Only two percent of the ocean is fully protected right now.

It's baffling why the issues relating to climate change - [which] have far more obvious and tangible and much more clear-cut evidence about the cause - have been slower for people to accept as a given.

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.

What we once used as weapons of war, we now use as weapons against fish.

There's a vested interest in trying to keep people smoking cigarettes.

The living ocean drives planetary chemistry, governs climate and weather, and otherwise provides the cornerstone of the life-support system for all creatures on our planet, from deep-sea starfish to desert sagebrush. That's why the ocean matters. If the sea is sick, we'll feel it. If it dies, we die. Our future and the state of the oceans are one.

The Earth is a unique system in the universe, the only planet we know of that's hospitable for humankind.