Sylvia Earle

As a child, I was aware of the widely-held attitude that the ocean is so big, so resilient that we could use the sea as the ultimate place to dispose of anything we did not want, from garbage and nuclear wastes to sludge from sewage to entire ships that had reached the end of their useful life.

Why is it that scuba divers and surfers are some of the strongest advocates of ocean conservation? Because they've spent time in and around the ocean, and they've personally seen the beauty, the fragility, and even the degradation of our planet's blue heart.

There's something missing about how we're informing the youngsters coming along about what matters in the world. We teach them the numbers and the letters, but we fail to communicate the importance of our connection to the living world.

For heaven's sake, when you see the enemy attacking, you pick up the pitchfork, and you enlist everybody you see. You don't stand around arguing about who's responsible, or who's going to pay.

I've had the joy of spending thousands of hours under the sea. I wish I could take people along to see what I see, and to know what I know.

I find the lure of the unknown irresistible.

Health to the ocean means health for us.

Far and away, the greatest threat to the ocean, and thus to ourselves, is ignorance. But we can do something about that.

Every time I slip into the ocean, it's like going home.

With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you're connected to the sea. No matter where on Earth you live.

You don't have to touch the ocean for the ocean to touch you

We are all together in this, we are all together in this single living ecosystem called planet earth.

Great attention gets paid to rainforests because of the diversity of life there. Diversity in the oceans is even greater.

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.

Scientists never stop asking. They're little kids who never grew up.

We are all together in this, we are all together in this single living ecosystem called Planet Earth. As we learn how we fit into the greater scheme of things, and begin to understand how the system works, we can plan ahead, we can use the resources responsibly, to show some respect for this inheritance that goes back 4.6 billion years.

Many of us ask what can I, as one person, do, but history shows us that everything good and bad starts because somebody does something or does not do something.