Earle Sylvia Quotes & Sayings

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. — Sylvia Earle

In terms of personal choices, let's all think more carefully about where we get our protein from. — Sylvia Earle

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. — Sylvia Earle

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

Why does evolution matter? There is so much about the evolution of life, the development of life on Earth that should rivet the attention of everyone to understand where we've come from and where we might be going. We need to understand the world around us if we are to succeed as a species on the planet. — Sylvia Earle

Ironically the very energy, the very basis of how we know what we know, has been reliant on having an energy source [necessary] to build rockets to go to the moon and Mars, to support airplanes that fly, and satellites to give us our communication. — Sylvia Earle

I find the lure of the unknown irresistible. — Sylvia Earle

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. — Sylvia Earle

My mother was known as the 'bird lady' of the neighborhood. Anything injured, or any unusual creature somebody found, they would always come to our doorstep. — Sylvia Earle

We're still under the weight of this impression that the ocean is too big to fail, that the planet is too big to fail. — Sylvia Earle

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. — Sylvia Earle

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. — Sylvia Earle

There is this sweet spot in time when we have an opportunity to stop killing sharks and tunas and swordfish and other wildlife in the sea before it's too late. — Sylvia Earle

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

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. — 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

What we must do is encourage a sea change in attitude, one that acknowledges that we are a part of the living world, not apart from it. — 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

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

The best scientists and explorers have the attributes of kids! They ask question and have a sense of wonder. They have curiosity. 'Who, what, where, why, when, and how!' They never stop asking questions, and I never stop asking questions, just like a five year old. — Sylvia Earle

It's mainly the high-end luxury market now that drives much of the fishing in the sea. It's not feeding the starving millions. It's feeding a luxury market. — Sylvia Earle

Burning fossil fuels has given us the gift of seeing ourselves in new ways. But that very gift now enables us to see we've got to change our ways. — 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

The Exxon Valdez spill triggered a swift and strong response that changed policies about shipping, about double-hulled construction. A number of laws came into place. — Sylvia Earle

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

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. — 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

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

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. — Sylvia Earle

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

If Darwin could see what we now see, what we now know about the ocean, about the atmosphere, about the nature of life, as we now understand it, about the importance of microbes - I think he would just beam with joy that many of the thoughts and the glimpses of the majesty of life on Earth that he had during his life, now magnified many times over. — Sylvia Earle

When I arrived on the planet, there were only two billion. Wildlife was more abundant, we were less so; now the situation is reversed. — Sylvia Earle

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. — Sylvia Earle

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. — Sylvia Earle

We have the capacity to alter the nature of nature. No, we don't have just the capacity - we are altering the nature of nature, the natural systems that cause the planet to function in our favor. — Sylvia Earle

I personally have stopped eating seafood. — Sylvia Earle

The image of Earth from space transformed our view of ourselves. It is maybe the most important image that exists - because we can see ourselves in context in a way that otherwise would be really hard to explain. It should inspire us to wonder about it, to want to know everything we can about it and do everything we can to take care of it. — Sylvia Earle

Never again will we have this good a chance as we now have to find an enduring place for ourselves within the natural systems that keep us alive. It's a sweet spot in history. That's why this is such a critical time. — Sylvia Earle

There is a terribly terrestrial mindset about what we need to do to take care of the planet - as if the ocean somehow doesn't matter or is so big, so vast that it can take care of itself, or that there is nothing that we could possibly do that we could harm the ocean. — Sylvia Earle

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

Humans have always wondered the big questions, "Who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going?" It's part of human nature. It's perhaps the underpinnings of religion. — Sylvia Earle

The end of commercial fishing is predicted long before the middle of the 21st century. — Sylvia Earle

As a child, I was aware of the widely-held attitude that the ocean is so big, so resilient that we could use the sea as the ultimate place to dispose of anything we did not want, from garbage and nuclear wastes to sludge from sewage to entire ships that had reached the end of their useful life. — 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

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

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

That attitude of arrogance, that attitude of "It's all about me. It's all about what I can get out of life now" - well, I'm personally driven by wanting to get out of my life the best I can achieve as a gift for those who come after me. — Sylvia Earle

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

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

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

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. — Sylvia Earle

We've got to alter our fossil fuel dependence and go to other energy sources. — Sylvia Earle

The diversity of life on Earth, generally, is astonishing. But despite those large numbers, it's also important to recognize that every species, one way or another, is vulnerable to extinction. And in our time on Earth our impact on the diversity of life has been profound. — 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

The opportunity that is unique [to our] time is what inspires me to do everything I can to move things forward. This is the first time that we have the capacity to understand our place in the greater scheme of things to the extent that we do. — Sylvia Earle

I am not in any hurry to grow up. — Sylvia Earle

Humans are the only creatures with the ability to dive deep in the sea, fly high in the sky, send instant messages around the globe, reflect on the past, assess the present and imagine the future. — Sylvia Earle

