Sylvia Earle Ocean Quotations

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

Just as we have the power to harm the ocean, we have the power to put in place policies and modify our own behavior in ways that would be an insurance policy for the future of the sea, for the creatures there, and for us, protecting special critical areas in the ocean.

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

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

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.

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

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.

We have been far too aggressive about extracting ocean wildlife, not appreciating that there are limits and even points of no return.

I'm not against extracting a modest amount of wildlife out of the ocean for human consumption, but I am really concerned about the large-scale industrial fishing that engages in destructive practices like trawling and longlining.

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.

If you think the ocean isn't important, imagine Earth without it. Mars comes to mind. No ocean, no life support system.

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.

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.

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.

Health to the ocean means health for us.

My first encounter with the ocean was on the Jersey Shore when I was three years old and I got knocked over by a wave. The ocean certainly got my attention! It wasn't frightening, it was more exhilarating.

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.

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...We are learning otherwise.

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.

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.

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.

Since the middle of the 20th century, more has been learnt about the ocean than during all preceding human history; at the same time, more has been lost.

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

You don't have to touch the ocean for the ocean to touch you

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

The most important part is to take on the challenge of protecting the ocean as if your life depends on it-because it does.

Ignorance is the biggest problem of all for the ocean - and for many other things as well.

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.

There is an enormous amount to be learned about the sea; like most wildernesses, it has great potential.

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.

It isn't too late to shift from the swift, sharp decline of ocean systems in recent decades to an era of steady recovery. There is time, and there is a growing awareness, which is the best way to counter indifference. People who know might care.

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.

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

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

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].

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.

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.