Sylvia Earle Quotes
-
Most of life on Earth has a deep past, much deeper than ours. And we have benefited from the distillation of all preceding history, call it evolutionary history if you will.
→ -
Globally sharks have been killed for their fins, for their cartilage, for their livers, for their meat. But mostly what has driven some species of sharks to near extinction - including the hammerhead shark - is the new luxury taste for shark fin soup.
→ -
I love music of all kinds, but there's no greater music than the sound of my grandchildren laughing; my kids, too.
→ -
I have lots of heroes: anyone and everyone who does whatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it.
→ -
Great attention gets paid to rainforests because of the diversity of life there. Diversity in the oceans is even greater.
→ -
We don't have to be that greedy generation that just continued to take down the underpinnings of what makes the planet work in our favor.
→ -
You don't have to touch the ocean for the ocean to touch you
→ -
Ignorance is the biggest problem of all for the ocean - and for many other things as well.
→ -
Our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels and the corporate mandate to maximize shareholder value encourages drilling without taking into account the costs to the ocean, even without major spills.
→ -
I've spent thousands of hours under water. And even in the deepest dive I have ever made, 2.5 miles (about 4 kilometers) down, I saw trash and other tangible evidence of our presence.
→ -
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.
→ -
Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea.
→ -
No creature on Earth ever has organized themselves in ways that we have, with the capacity to alter the nature of nature the way we have.
→ -
America gains most when individuals have great freedom to pursue personal goals without undue government interference.
→ -
There are a lot of smart creatures out there. Dolphins, elephants, and whales are smart. And there are some really smart birds. I know some really intelligent fish. But they cannot know what humans know and are incapable of inflicting as much damage.
→ -
We have become frighteningly effective at altering nature.
→ -
It isn't too late to shift from the swift, sharp decline of ocean systems in recent decades to an era of steady recovery. There is time, and there is a growing awareness, which is the best way to counter indifference. People who know might care.
→ -
Not only who am I, but who are we? And where are we going? It's the "we." It's the social connections that are special to human beings.
→ -
There's something missing about how we're informing the youngsters coming along about what matters in the world. We teach them the numbers and the letters, but we fail to communicate the importance of our connection to the living world.
→ -
Since I began exploring the ocean in the 1950s, 90 percent of the big fish have been stripped away. Tuna, sharks, swordfish, cod, halibut, you name it, the numbers have just collapsed. Also, about half of the coral reefs are gone, globally, from where they were just a few decades ago.
→ -
The Arctic is a place that historically, during all preceding human history, has largely been an icy realm with an impact on ocean currents. That, in turn, influences the temperature of the planet. The Arctic is now vulnerable because of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, with a rate of melting that is stunning.
→ -
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. 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.
→ -
In the past few decades, Earth's natural systems have endured more pressure than in all preceding human history.
→ -
We must protect our ocean as if our lives depend upon it, because they do.
→ -
Our job is to keep what is working intact and not destroy what we have got.
→ -
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.
→ -
The oceans deserve our respect and care, but you have to know something before you can care about it.
→ -
Ten percent of the big fish still remain. There are still some blue whales. There are still some krill in Antarctica. 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.
→ -
I am driven by what I know; that the world I love is in trouble.
→ -
We've got to somehow stabilize our connection to nature so that in 50 years from now, 500 years, 5,000 years from now there will still be a wild system and respect for what it takes to sustain us.
→
Related Authors
-
Eugenie Clark Ichthyologist -
Graham Hawkes Marine engineer -
Edith Widder Oceanographer -
Robert Ballard Professor -
Jean-Michel Cousteau Explorer -
Fabien Cousteau Oceanographer -
William Beebe Ornithologist -
Carl Safina Author -
Rachel Carson Marine biologist -
Jane Goodall Primatologist -
Fisher Stevens Actor -
Alexandra Cousteau Filmmaker -
E. O. Wilson Biologist -
David Helvarg Journalist -
-
Jacques Yves Cousteau Filmmaker -
Jim Toomey Cartoonist -
David Attenborough Broadcaster -
-
Barton Seaver Chef