There are some who would like to see the oil rigs removed right down to the ground once their job is done, and there are others, and I count myself among them, who think that once they are in place they begin to be adopted by life in the ocean as a habitat. — 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

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. — Sylvia Earle

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. — Sylvia Earle

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? — Sylvia Earle

The burning of fossil fuels has altered the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere so rapidly and so abundantly that now, we are driving not just the warming trend, not just the sea level rise that is a consequence of the warming trend that is melting polar ice and alpine ice, but also [ocean acidification]. — Sylvia Earle

When I write a scientific treatise, I might reach 100 people. When the 'National Geographic' covers a project, it communicates about plants and fish and underwater technology to more than 10 million people. — Sylvia Earle

We want to think of ourselves as truly special creatures that are unique in the universe and, well, we are. And we have that capacity to wonder, to question, and to see ourselves in the context of all of life that has preceded the present time, and all that will go off far into the future, one way or another. — Sylvia Earle

If Darwin could get into a submarine and see what I've seen, thousand of feet beneath the ocean, I am just confident that he would be inspired to sit down and start writing all over again. — 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

Nearly all of the major kinds of life, divisions of life, phyla of animals, occur in the sea. Only about half of them can make it to land or freshwater. — 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

When you think about the real cost of so-called cheap energy that has driven our prosperity to unprecedented levels, for some of us, to our horror, we've realized that this has the potential for burning brightly and then snuffing out. — Sylvia Earle

We have become frighteningly effective at altering nature. — 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

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

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. — 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

People still do not understand that a live fish is more valuable than a dead one, and that destructive fishing techniques are taking a wrecking ball to biodiversity. — Sylvia Earle

The climate has been changing. Of course it [has]. Evidence throughout history, [which] we can assess, especially during human history, shows there have been ups and downs. But the last ten thousand years have been relatively stable compared to now. — Sylvia Earle

It has taken these many hundreds of millions of years to fine-tune the Earth to a point where it is suitable for the likes of us. — Sylvia Earle

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, — Sylvia A. Earle

The Arctic is an ocean. The southern pole is a continent surrounded by ocean. The North Pole is an ocean, or northern waters. It's an ocean surrounded by land, basically. — Sylvia Earle

We woke up some years ago about the consequences of ozone depletion, the hole in the atmosphere. You can't see it. You can't taste it. You can't smell it. But now we do regard that as a key issue. It's a scientific finding. — Sylvia Earle

If we have a hope of really understanding our place in nature and of carving out a place for ourselves that is sustainable, it's primarily because of the new level of communication. It used to be, 'What you don't have in your mind, you have on your shelf.' But now we have the Web. — Sylvia Earle

Every fish fertilizes the water in a way that generates the plankton that ultimately leads back into the food chain, but also yields oxygen, grabs carbon - it's a part of what makes the ocean function and what makes the planet function. — Sylvia Earle

This much is certain: We have the power to damage the sea, but no sure way to heal the harm. — Sylvia Earle

Protecting vital sources of renewal - unscathed marshes, healthy reefs, and deep-sea gardens - will provide hope for the future of the Gulf, and for all of us. — Sylvia Earle

This is a living planet. Look around. Mars, Venus, Jupiter. Look beyond our solar system. Where else is there a place that works, that is just right for the likes of us? It has not happened just instantly. It is vulnerable to our actions. But it's the result of four and a half billion years of evolution, of change over time. And it changes every day, all the time. It would be in our interest to try to maintain a certain level of stability that has enabled us to prosper, to not wreck the very systems that give us life. — Sylvia Earle

I actually love diving at night; you see a lot of fish then that you don't see in the daytime. — Sylvia Earle

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

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. — Sylvia A. Earle

I have heard endlessly that fish are so resilient that there is no way that you could exterminate a species. We are learning otherwise. — Sylvia Earle

Bottom trawling is a ghastly process that brings untold damage to sea beds that support ocean life. It's akin to using a bulldozer to catch a butterfly, destroying a whole ecosystem for the sake of a few pounds of protein. We wouldn't do this on land, so why do it in the oceans? — Sylvia Earle

If we could magically transport ourselves back to the young Earth, when it was only a billion years old or two billion years old or three billion years old or four billion years old, we wouldn't be able to survive. We would have a hard time surviving if we were transported to the time when dinosaurs were around. — 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

The observations that have developed over the years have given us perspective about where we fit in. We are newcomers, really recent arrivals on a planet that is four and a half billion years old. — Sylvia Earle

Forty percent of the United States drains into the Mississippi. It's agriculture. It's golf courses. It's domestic runoff from our lawns and roads. Ultimately, where does it go? Downstream into the gulf. — Sylvia Earle

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. — Sylvia Earle

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

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