Nothing has prepared sharks, squid, krill and other sea creatures for industrial-scale extraction that destroys entire ecosystems while targeting a few species.
SYLVIA EARLEWe have become frighteningly effective at altering nature.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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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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Anything injured, or any unusual creature somebody found, they would always come to our doorstep.
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I am not in any hurry to grow up.
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Large areas of the Gulf have escaped being scraped by trawls, crushed by more than 40,000 miles of pipelines, or displaced by one of 50,000 oil and gas wells drilled since the middle of the 20th century. Some places have been deliberately protected.
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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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No matter where on Earth you live. Most of the oxygen in the atmosphere is generated by the sea.
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What we once used as weapons of war, we now use as weapons against fish.
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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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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.
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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 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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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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You don’t stand around arguing about who’s responsible, or who’s going to pay.
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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.
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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 EARLE






