Quotes from 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I would love to slip into the skin of a fish and know what it's like to be one. They have senses that I can only dream about. They have a lateral line down their whole body that senses motion, but maybe it does more than that.

I am driven by what I know; that the world I love is in trouble.

I love music of all kinds, but there's no greater music than the sound of my grandchildren laughing; my kids, too.

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.

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.

My parents moved to Florida when I was 12, and my backyard was the Gulf of Mexico.

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.

What we once used as weapons of war, we now use as weapons against fish.

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

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.

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.

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

I can still feel that leap of enthusiasm, and real joy, at the prospect of finally getting out to the beach, and running around. But probably the most important thing, to me, aside from just the freedom of it and the power of it, was the kind of creatures that you could see along the beach, that you can't find anywhere else." - 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.

It takes 25 years or so for a male sperm whale to reach the edge of social maturity, when it attains the size and weight of those I saw being butchered. It took less than four hours to transform those once vibrant creatures into the basic ingredients of candle wax, lubricating oils, cosmetics, fertilizer, ivory trinkets, and food for domesticated animals.

We are going to change the world from this point onward, one way or another. Either from what we do, or what we fail to do.