning the oceans increasingly acid.
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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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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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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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What we once used as weapons of war, we now use as weapons against fish.
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Take away the ice and snow, increase the temperature by even a little, and the realm that makes their lives possible literally melts away.
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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.
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There’s something missing about how we’re informing the youngsters coming along about what matters in the world. We teach them the numbers and the letters, but we fail to communicate the importance of our connection to the living world.
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Ten percent of the big fish still remain. There are still some blue whales. There are still some krill in Antarctica.
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I find the lure of the unknown irresistible.
SYLVIA EARLE






