When I was 12, we moved from New Jersey to Florida. The Gulf of Mexico was literally my backyard. Every day, I could see the ocean. At low tide I went out and played in seagrass meadows that used to come right up to the shore, filled with tiny seahorses, pipefish and soft corals. There was so much life! But then I witnessed the change, the loss of the shoreline, the loss of the mangrove trees, the loss of the seagrass meadows. Shallow bay areas were turned into parking lots.

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.

Meat reared on land matures relatively quickly, and it takes only a few pounds of plants to produce a pound of meat.

Everybody can make choices that will make peace with the natural world.

The concept of 'peak oil' has penetrated the hearts and minds of people concerned about energy for the future. 'Peak fish' occurred around the end of the 1980s.

We still have the illusion that the ocean will recover. That even if we do have to lose sharks, people don't understand why this matters. The evidence is in front of us, and we fail to take it in and say, "Now I get it. Now I understand."

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.