Sylvia A. Earle

Everything that's here is here for us to enjoy.

capitalize on its existence, and if we can't, then it's not useful.

Right.

And so we tend to think of it as not important.

We have bycatch in fishing, that when you drag a net across the sea floor to catch something you want to sell or eat, a lot of other creatures die.

But if we don't have a place to market them, we don't care.

We don't think that the forest matters more than planting something that will give us a financial return.

We just have this mindset, instead of respecting nature, thank you nature, you keep us alive.

And by that I mean the millions of other creatures.

The microbes, the fungi, the animals, the plants, all of the diversity of life.

We haven't begun to figure out the role of each and every one of them in creating this magical place we call home.

Oh, my goodness.

I suppose.

What is exciting about exploring the ocean, you never know what you're going to see or who is going to be there.

Looking back with amazement at us, we embrace going to space, and we are and should be in awe of what we're learning, not just within our own solar system, but the universe beyond.

But it's that universe...

beneath the surface of the ocean.

I'll give you one example of offshore from Hawaii and a little one-person submarine coming back from a dive.

I'd been out there for about four hours exploring and coming back

ready to go back to the surface.