Any astronaut can tell you you've got to do everything you can to learn about your life support system and then do everything you can to take care of it. Sylvia Earle More Quotes by Sylvia Earle More Quotes From Sylvia Earle You should ask where your food is coming from. Sylvia Earle asks should Fish from all over the world, from deep in the sea, wind up in countries from Germany to Japan. That is just crazy. Sylvia Earle japan crazy country 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. Sylvia Earle tangible saws water Only two percent of the ocean is fully protected right now. Sylvia Earle protected ocean two With knowing comes caring. Sylvia Earle knowing caring The ocean is dying, and we have no place to escape to if this experiment doesn't go in our favor. Sylvia Earle favors ocean dying We've got to alter our fossil fuel dependence and go to other energy sources. Sylvia Earle fossils fuel energy We are not only warming the ocean and the planet as a whole, but we are also acidifying the ocean and changing its chemistry. Sylvia Earle planets chemistry ocean What we put into the atmosphere in terms of burning fuel is unprecedented. Sylvia Earle burning atmosphere fuel In the past few decades, Earth's natural systems have endured more pressure than in all preceding human history. Sylvia Earle earth pressure past We are blessed with a place that is open to the universe and, despite this, supports this very thin envelope of air we call atmosphere, which holds just the right amount of oxygen for us to breathe. Sylvia Earle oxygen blessed air The ocean is our life support system. No blue, no green. It's really a miracle that we have got a place that works in our favor. Sylvia Earle support-systems ocean blue The Earth is a tiny blue speck in a universe of unfriendly options. Sylvia Earle tiny earth blue Eating wildlife is probably not the smartest thing that we can do in terms of maintaining the integrity of natural systems. Sylvia Earle wildlife maintaining integrity We understand that we must make peace with nature - that our lives depend on it. Sylvia Earle making-peace our-lives depends Ignorance is the biggest problem of all for the ocean - and for many other things as well. Sylvia Earle ocean problem ignorance Throughout all of human history we have consumed the natural world. All creatures do. Birds do. Fish do. Earthworms do. We consume the natural world as a source of our survival. But no creature has ever consumed at the scale that humans have, and now there are seven billion of us. I think the good news is that a large percentage of those seven billion minds can work to make better decisions. Sylvia Earle decision bird thinking We want to believe that we can continue doing what we've done for the past thousand years and not worry about the consequences coming back to us. Sylvia Earle believe past years Even our rules and regulations, our laws, our policies, favor the destructive nature of taking too much from the ocean and using techniques that are horribly destructive. We know they don't work. We know it's not sustainable. Sylvia Earle too-much ocean law We still have the illusion that the ocean will recover. That even if we do have to lose sharks, people don't understand why this matters. The evidence is in front of us, and we fail to take it in and say, "Now I get it. Now I understand." Sylvia Earle sharks ocean people
