Sylvia Earle Quotes

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Sylvia Earle

Profession : Scientist

Birth : August 30, 1935

My first encounter with the ocean was on the Jersey Shore when I was three years old and I got knocked over by a wave. The ocean certainly got my attention! It wasn't frightening, it was more exhilarating.

Sylvia Earle

I actually love diving at night; you see a lot of fish then that you don't see in the daytime.

Sylvia Earle

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

The sudden release of five million barrels of oil, enormous quantities of methane and two million gallons of toxic dispersants into an already greatly stressed Gulf of Mexico will permanently alter the nature of the area.

Sylvia Earle

Our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels and the corporate mandate to maximize shareholder value encourages drilling without taking into account the costs to the ocean, even without major spills.

Sylvia Earle

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

If somebody dumps something noxious in my back yard, the dumper is the last one I would call on to repair the damage.

Sylvia Earle

We have become frighteningly effective at altering nature.

Sylvia Earle

Any astronaut can tell you you've got to do everything you can to learn about your life support system and then do everything you can to take care of it.

Sylvia Earle

My parents moved to Florida when I was 12, and my backyard was the Gulf of Mexico.

Sylvia Earle

I would love to slip into the skin of a fish and know what it's like to be one. They have senses that I can only dream about. They have a lateral line down their whole body that senses motion, but maybe it does more than that.

Sylvia Earle

Nothing has prepared sharks, squid, krill and other sea creatures for industrial-scale extraction that destroys entire ecosystems while targeting a few species.

Sylvia Earle

What we once used as weapons of war, we now use as weapons against fish.

Sylvia Earle

I love music of all kinds, but there's no greater music than the sound of my grandchildren laughing; my kids, too.

Sylvia Earle

I'm friends with James Cameron. We've spent time together over the years because he is a diver and explorer and in his heart of hearts a biologist. We run into each other at scientific conferences.

Sylvia Earle

My mother was known as the 'bird lady' of the neighborhood. Anything injured, or any unusual creature somebody found, they would always come to our doorstep.

Sylvia Earle

There are some who would like to see the oil rigs removed right down to the ground once their job is done, and there are others, and I count myself among them, who think that once they are in place they begin to be adopted by life in the ocean as a habitat.

Sylvia Earle

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

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

The Arctic is an ocean. The southern pole is a continent surrounded by ocean. The North Pole is an ocean, or northern waters. It's an ocean surrounded by land, basically.

Sylvia Earle