Ocean acidification - the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is turning the oceans increasingly acid - is a slow but accelerating impact with consequences that will greatly overshadow all the oil spills put together. The warming trend that is CO2-related will overshadow all the oil spills that have ever occurred put together.
Sylvia EarleThe ocean is dying, and we have no place to escape to if this experiment doesn't go in our favor.
Sylvia EarleNot only who am I, but who are we? And where are we going? It's the "we." It's the social connections that are special to human beings.
Sylvia EarleAs 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.
Sylvia Earle