The concept of ‘peak oil’ has penetrated the hearts and minds of people concerned about energy for the future. ‘Peak fish’ occurred around the end of the 1980s.
SYLVIA EARLEThe best scientists and explorers have the attributes of kids! They ask question and have a sense of wonder.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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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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Bottom trawling is a ghastly process that brings untold damage to sea beds that support ocean life.
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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 love music of all kinds, but there’s no greater music than the sound of my grandchildren laughing; my kids, too.
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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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With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you’re connected to the sea.
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America gains most when individuals have great freedom to pursue personal goals without undue government interference.
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I want everybody to go jump in the ocean to see for themselves how beautiful it is, how important it is to get acquainted with fish swimming in the ocean, rather than just swimming with lemon slices and butter.
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Places change over time with or without oil spills, but humans are responsible for the Deepwater Horizon gusher – and humans, as well as the corals, fish and other creatures, are suffering the consequences.
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I’ve had the joy of spending thousands of hours under the sea. I wish I could take people along to see what I see, and to know what I know.
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They are so beautiful, a pair is in the Museum of Modern Art. The set I have are ruby red. I call them my ruby flippers.
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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 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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That, in turn, influences the temperature of the planet. The Arctic is now vulnerable because of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, with a rate of melting that is stunning.
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If somebody dumps something noxious in my back yard, the dumper is the last one I would call on to repair the damage.
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Ocean acidification – the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is turning the oceans increasingly acid.
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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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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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There is a terribly terrestrial mindset about what we need to do to take care of the planet.
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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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I’m friends with James Cameron. We’ve spent time together over the years because he is a diver and explorer and in his heart of hearts a biologist. We run into each other at scientific conferences.
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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.
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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.
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People still do not understand that a live fish is more valuable than a dead one, and that destructive fishing techniques are taking a wrecking ball to biodiversity.
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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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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.
SYLVIA EARLE