Nearly all of the major kinds of life, divisions of life, phyla of animals, occur in the sea. Only about half of them can make it to land or freshwater.

We are all together in this, we are all together in this single living ecosystem called Planet Earth. As we learn how we fit into the greater scheme of things, and begin to understand how the system works, we can plan ahead, we can use the resources responsibly, to show some respect for this inheritance that goes back 4.6 billion years.

When I write a scientific treatise, I might reach 100 people. When the 'National Geographic' covers a project, it communicates about plants and fish and underwater technology to more than 10 million people.

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.

No water, no life. No blue, no green.

Rather than be afraid of evolution and try to stifle inquiry, people should revel in the joys of knowing and find a serenity and a joy in being a part the rest of life on Earth. Not apart from it, but a part of it.

We don't have to be that greedy generation that just continued to take down the underpinnings of what makes the planet work in our favor.