Women Born In The 1930s

"Without an ocean, there would be no life-no people anyway"

"I suppose you want to know what my wish is. I wish you would use all means at your disposal -- films, expeditions, the web, new submarines -- and campaign to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas -- hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet. How much? Some say 10 percent, some say 30 percent. You decide: how much of your heart do you want to protect? Whatever it is, a fraction of one percent is not enough. My wish is a big wish, but if we can make it happen, it can truly change the world, and help ensure the survival of what actually -- as it turns out -- is my favorite species; that would be us. For the children of today, for tomorrow's child: as never again, now is the time."

"Protected areas provide hope that the creatures of Ed Wilson's dream of an encyclopedia of life, or the census of marine life, will live not just as a list, a photograph, or a paragraph."

"fortunately, in our time, we've learned more about the problems than in all preceding history. And with knowing comes caring."

"Tim Worth says the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment. With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you're connected to the sea. No matter where on Earth you live. Most of the oxygen in the atmosphere is generated by the sea. Over time, most of the planet's organic carbon has been absorbed and stored there, mostly by microbes. The ocean drives climate and weather, stabilizes temperature, shapes Earth's chemistry. Water from the sea forms clouds that return to the land and the seas as rain, sleet and snow, and provides home for about 97 percent of life in the world, maybe in the universe. No water, no life; no blue, no green."

"The poet W. H. Auden said, "Thousands have lived without love; none without water." Ninety-seven percent of Earth's water is ocean. No blue, no green. If you think the ocean isn't important, imagine Earth without it. Mars comes to mind. No ocean, no life support system."

"And I hope Jill Tarter's wish to engage Earthlings includes dolphins and whales and other sea creatures in this quest to find intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. And I hope, Jill, that someday we will find evidence that there is intelligent life among humans on this planet."

"I'm haunted by the thought of what Ray Anderson calls "tomorrow's child," asking why we didn't do something on our watch to save sharks and bluefin tuna and squids and coral reefs and the living ocean while there still was time. Well, now is that time. I hope for your help to explore and protect the wild ocean in ways that will restore the health and, in so doing, secure hope for humankind. Health to the ocean means health for us."

"High on my short list of heroes for science-based ocean conservation is Graeme Kelleher, for 25 years the chairman of Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and for his entire career a proponent of marine protected areas."

"But taking a small number of wild creatures out of large populations while protecting-not destroying the habitat is very different from the industrial-scale extraction of wildlife now taking place in the sea. These issues seemed to intrigue President George W. Bush during a conversation over dinner at the White House in April 2006."

"Perversely, the natural living systems that over billions of years have generated and shaped planetary chemistry in ways that make Earth hospitable for humankind are being destroyed at breathtaking speed. This, too, we now know. Now that I know, I hope to convey a sense of urgency to others, to inspire use of the special powers that humans possess to take actions to protect what remains and restore whatever we can of the natural living systems that give us life, and provide the underpinnings of all we hold near and dear."

"I certainly was unaware that the ocean globally was on the verge of cataclysmic decline, that the pristine seas I had known as a child were in danger of becoming Paradise Lost. I was not alone in not knowing. Rachel Carson, famous for her 1962 classic Silent Spring, 11 years earlier wrote in The Sea Around Us: "Eventually man...found his way back to the sea.... And yet he has returned to his mother sea only on her own terms. He cannot control or change the ocean as, in his brief tenancy of earth, he has subdued and plundered the continents.""

"I now know, the horseshoe crab and thousands of other ancient, resilient creatures may not survive the impact my species has had on the living world, largely in a single century. More worrisome, humankind may not survive for long, either, unless we use our remarkable capacity to learn from the past, anticipate the consequences, and take actions that will ensure an enduring future. As it turns out, the future of the ocean, the creatures who live there, and our own future are inextricably linked."

"most of all, it matters that the world is blue because our lives depend on the living ocean-not just the rocks and water, but stable, resilient, diverse living systems that hold the world on a steady course favorable to humankind. The big question is, what can we do to take care of the blue world that takes care of us?"

"two things changed in the 20th century that may jolt us into a new way of thinking. First, more was discovered about the nature of the ocean and its relevance to the way the world works than during all preceding history. Second, during the same narrow slice of time, human actions caused more destruction to ocean systems than during all preceding history. And the pace is picking up."

"Earth's life-support system-the ocean-is failing. But who is paying attention?"

"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."

"The ocean drives climate and weather, regulates temperature, absorbs much of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, holds 97 percent of Earth's water, and embraces 97 percent of the biosphere. Far and away the greatest abundance and diversity of life occurs in the ocean, occupying liquid space from the sunlit surface greatest depths."

"Without the legions of minuscule organisms that have preceded us over the ages and whose descendants surround us and support us still, life as we know it could not exist."

