Sylvia Earle Quotes

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?

The oceans are the last free place on the planet.

The ocean is the lifeblood of our world.

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.

The sea is the vast reservoir of Nature. The globe began with sea, so to speak; and who knows if it will not end with it?

We humans have this idea that the ocean is so big, so vast, so resilient that it doesn't matter what we do to it. That may have been true 1,000 years ago. But in the last 100, especially the last 50 years, we have destroyed the assets that make our lives possible.

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

We are blessed with a magnificent and miraculous world ocean on this planet. But we are also stressing it in ways that we are not even close to bringing under control.

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.

The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument may be distant from our shores, but it will help us understand how healthy marine ecosystems work and how we can revive troubled seas closer to home.

I believe in the protection of the environment that supports us all.

A healthy ocean is vital to our economy and well-being. We need clean and healthy oceans to sustain tourism and fisheries.

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.

Not only have I made films about the subject, but I've largely funded them on my own, so I'm fully committed to doing whatever I can to change the audience's respect and appreciation for the ocean. In 100 years I want whales, dolphins and sharks to still be around, and the ocean to be a healthier place.

The sea is a place where every day, half the population eats the other half.

We will preserve the environment.

The simple fact that half of the oxygen that we breathe is produced by the oceans should be reason enough to mobilize around the issue of better protecting our oceans.

What we have now - a world without [marine] reserves - is like a debit account where we withdraw all the time and we never make any deposit. Reserves are like savings accounts.

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.

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.

Life in the ocean makes Earth hospitable. We are sailing along in the universe and we have a blue engine that is making everything alright.

The Giant Ocean Tank, with its 52 large viewing windows, is the main attraction here. Myrtle, a giant green sea turtle, is one of the tank's most popular animals, along with sharks, rays and more than 100 other species. The Aquarium Medical Center is a working animal hospital exhibit that allows visitors to observe veterinarians examining and treating sea creatures.

We know that when we protect our oceans we're protecting our future.

Our life on earth cannot sustain without healthy oceans - and because of that, the beings who inhabit and allow that eco system to work need our help. Let's start with our wonderment, and go from there. Allow that, and it becomes easy.

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.