Our job is to keep what is working intact and not destroy what we have got.

When I write a scientific treatise, I might reach 100 people. When the 'National Geographic' covers a project, it communicates about plants and fish and underwater technology to more than 10 million people.

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

The ocean governs the climate and the weather, it is taking care of the temperature and it is shaping the chemistry of our planet.

That attitude of arrogance, that attitude of "It's all about me. It's all about what I can get out of life now" - well, I'm personally driven by wanting to get out of my life the best I can achieve as a gift for those who come after me.

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

We want to think of ourselves as truly special creatures that are unique in the universe and, well, we are. And we have that capacity to wonder, to question, and to see ourselves in the context of all of life that has preceded the present time, and all that will go off far into the future, one way or another.