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.
SYLVIA EARLEIf somebody dumps something noxious in my back yard, the dumper is the last one I would call on to repair the damage.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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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.
SYLVIA EARLE -
We wouldn’t be able to survive. We would have a hard time surviving if we were transported to the time when dinosaurs were around.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Take away the ice and snow, increase the temperature by even a little, and the realm that makes their lives possible literally melts away.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Since the middle of the 20th century, more has been learnt about the ocean than during all preceding human history; at the same time, more has been lost.
SYLVIA EARLE -
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?
SYLVIA EARLE -
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.
SYLVIA EARLE -
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.
SYLVIA EARLE -
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.
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As a child, I was aware of the widely-held attitude that the ocean is so big, so resilient that we could use the sea as the ultimate place to dispose of anything.
SYLVIA EARLE -
The end of commercial fishing is predicted long before the middle of the 21st century.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Humans are the only creatures with the ability to dive deep in the sea, fly high in the sky, send instant messages around the globe, reflect on the past, assess the present and imagine the future.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Ice ages have come and gone. Coral reefs have persisted.
SYLVIA EARLE -
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.
SYLVIA EARLE -
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.
SYLVIA EARLE -
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.
SYLVIA EARLE






