It doesn't matter where on Earth you live, everyone is utterly dependent on the existence of that lovely, living saltwater soup. There's plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life without water.

Look at the bark of a redwood, and you see moss. If you peer beneath the bits and pieces of the moss, you'll see toads, small insects, a whole host of life that prospers in that miniature environment. A lumberman will look at a forest and see so many board feet of lumber. I see a living city.

We need to respect the oceans and take care of them as if our lives depended on it. Because they do.

We have an atmosphere that is roughly 21% oxygen. The rest of it is largely nitrogen. There's just enough carbon dioxide (CO2) to drive photosynthesis. That has been, throughout the history of our species, pretty stable. Until recently.

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.

Meat reared on land matures relatively quickly, and it takes only a few pounds of plants to produce a pound of meat.

I am driven by what I know; that the world I love is in trouble.