Historically, girls have not been encouraged to be scientists, to be explorers, and there's a social kind of constraint, of course. Having the responsibility, a disproportionate part of the responsibility, for caring for families, caring for children. I know this challenge from firsthand experience because I have three children and four grandsons.And some of the time I have spent as a scientist and as an explorer has meant choosing to not be with my children and grandchildren as much as I might otherwise have done had I not been a scientist, an explorer.

Ignorance is the biggest problem of all for the ocean - and for many other things as well.

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.

Every time I slip into the ocean, it's like going home.

We're still under the weight of this impression that the ocean is too big to fail, that the planet is too big to fail.

Only two percent of the ocean is fully protected right now.

The oxygen cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle, the water cycle - all of these are linked to the existence of life in the sea.