Alexander Gould Quotes

Ocean acidification is often referred to as osteoporosis of the oceans because as acidity rises, shell building creatures such as lobster, oyster, crab, shrimp, and coral are unable to extract the calcium carbonate from the water that they need to build their shells and are thus unable to survive.

If we wipe out the fish, the oceans are going to die. If the oceans die, we die. We can't live on this planet with a dead ocean.

If you're overfishing at the top of the food chain, and acidifying the ocean at the bottom, you're creating a squeeze that could conceivably collapse the whole system.

The seas are the heart's blood of the earth.

If we keep on destroying fish, there won't be any left. If the oceans die, we all die. It's as simple as that.

Marine scientists predict that by 2050 there will be no more large fish left in the ocean if we don't change our relationship with the sea.

The very survival of the human species depends upon the maintenance of an ocean clean and alive.... The ocean is our planet's life belt.

I am delighted to see that the issue of coral reefs is receiving the attention it deserves.

As the oceans get hotter, corals also become heat-stressed and expel the algae that live on their skeletons, resulting in coral bleaching events that can wipe out entire reefs. This destroys the habitat that supports a quarter of all marine life.

Coral reefs, the rain forest of the ocean, are home for one-third of the species of the sea. Coral reefs are under stress for several reasons, including warming of the ocean, but especially because of ocean acidification, a direct effect of added carbon dioxide. Ocean life dependent on carbonate shells and skeletons is threatened by dissolution as the ocean becomes more acid.

WE CAN NOT LIVE ON THIS PLANET WITH DEAD OCEANS. IF OUR OCEANS DIE, WE DIE.

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

Since oceans are the life support system of our planet, regulating the climate, providing most of our oxygen and feeding over a billion people, what's bad for oceans is bad for us - very bad.

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.

Ocean acidification is caused by the ocean absorbing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the same carbon dioxide that is the primary cause of global warming, hence the nickname 'the other carbon problem.' As they do so, the oceans become more acidic with terrible consequences.

As an explorer, I know firsthand there are many places in the ocean so full of life that they should be protected. Coral reefs and mangrove coastlines are stressed already by climate change and ocean acidification, and poor planning will just make their plight worse.

The Ocean Health Index is like the thermometer of the ocean. It will allow us to take the temperature to know what is going on at the global level, trying to integrate different impacts, including overfishing, invasive species, coastal development, and climate change.

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

Pollution, overfishing, the destruction of habitats, and climate change are emptying the oceans and enabling the lowest forms of life to regain their dominance.

It's impossible to imagine our planet without coral.

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

It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist: the threat is rather to life itself.

I said that the oceans were sick but they're not going to die. There is no death possible in the oceans - there will always be life - but they're getting sicker every year.

The oceans produce up to 70 percent of our oxygen, they shape our climate, and they support an American oceans economy larger than our nation's entire agriculture sector.

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.