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We want to believe that we can continue doing what we've done for the past thousand years and not worry about the consequences coming back to us.

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
Done
Consequences
Believe
Consequence
Years
Continue
Thousand
Coming
Worry
Past
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More quotes by Sylvia Earle

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The most important thing for people to know about the governance of the Arctic is that we have a chance now to act to maintain the integrity of the system or to lose it. To lose it means that we will dismember the vital systems that make the Arctic work. It's not just a cost to the people who live there. It's a cost to all people everywhere.
Sylvia Earle
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Knowledge is the key to making a difference.
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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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].
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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The concept of 'peak oil' has penetrated the hearts and minds of people concerned about energy for the future. 'Peak fish' occurred around the end of the 1980s.
Sylvia Earle
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No creature on Earth ever has organized themselves in ways that we have, with the capacity to alter the nature of nature the way we have.
Sylvia Earle
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The very energy sources that have gotten us to where we are now are also, if we continue doing what we're doing, a shortcut to the end of all that we hold near and dear.
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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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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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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We are not only warming the ocean and the planet as a whole, but we are also acidifying the ocean and changing its chemistry.
Sylvia Earle
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Scientists never stop asking. They're little kids who never grew up.
Sylvia Earle
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The end of commercial fishing is predicted long before the middle of the 21st century.
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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It's taken us a short time to change the nature of nature. In my lifetime, more change than during all preceding human history put together.
Sylvia Earle
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This much is certain: We have the power to damage the sea, but no sure way to heal the harm.
Sylvia Earle
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Evolution is not something to be feared. It's to be celebrated, embraced, and understood.
Sylvia Earle
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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.
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