Sylvia Earle Quotes

With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you're connected to the sea. No matter where on Earth you live.

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.

We need to respect the oceans and take care of them as if our lives depended on it. Because they do.

The oceans deserve our respect and care, but you have to know something before you can care about it.

Our past, our present, and whatever remains of our future, absolutely depend on what we do now.

Success underwater depends mostly on how you conduct yourself. Diving can be the most relaxing experience in the world. Your weight seems to disappear. Space travel will be available only to a few individuals for some time, but the oceans are available to almost everyone - now.

No water, no life. No blue, no green.

My first breath was just...it just seemed impossible that you could actually breathe underwater. I knew in my mind it was possible, but actually experiencing it was such a gulp of joy and I feel it every time I go under the ocean. I love doing it, to be able to feel weightless, to spin on one finger, to do somersaults, to be like a graceful ballerina - even with a huge tank on your back you can do the most extraordinary things.

Sharks are beautiful animals, and if you're lucky enough to see lots of them, that means that you're in a healthy ocean. You should be afraid if you are in the ocean and don't see sharks.

Every time I slip into the ocean, it's like going home.

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.

Far and away, the greatest threat to the ocean, and thus to ourselves, is ignorance. But we can do something about that.

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.

Why is it that scuba divers and surfers are some of the strongest advocates of ocean conservation? Because they've spent time in and around the ocean, and they've personally seen the beauty, the fragility, and even the degradation of our planet's blue heart.

We are all together in this, we are all together in this single living ecosystem called Planet Earth. As we learn how we fit into the greater scheme of things, and begin to understand how the system works, we can plan ahead, we can use the resources responsibly, to show some respect for this inheritance that goes back 4.6 billion years.

I have lots of heroes: anyone and everyone who does whatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it.

If the sea is sick, we'll feel it. If it dies, we die. Our future and the state of the oceans are one.

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. And there's no question that it is a factor, but it's preceded by the loss of resilience and degradation.

With respect to the ocean being the heart of our blue planet: We are often asked, 'How much protection is enough?' We can only answer with another question: How much of your heart is worth protecting?

I suggest to everyone: Look in the mirror. Ask yourself: Who are you? What are your talents? Use them, and do what you love.

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.

Great attention gets paid to rainforests because of the diversity of life there. Diversity in the oceans is even greater.

When I was 12, we moved from New Jersey to Florida. The Gulf of Mexico was literally my backyard. Every day, I could see the ocean. At low tide I went out and played in seagrass meadows that used to come right up to the shore, filled with tiny seahorses, pipefish and soft corals. There was so much life! But then I witnessed the change, the loss of the shoreline, the loss of the mangrove trees, the loss of the seagrass meadows. Shallow bay areas were turned into parking lots.

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.

I want everybody to go jump in the ocean to see for themselves how beautiful it is, how important it is to get acquainted with fish swimming in the ocean, rather than just swimming with lemon slices and butter.

We must protect our ocean as if our lives depend upon it, because they do.

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.

There's plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life without water.

Ice ages have come and gone. Coral reefs have persisted.

People I know who succeed don't mind working. Those who are competent seem to like doing things well -- not stopping because they haven't accomplished what they wanted to on the first go-round. They're willing to do it twenty times, if necessary. There's an illusion that the good people can easily do something, and it's not necessarily true. They're just determined to do it right. I was impressed by hearing one of the women at Radcliffe talk about writing a poem, how many revisions a single poem sometimes has to go through -- fifty or sixty revisions to come out with a poem sixteen lines long.

We are all together in this, we are all together in this single living ecosystem called planet earth.

Everyone has power. But it doesn't help if you don't use it.

With care and protection, with safe havens in the ocean, there is still a good chance that we can turn things around.

Everybody can make choices that will make peace with the natural world.

I hope that someday we will find evidence that there is intelligent life among humans on this planet.

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.

We have become frighteningly effective at altering nature.

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.

Nothing has prepared sharks, squid, krill and other sea creatures for industrial-scale extraction that destroys entire ecosystems while targeting a few species.

We still have 10 percent of the sharks. We still have half of the coral reefs. However, if we wait another 50 years, opportunities might well be gone.

I find the lure of the unknown irresistible.

The living ocean drives planetary chemistry, governs climate and weather, and otherwise provides the cornerstone of the life-support system for all creatures on our planet, from deep-sea starfish to desert sagebrush. That's why the ocean matters. If the sea is sick, we'll feel it. If it dies, we die. Our future and the state of the oceans are one.

It doesn't matter where on Earth you live, everyone is utterly dependent on the existence of that lovely, living saltwater soup. There's plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life without water.

Many of us ask what can I, as one person, do, but history shows us that everything good and bad starts because somebody does something or does not do something.

Scientists never stop asking. They're little kids who never grew up.

Historically, girls have not been encouraged to be scientists, to be explorers, and there's a social kind of constraint, of course. Having the responsibility, a disproportionate part of the responsibility, for caring for families, caring for children. I know this challenge from firsthand experience because I have three children and four grandsons.And some of the time I have spent as a scientist and as an explorer has meant choosing to not be with my children and grandchildren as much as I might otherwise have done had I not been a scientist, an explorer.

Rather than be afraid of evolution and try to stifle inquiry, people should revel in the joys of knowing and find a serenity and a joy in being a part the rest of life on Earth. Not apart from it, but a part of it.

We humans have this idea that the ocean is so big, so vast, so resilient that it doesn't matter what we do to it. That may have been true 1,000 years ago. But in the last 100, especially the last 50 years, we have destroyed the assets that make our lives possible.

I want to get out in the water. I want to see fish, real fish, not fish in a laboratory.

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. Take away the ice and snow, increase the temperature by even a little, and the realm that makes their lives possible literally melts away.