"Astronomer Carl Sagan noted that even when it is viewed from so far away that it is a pale dot, Earth is discernibly blue."

"Only here in this part of the universe, on Earth, is there known to be a place naturally blessed with abundant, liquid water. Not only is this the singular place with an ocean of salt water, but even more significant, it is an ocean that is filled with life that in turn, during some four billion years, has shaped the basic rocks and water of the planet into a strikingly different kind of place, a place unlike any known to exist anywhere else."

"“Green" issues make headlines these days, but many seem unaware that without the "blue" there could be no green, no life on Earth and therefore none of the other things that humans value. Water-the blue-is the key to life. With it, anything is possible; without it, life does not exist."

"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."

"No ocean, no life. No blue, no green. No ocean, no us."

"The ocean is large and resilient, but it is not too big to fail. What we are taking out of the sea, what we are putting into the sea are actions that are undermining the most important thing the ocean delivers to humankind – our very existence."

"The ocean is, in effect, our life-support system, driving and weather, governing the , stabilizing , generating most of the oxygen in the atmosphere, taking up much of the , shaping . If the ocean is in trouble, so are we."

"I hope Jill Tarter's wish to engage Earthlings includes dolphins and whales and other sea creatures in this quest to find intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. And I hope, Jill, that someday we will find evidence that there is intelligent life among humans on this planet. (Chuckles) Did I say that? I guess I did."

"People ask: Why should I care about the ocean? Because the ocean is the cornerstone of earth's life support system, it shapes climate and weather. It holds most of life on earth. 97% of earth's water is there. It's the blue heart of the planet — we should take care of our heart. It's what makes life possible for us. We still have a really good chance to make things better than they are. They won't get better unless we take the action and inspire others to do the same thing. No one is without power. Everybody has the capacity to do something."

"The next time you dine on sushi -- or sashimi, or swordfish steak, or shrimp cocktail, whatever wildlife you happen to enjoy from the ocean -- think of the real cost. For every pound that goes to market, more than 10 pounds, even 100 pounds, may be thrown away as bycatch. This is the consequence of not knowing that there are limits to what we can take out of the sea."

"Sylvia Earle, who may know the ocean as well as any human being now alive, helps us cut that intimidating vastness down to size. She does it in two ways, both amply illustrated in this new classic book. Her first method is to bring the ocean to full life-to remind us of the very nearly infinite abundance of things that live there, some of them things that only a few people besides her have ever laid eyes on...Earle, though a great scientist, is also the heir to Jacques Cousteau, inducting the landbound among us into the mysteries of the sea, helping us to feel both astonished and at ease. But there's another, much darker, way in which Sylvia Earle helps us understand the size of the ocean. And that's to point out that, vast as it is, it's not so big that we can't screw it up...Sylvia Earle's passionate life-including this powerful volume-calls us to that work. But we've got to respond. Brilliant and committed as she is, Sylvia Earle is not going to save the oceans on her own. They're too big. But all of us dwell near the sea, even if we live a thousand miles inland-the sea falls from the sky when it rains; every drop of water we use eventually finds its way into the ocean. It is therefore our duty, and also our delight, to take on this defining challenge of our time."

"Sylvia Earle, what a pioneer...her generation — they were explorers...They’re like, what is even down there? How do we understand this? And then: Oh [bleep], this is in trouble. And they all became conservationists, right? We saw that same professional transformation with Jacques Cousteau."

"there’s a chemistry of life that has this capacity for enormous variation, maybe infinite variation. It’s a source of endless wonder and something that — it’s worth using our minds, that special gift that we have. There are other intelligent creatures out there — whales, dolphins, elephants, fish. Some of them are really smart. But they don’t know what we know. They can’t see the inside of a star or the inside of a starfish — except some of them, maybe, to eat them. But we have this power not only to explore, but we can go back in time. We can anticipate the future, far into the future. We can plot a course for ourselves based on intelligence. And the trick is: OK, homo sapiens, the smart ones, the wise ones — let’s take advantage of that capacity...Let’s put that into action and not just be like the bacteria on a dish that consume everything until they die. We don’t have to do that."

"we know that with cats and dogs and horses and kids, humans, every face is really different. But it’s true with all forms of life."

"that’s the joy of being a scientist and an explorer. You do what little children do. You ask questions, like: Who? What? Why? When? Where? How? And you never stop, and you never cease being surprised. You just never stop that sense of wonder. It is fantastic that life exists at all. And I revel in just the joy of being out in some wild place, or even in my own backyard. Just look at a leaf. It’s an amazing thing what goes on in a leaf; and it happens all the time, and we can breathe because of it, or because of photosynthesis that takes place there and in the sea. Knowing that, I think it’s just impossible to be bored."

