Carolina Quotestwo things changed in the 20th century that may jolt us into a new way of thinking. First, more was discovered about the nature of the ocean and its relevance to the way the world works than during all preceding history. Second, during the same narrow slice of time, human actions caused more destruction to ocean systems than during all preceding history. And the pace is picking up.
Sylvia A. Earle Connected to the Carolinas
Source
No citation is recorded for this quotation.
- work
- The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean's Are One (2009)
- year
- 2009
no citation recorded
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“two things changed in the 20th century that may jolt us into…” Sylvia A. Earle. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-D36E2AF28D. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/d36e2af28d
More from Sylvia A. Earle
Part of human impact on the earth relates to our swiftly growing numbers. If we do not take deliberate, conscious action to maintain a reasonable balance between the numbers of people and the environmental wealth required to sustain us, nature will make appropriate adjustments, and famine, disease, and wars-the predictable outcomes of living beyond one's environmental means, of overspending environmental capital-will ultimately force a cruel discipline.
The ocean is, in effect, our life-support system, driving climate and weather, governing the water cycle, stabilizing temperature, generating most of the oxygen in the atmosphere, taking up much of the carbon dioxide, shaping planetary chemistry. If the ocean is in trouble, so are we.
In the rush to "develop" and use the legacy 4.6 billion years in the making, we have struck the earth like a slow-motion comet, wielding powerful new forces of change, rivaling and compounding the impact of natural storms, volcanoes, earthquakes, disease, fires-even, it now seems, nudging the grand and gradual planetary processes that cause ice ages to come and go.