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.
SYLVIA EARLELook at the bark of a redwood, and you see moss.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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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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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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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.
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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.
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Ice ages have come and gone. Coral reefs have persisted.
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The most important thing for people to know about the governance of the Arctic is that we have a chance now to act to maintain the integrity of the system or to lose it.
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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.
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Hold up a mirror and ask yourself what you are capable of doing, and what you really care about. Then take the initiative – don’t wait for someone else to ask you to act.
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Green’ issues at last are attracting serious attention, owing to critically important links between the environment and the economy, health, and our security.
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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.
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The end of commercial fishing is predicted long before the middle of the 21st century.
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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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Health to the ocean means health for us.
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Ocean acidification – the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is turning the oceans increasingly acid.
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My first encounter with the ocean was on the Jersey Shore when I was three years old and I got knocked over by a wave.
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The ocean certainly got my attention! It wasn’t frightening, it was more exhilarating.
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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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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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I personally have stopped eating seafood.
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My mother was known as the ‘bird lady’ of the neighborhood.
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Nothing has prepared sharks, squid, krill and other sea creatures for industrial-scale extraction that destroys entire ecosystems while targeting a few species.
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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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Bottom trawling is a ghastly process that brings untold damage to sea beds that support ocean life.
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I would love to slip into the skin of a fish and know what it’s like to be one. They have senses that I can only dream about.
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The best scientists and explorers have the attributes of kids! They ask question and have a sense of wonder.
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Like a shipwreck or a jetty, almost anything that forms a structure in the ocean, whether it is natural or artificial over time, collects life.
SYLVIA EARLE