Hold up a mirror and ask yourself what you are capable of doing, and what you really care about. Then take the initiative - don't wait for someone else to ask you to act.
Sylvia EarleRead
Ocean acidification - the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is turning the oceans increasingly acid - is a slow but accelerating impact with consequences that will greatly overshadow all the oil spills put together. The warming trend that is CO2-related will overshadow all the oil spills that have ever occurred put together.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Ocean acidification caused by excess carbon dioxide poses a significant threat to marine ecosystems, more severe than oil spills.
In this quote, Sylvia Earle highlights the dire effects of ocean acidification resulting from rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. She emphasizes that the consequences of this gradual yet accelerating change in ocean chemistry will far surpass the impact of all oil spills combined, underscoring the urgency of addressing climate change and its effects on our oceans.
Themes
OceanAcidificationCarbon DioxideClimate ChangeEnvironment
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in an environmental awareness speech to emphasize the importance of protecting our oceans.
More from Sylvia Earle
All quotes →I'm haunted by the thought of what Ray Anderson calls 'tomorrow's child,' asking why we didn't do something on our watch to save sharks and bluefin tuna and squids and coral reefs and the living ocean while there still was time. Well, now is that time.
Sylvia EarleRead
Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea.
Sylvia EarleRead
There is a terribly terrestrial mindset about what we need to do to take care of the planet-as if the ocean somehow doesn't matter or is so big, so vast that it can take care of itself, or that there is nothing that we could possibly do that we could harm the ocean...We are learning otherwise.
Sylvia EarleRead
No water, no life. No blue, no green.
Sylvia EarleRead
I have come up at the end of a dive, and the boat was not where I left it. I had to take care of a buddy who did panic. But I was confident the boat would come back.
Sylvia EarleRead
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