What we put into the atmosphere in terms of burning fuel is unprecedented.

With care and protection, with safe havens in the ocean, there is still a good chance that we can turn things around.

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.

As a child, I was aware of the widely-held attitude that the ocean is so big, so resilient that we could use the sea as the ultimate place to dispose of anything we did not want, from garbage and nuclear wastes to sludge from sewage to entire ships that had reached the end of their useful life.

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.

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

Life in the ocean makes Earth hospitable. We are sailing along in the universe and we have a blue engine that is making everything alright.