You don't have to touch the ocean for the ocean to touch you

If you think the ocean isn't important, imagine Earth without it. Mars comes to mind. No ocean, no life support system.

This much is certain: We have the power to damage the sea, but no sure way to heal the harm.

Throughout all of human history we've enjoyed certain benign circumstances: an envelope of atmosphere, an envelope of temperature. A kind of resilience that if you cut down trees, then they'll grow back. You take fish, they recover. You put stuff into the atmosphere that you know is not good for us, but we can still breathe. We haven't awakened, generally, to the sense of urgency that does exist.

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.

We have found ways to capture, kill and market ocean wildlife on an unprecedented scale. It's an absolute catastrophe.

The climate has been changing. Of course it [has]. Evidence throughout history, [which] we can assess, especially during human history, shows there have been ups and downs. But the last ten thousand years have been relatively stable compared to now.