'Green' issues at last are attracting serious attention, owing to critically important links between the environment and the economy, health, and our security.

There's something missing about how we're informing the youngsters coming along about what matters in the world. We teach them the numbers and the letters, but we fail to communicate the importance of our connection to the living world.

Since I began exploring the ocean in the 1950s, 90 percent of the big fish have been stripped away. Tuna, sharks, swordfish, cod, halibut, you name it, the numbers have just collapsed. Also, about half of the coral reefs are gone, globally, from where they were just a few decades ago.

With care and protection, with safe havens in the ocean, there is still a good chance that we can turn things around.

What we once used as weapons of war, we now use as weapons against fish.

There are now more than 4,000 places in the sea around the world that have some kind of protection. The bad news: You have to look hard to find them. What you find instead is destructive fishing, mining, gas and oil exploration.

We must protect our ocean as if our lives depend upon it, because they do.