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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

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Sylvia Earle
Age: 89
Born: 1935
Born: August 30
Biologist
Botanist
Explorer
Marine Biologist
Oceanographer
Gibbstown
New Jersey
Sylvia Alice Earle
S.A.Earle
Humans
Possible
Precisely
Polar
Take
Lives
Require
Arctic
Even
Away
Literally
Temperature
Makes
Snow
Harsh
Place
Survive
Realm
Home
Increase
Ice
Inhospitable
Littles
Bears
Thrive
Harshly
Little
Conditions
Realms
Melts

More quotes by Sylvia Earle

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Some experts look at global warming, increased world temperature, as the critical tipping point that is causing a crash in coral reef health around the world. And there's no question that it is a factor, but it's preceded by the loss of resilience and degradation.
Sylvia Earle
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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
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Santa Monica Bay is less polluted today than when I first moved to the area in the 1970s, because actions have been taken to avoid putting some of the noxious materials into the sea. I think people are more aware than they once were, the air is cleaner, water generally is, in spite of the fact that there are more people.
Sylvia Earle
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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
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We have been far too aggressive about extracting ocean wildlife, not appreciating that there are limits and even points of no return.
Sylvia Earle
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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
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The oceans deserve our respect and care, but you have to know something before you can care about it.
Sylvia Earle
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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.
Sylvia Earle
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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
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There's a vested interest in trying to keep people smoking cigarettes.
Sylvia Earle
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'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
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We have an atmosphere that is roughly 21% oxygen. The rest of it is largely nitrogen. There's just enough carbon dioxide (CO2) to drive photosynthesis. That has been, throughout the history of our species, pretty stable. Until recently.
Sylvia Earle
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We have found ways to capture, kill and market ocean wildlife on an unprecedented scale. It's an absolute catastrophe.
Sylvia Earle
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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
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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
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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
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In terms of personal choices, let's all think more carefully about where we get our protein from.
Sylvia Earle
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There are now more than 4,000 places in the sea around the world that have some kind of protection. The bad news: You have to look hard to find them. What you find instead is destructive fishing, mining, gas and oil exploration.
Sylvia Earle
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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
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All through college, I had frequently been the only girl in a science class - which wasn't such a bad deal.
Sylvia Earle