We must protect our ocean as if our lives depend upon it, because they do.

I suggest to everyone: Look in the mirror. Ask yourself: Who are you? What are your talents? Use them, and do what you love.

We are not only warming the ocean and the planet as a whole, but we are also acidifying the ocean and changing its chemistry.

I've spent thousands of hours under water. And even in the deepest dive I have ever made, 2.5 miles (about 4 kilometers) down, I saw trash and other tangible evidence of our presence.

Fortunately, we know more about the problems that we have than in all preceding history. We know now the consequences of the things that we put into the air, into the water - of the way we treat life on Earth.

Just as we have the power to harm the ocean, we have the power to put in place policies and modify our own behavior in ways that would be an insurance policy for the future of the sea, for the creatures there, and for us, protecting special critical areas in the ocean.

Throughout all of human history we have consumed the natural world. All creatures do. Birds do. Fish do. Earthworms do. We consume the natural world as a source of our survival. But no creature has ever consumed at the scale that humans have, and now there are seven billion of us. I think the good news is that a large percentage of those seven billion minds can work to make better decisions.