Hold up a mirror and ask yourself what you are capable of doing, and what you really care about. Then take the initiative – don’t wait for someone else to ask you to act. – Sylvia Earle
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. – Sylvia Earle
If you think the ocean isn’t important, imagine Earth without it. Mars comes to mind. No ocean, no life support system. – Sylvia Earle
All through college, I had frequently been the only girl in a science class – which wasn’t such a bad deal. – Sylvia Earle
We need to respect the oceans and take care of them as if our lives depended on it. Because they do. – Sylvia Earle
For heaven’s sake, when you see the enemy attacking, you pick up the pitchfork, and you enlist everybody you see. You don’t stand around arguing about who’s responsible, or who’s going to pay. – Sylvia Earle
‘Green’ issues at last are attracting serious attention, owing to critically important links between the environment and the economy, health, and our security. – Sylvia Earle
I love music of all kinds, but there’s no greater music than the sound of my grandchildren laughing; my kids, too. – Sylvia Earle
We have taken the manatees out of the areas in the Caribbean and really elsewhere in the world, and this disruption to the system makes such systems vulnerable to changes as they come by, whether it’s in terms of disease or terms or global warming for that matter. – Sylvia Earle
Large areas of the Gulf have escaped being scraped by trawls, crushed by more than 40,000 miles of pipelines, or displaced by one of 50,000 oil and gas wells drilled since the middle of the 20th century. Some places have been deliberately protected. – Sylvia Earle
I have lots of heroes: anyone and everyone who does whatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it. – Sylvia Earle
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. – Sylvia Earle
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
I love my Force Fins, which are the kind of fins Special Forces use and really are adapted from the fins of fish. They’re very efficient. They are so beautiful, a pair is in the Museum of Modern Art. The set I have are ruby red. I call them my ruby flippers. – Sylvia Earle
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. – Sylvia Earle
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. – Sylvia Earle
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. – Sylvia Earle
Far and away, the greatest threat to the ocean, and thus to ourselves, is ignorance. But we can do something about that. – Sylvia Earle
If somebody dumps something noxious in my back yard, the dumper is the last one I would call on to repair the damage. – Sylvia Earle
Photosynthetic organisms in the sea yield most of the oxygen in the atmosphere, take up and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide, shape planetary chemistry, and hold the planet steady. – Sylvia Earle
Meat reared on land matures relatively quickly, and it takes only a few pounds of plants to produce a pound of meat. – Sylvia Earle
I’ve had the joy of spending thousands of hours under the sea. I wish I could take people along to see what I see, and to know what I know. – Sylvia Earle
Ocean acidification – the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is turning the oceans increasingly acid – 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 Earle
I’m friends with James Cameron. We’ve spent time together over the years because he is a diver and explorer and in his heart of hearts a biologist. We run into each other at scientific conferences. – Sylvia Earle
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. – Sylvia Earle
When I first ventured into the Gulf of Mexico in the 1950s, the sea appeared to be a blue infinity too large, too wild to be harmed by anything that people could do. – Sylvia Earle
