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In the past few decades, Earth's natural systems have endured more pressure than in all preceding human history.

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
Pressure
Natural
History
Past
Earth
Preceding
Human
Endured
Humans
Systems
Decades

More quotes by 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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When you are a child you learn your alphabet, your numbers, but increasingly, we must learn from the earliest stages that the highest priority has to be to maintain the world as a safe place for humankind.
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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When I arrived on the planet, there were only two billion. Wildlife was more abundant, we were less so now the situation is reversed.
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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Sharks are beautiful animals, and if you're lucky enough to see lots of them, that means that you're in a healthy ocean. You should be afraid if you are in the ocean and don't see sharks.
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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When you think about the real cost of so-called cheap energy that has driven our prosperity to unprecedented levels, for some of us, to our horror, we've realized that this has the potential for burning brightly and then snuffing out.
Sylvia Earle
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I personally have stopped eating seafood.
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 oceans deserve our respect and care, but you have to know something before you can care about it.
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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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.
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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There is this sweet spot in time when we have an opportunity to stop killing sharks and tunas and swordfish and other wildlife in the sea before it's too late.
Sylvia Earle
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There are a lot of smart creatures out there. Dolphins, elephants, and whales are smart. And there are some really smart birds. I know some really intelligent fish. But they cannot know what humans know and are incapable of inflicting as much damage.
Sylvia Earle
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There's plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life without water.
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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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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The image of Earth from space transformed our view of ourselves. It is maybe the most important image that exists - because we can see ourselves in context in a way that otherwise would be really hard to explain. It should inspire us to wonder about it, to want to know everything we can about it and do everything we can to take care of it.
Sylvia Earle