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Humans have always wondered the big questions, Who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going? It's part of human nature. It's perhaps the underpinnings of religion.

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
Human
Underpinnings
Humans
Wondered
Questions
Come
Perhaps
Going
Religion
Always
Bigs
Nature
Part

More quotes by 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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We need to respect the oceans and take care of them as if our lives depended on it. Because they do.
Sylvia Earle
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Great attention gets paid to rainforests because of the diversity of life there. Diversity in the oceans is even greater.
Sylvia Earle
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Fish from all over the world, from deep in the sea, wind up in countries from Germany to Japan. That is just crazy.
Sylvia Earle
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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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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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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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America gains most when individuals have great freedom to pursue personal goals without undue government interference.
Sylvia Earle
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Burning fossil fuels has given us the gift of seeing ourselves in new ways. But that very gift now enables us to see we've got to change our ways.
Sylvia Earle
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By the end of the 20th century, up to 90 percent of the sharks, tuna, swordfish, marlins, groupers, turtles, whales, and many other large creatures that prospered in the Gulf for millions of years had been depleted by overfishing.
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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When I write a scientific treatise, I might reach 100 people. When the 'National Geographic' covers a project, it communicates about plants and fish and underwater technology to more than 10 million people.
Sylvia Earle
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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.
Sylvia Earle
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Fortunately, we know more about the problems that we have than in all preceding history. We know now the consequences of the things that we put into the air, into the water - of the way we treat life on Earth.
Sylvia Earle
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Places change over time with or without oil spills, but humans are responsible for the Deepwater Horizon gusher - and humans, as well as the corals, fish and other creatures, are suffering the consequences.
Sylvia Earle
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Globally sharks have been killed for their fins, for their cartilage, for their livers, for their meat. But mostly what has driven some species of sharks to near extinction - including the hammerhead shark - is the new luxury taste for shark fin soup.
Sylvia Earle
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Eating wildlife is probably not the smartest thing that we can do in terms of maintaining the integrity of natural systems.
Sylvia Earle
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The ocean is dying, and we have no place to escape to if this experiment doesn't go in our favor.
Sylvia Earle
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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.
Sylvia Earle
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Our job is to keep what is working intact and not destroy what we have got.
Sylvia Earle