Humans are the only creatures with the ability to dive deep in the sea, fly high in the sky, send instant messages around the globe, reflect on the past, assess the present and imagine the future.

In the past few decades, Earth's natural systems have endured more pressure than in all preceding human history.

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.

Even our rules and regulations, our laws, our policies, favor the destructive nature of taking too much from the ocean and using techniques that are horribly destructive. We know they don't work. We know it's not sustainable.

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.

The oceans deserve our respect and care, but you have to know something before you can care about it.

If Darwin could see what we now see, what we now know about the ocean, about the atmosphere, about the nature of life, as we now understand it, about the importance of microbes - I think he would just beam with joy that many of the thoughts and the glimpses of the majesty of life on Earth that he had during his life, now magnified many times over.