“We have become frighteningly effective at altering nature.”

I’ve always said, ‘Underwater or on top, men and women are compatible.’

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.

Some experts look at global warming, increased world temperature, as the critical tipping point that is causing a crash in coral reef health around the world.

Green’ issues at last are attracting serious attention, owing to critically important links between the environment and the economy, health, and our security.

We have taken the manatees out of the areas in the Caribbean and really elsewhere in the world, and this disruption to the system makes such systems vulnerable to changes as they come by, whether it’s in terms of disease or terms or global warming for that matter.

It’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?

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.

You don’t stand around arguing about who’s responsible, or who’s going to pay.

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.

If we could magically transport ourselves back to the young Earth, when it was only a billion years old or two billion years old or three billion years old or four billion years old.

The ocean certainly got my attention! It wasn’t frightening, it was more exhilarating.

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.

We have been far too aggressive about extracting ocean wildlife, not appreciating that there are limits and even points of no return.

The sudden release of five million barrels of oil, enormous quantities of methane and two million gallons of toxic dispersants into an already greatly stressed Gulf of Mexico will permanently alter the nature of the area.

By the end of the 20th century, up to 90 percent of the sharks, tuna, swordfish, marlins, groupers, turtles, whales, and many other large creatures that prospered in the Gulf for millions of years had been depleted by overfishing.

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.

Beer is sacred business, a mood-altering food substance that may have preserved the human species.

Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground.

It is easier for a libertarian to attack the science of global warming than to alter one’s core libertarian beliefs.

Women have always had equal importance onstage, and working with them must have altered my sensibilities.

I couldn’t think. The basics of my life seemed altered and thrown into question.

Telling them to stop isn’t going to help. There has to be some incentive for them to alter their behavior.

All human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes.

Everything alters me, but nothing changes me.