"Diving into the ocean, it’s like diving into the history of life on earth, not just over the last 50 or 1,000, but the last million, 10 million, 100 million years, because creatures are there that have been there for several hundred million years, not those same creatures, but their near relatives, like jellyfish; like — well, sharks have been around for 300 million years; horseshoe crabs, creatures that lured me into the ocean as a child in New Jersey, have a history that goes back at least 300 million years; so many forms of life that were found in the ocean long before there were multicellular creatures occupying space on the land."

"There’s heaven on earth. It just happens to be in the ocean."

"I feel like a witness to—I am—to the greatest era of change on the planet as a whole. Anybody who’s been around even for ten years is a part of this, but the longer you’ve been around, the more you’ve seen. And the last half-century, in particular, has been a time of revolutionary change. We didn’t know the existence of those great mountain chains, hydrothermal vents, the existence of life in the deepest sea, seven miles down. Nobody had been there. Not until 1960 was it possible for two men to make a descent to the deepest part of the sea."

"there is a basic ethical attitude: respect for life, respect for other humans, certainly, but for all forms of life. It’s something that if everyone could just realize how special it is to be alive on this little blue speck in the universe, it’s a miracle that life exists at all and that we have a piece of time that is ours — whoever we are, shorter or longer, whatever it is, but — to really be a part of the action and to respect where we have come from, where we might be going."

"The 21st century humans are poised to be the heroes for all time because we're armed with a superpower of knowing that we have to change our attitude about the world that keeps us alive, that we can't just continue mining and, you know, taking and taking. We have to be aware of the consequences."

"we can't be happy or healthy if we don't take care of our life support system, the planet."

"I think one of the most important trends is the awareness and willingness to embrace places and to recognize that protecting nature, the natural systems, have benefits back to us in terms not just of better health, not just because they're beautiful - it's not even a choice anymore; it's necessary for our existence. We have to realize we're a part of nature. We can see the connection between trees and climate. We can see connection between the forests and the ocean, the phytoplankton capturing carbon, generating oxygen, maintaining a planet that works in our favor. This is common sense."

"it's still there - the habit of thinking that the ocean is too big to fail. And we're still taking life in the ocean for granted. We still think that we have the capacity to take fish on a scale that we currently are and continue to do it forever."

"Being a child in Florida when my parents moved there in 1948 and witnessing the changes in the coastline, the marshes that I first discovered - finding horseshoe crab eggs, these tiny little creatures prospering in really clear water and going out on a dock at night and seeing these bioluminescent creatures just flashing and glowing - and witnessing the change, that the waters became not beautiful, clear and blue but muddy - that was powerful incentive to say, why are we doing this?"

"I've had a chance to live underwater 10 times now in various underwater laboratories and to use more than 30 different kinds of submarines, thousands of hours seeing the ocean from the inside out and realizing this is not just rocks and water; this is alive. It's a soup, like minestrone, but all the little pieces are alive."

"Change happens because of individuals who team up with others or inspire others. And soon you’ve got 10 or 100 or 1,000, and then you’ve got a movement."

"The ocean is the blue heart of the planet."

"Knowledge is the superpower of the 21st century. Even the smartest people alive when I was born did not know what 10-year-olds today have available to them. That’s truly cause for hope."

"I’ve had the privilege of living underwater on 10 different occasions. It has enabled me to get to know individual moray eels, individual groupers, even individual lobsters. They all have faces, they have attitudes. They have sensory systems much like our own. And yet we somehow harden ourselves to think they don’t feel pain. We pride ourselves on being “humane” but it doesn’t translate to the way we treat animals in the sea."

"(What is the biggest threat to the ocean right now?) Deep-sea mining. Some are buying into the lie that we should be taking minerals that are necessary for today’s generation of [EV] batteries, like lithium, cobalt and nickel, from the deep sea, because who cares what happens in the deep sea? These deep-sea systems are full of life and are part of the biogeochemical cycling systems that hold Earth steady. If Earth functions like a big computer system with all these little wires and lights that we don’t understand but we know it keeps us alive, would we want to get in there and take those little lights out because we don’t understand how they work?"

"(What is the single most important thing we can do for the oceans today?) Right now a disproportionate bite out of the ocean is being taken by a relatively small number of countries doing industrial fishing. We’ve got to get over this idea that wildlife from the ocean is essential for our food security. What we now are beginning to understand is the high cost of eating fish. What does it take to make a pound of tuna? A lot of halibut or cod. What makes the halibut? Smaller fish. What do they eat? Krill. Krill eat phytoplankton, zooplankton. Over the years thousands of pounds of phytoplankton make a single pound of tuna. So that tuna is expensive in terms of the carbon that it has captured. The more fish we take out of the sea, the more carbon dioxide gets released into the atmosphere."