For each of us, then, the challenge and opportunity is to cherish all life as the gift it is, envision it whole, seek to know it truly, and undertake-with our minds, hearts and hands-to restore its abundance. It is said that where there's life there's hope, and so no place can inspire us with more hopefulness than that great, life-making sea-that singular, wondrous ocean covering the blue planet.

But one doesn't wait for a revolution. One becomes it.

We are blessed with a magnificent and miraculous world ocean on this planet. But we are also stressing it in ways that we are not even close to bringing under control.

If you ask the fish whether they'd rather have an oil spill or a season of fishing, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd vote for another blowout.

If you're overfishing at the top of the food chain, and acidifying the ocean at the bottom, you're creating a squeeze that could conceivably collapse the whole system.

Fishing provides time to think, and reason not to. If you have the virtue of patience, an hour or two of casting alone is plenty of time to review all you’ve learned about the grand themes of life.

Saving the world requires saving democracy. That requires well-informed citizens. Conservation, environment, poverty, community, education, family, health, economy- these combine to make one quest: liberty and justice for all. Whether one's special emphasis is global warming or child welfare, the cause is the same cause. And justice comes from the same place being human comes from: compassion.