Carolina QuotesThis is a time of pivotal, magnified significance for humankind. The fabric of life and the physical and chemical nature of the planet have been significantly altered through decisions already made by our predecessors and those now living; what happens next depends on what we do, or do not do, individually and collectively, in the next few decades. Depending on choices we make, our species may be able to achieve a viable, sustainable future, or we may continue to so alter the nature of the planet that our kind will perish.
Sylvia A. Earle Connected to the Carolinas
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“This is a time of pivotal, magnified significance for humank…” Sylvia A. Earle. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-DC6F749E03. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/dc6f749e03
More from Sylvia A. Earle
(What is the biggest threat to the ocean right now?) Deep-sea mining. Some are buying into the lie that we should be taking minerals that are necessary for today’s generation of [EV] batteries, like lithium, cobalt and nickel, from the deep sea, because who cares what happens in the deep sea? These deep-sea systems are full of life and are part of the biogeochemical cycling systems that hold Earth steady. If Earth functions like a big computer system with all these little wires and lights that we don’t understand but we know it keeps us alive, would we want to get in there and take those little lights out because we don’t understand how they work?
Sometimes I try a poetic approach and describe how luminous, rainbow-colored jellies, starlike planktonic creatures, giant squid, translucent pink prawns, gray dolphins, brown lizards, spotted giraffes, emerald mosses, rustling grasses, every leaf on every tree and all people everywhere, even residents of inland cities and deserts who may never see the sea, are nonetheless dependent upon it.
I feel like a witness to—I am—to the greatest era of change on the planet as a whole. Anybody who’s been around even for ten years is a part of this, but the longer you’ve been around, the more you’ve seen. And the last half-century, in particular, has been a time of revolutionary change. We didn’t know the existence of those great mountain chains, hydrothermal vents, the existence of life in the deepest sea, seven miles down. Nobody had been there. Not until 1960 was it possible for two men to make a descent to the deepest part of the sea.