Places change over time with or without oil spills, but humans are responsible for the Deepwater Horizon gusher - and humans, as well as the corals, fish and other creatures, are suffering the consequences.
Sylvia EarleWe have the capacity to alter the nature of nature. No, we don't have just the capacity - we are altering the nature of nature, the natural systems that cause the planet to function in our favor.
Sylvia EarleWe humans have this idea that the ocean is so big, so vast, so resilient that it doesn't matter what we do to it. That may have been true 1,000 years ago. But in the last 100, especially the last 50 years, we have destroyed the assets that make our lives possible.
Sylvia Earle