Is a slow but accelerating impact with consequences that will greatly overshadow all the oil spills put together. The warming trend that is CO2-related will overshadow all the oil spills that have ever occurred put together.
SYLVIA EARLEWhen I arrived on the planet, there were only two billion. Wildlife was more abundant, we were less so; now the situation is reversed.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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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 -
It’s mainly the high-end luxury market now that drives much of the fishing in the sea. It’s not feeding the starving millions. It’s feeding a luxury market.
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 -
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.
SYLVIA EARLE -
It’s a fact of life that there will be oil spills, as long as oil is moved from place to place, but we must have provisions to deal with them, and a capability that is commensurate with the size of the oil shipments.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Health to the ocean means health for us.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Anything injured, or any unusual creature somebody found, they would always come to our doorstep.
SYLVIA EARLE -
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.
SYLVIA EARLE -
When I write a scientific treatise, I might reach 100 people. When the ‘National Geographic’ covers a project, it communicates about plants and fish and underwater technology to more than 10 million people.
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 -
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 -
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.
SYLVIA EARLE -
They have a lateral line down their whole body that senses motion, but maybe it does more than that.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Ten percent of the big fish still remain. There are still some blue whales. There are still some krill in Antarctica.
SYLVIA EARLE -
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.
SYLVIA EARLE