To the Beach! Why Sylvia Earle Wants Us to Get Wet

Known affectionately as Her Deepness, Sylvia Earle is a renowned oceanographer, environmentalist and pioneer for women, and is a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. She's also the founder of the Deep Search Foundation (DeepDeep.org), which seeks to explore and protect our planet's oceans. Water covers 70 percent of the Earth, which explains the title for her latest book, The World is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean's Are One. In this two-part series, Tonic's Annie Scott talks with Earle about a variety of subjects, from threatened species to what humans can do to save the earth's oceans.

"We've lost so much so fast," said Earle, as we discussed the state of the ocean and how it's changed over the past 50 years. "People ask me, 'Where's your favorite place to go diving? What's the best place to go?' And I say 'Almost anywhere, 50 years ago.'"

Despite the fact that we can't go back, Earle is passionate and hopeful, believing in our ability to take actions and slow the damage we've been blindly inflicting for decades. She has committed her life to educating us; if we all knew what Earle knows, we'd likely be devastated and outraged by the abuse we've committed upon our planet's oceans. Rather than an excuse to throw our hands up, however, learning the truth gives us all the more reason to start changing the way we live now.


"Go Get Wet"

"You know there's this whole issue of needing 'No Child Left Behind?' I think it should be 'No Child Left Dry,'" said Earle, speaking of where parents can take their children to educate them about the importance of the oceans. "Almost any coastal area, any wild place, the national parks, even degraded places are places where you can still see life and get acquainted with creatures such as crabs and clams and sea grass and coral. ...  It depends on where on the planet you live, but go get wet."

For those of us landlocked or city-dwelling (ie: New Yorkers telling our children to stay the heck away from the Hudson River), it's not always possible to get wet, making it difficult to find a passion for protecting our oceans. So, how did a farm girl from New Jersey like Earle wind up as one of the oceans' foremost advocates?

"I knew at an early age I wanted to be a scientist," she said. "I didn't know what to call it, but that's what I wanted to be. ... If I could, I would spend all of my time out there in the ocean, just getting acquainted with creatures as a scientist and reporting what I see. I still do that, but I have consciously taken a major part of my life to try to communicate to others what I see and to encourage people everywhere to take actions that will secure our future. I'm driven by what I know."

Unfortunately, what she knows is that our oceans are in big trouble thanks to all the stuff we've dumped in them — and all of the important stuff we've taken out with nets and trawling. I asked her what exactly what she's observing, and, moreover, what will happen in the next few years if we continue down this same path.

She said that in the past 50 years humans have managed to deplete the vast majority of large fish species in the sea. Add this to the list of small fish, sea mammals and turtles we've threatened and you'll start to see the impact.

"In terms of projections from where we've been in the last 50 years to where we'll be in another 50 years, there simply won't be any commercial fishing, because there won't be enough fish to support it," Earle said. "That's bad news for the fisherman, but it's really even worse news for the rest of us, because fish are critical components of what makes the world work."

She explains that much like trees providing oxygen on land, ocean life is responsible for maintaining balanced carbon levels in our oceans. With the added effects of pollution, the damage is staggering.

Technology: The Ocean's Best Friend — And Worst Enemy

Earle said that technology developments over the last half century have played a crucial role to our understanding and exploration of the seas.

"We've learned more in the last 50 years, partly owing to the technologies developed for wartime, than during all preceding history," she said.

We've learned so much more about the ocean, but we also have the ability to harm parts of it we couldn't access before. With visions of sunken battleships and artillery in my head, I asked Earle what the effects of military pollution have been on the sea.

"Nothing is without effect. There are always impacts," she said, quickly adding, "It's not just the military, of course. It's everyone who throws away a plastic spoon or cup or allows their garden products to run off into the rivers and ultimately into the sea."

Earle continued, saying that sound pollution from military and industrial operations and commercial shipping "has absolutely transformed the character of the ocean." Noting that fish, marine mammals and even crustaceans rely on sound waves to survive, Earle stressed that "it's a very sound-sensitive environment, and our impact there ... it's difficult to measure, in part because we don't have a measure of what it was like before."

Care is Common Sense

Taking care of the ocean comes down to common sense. As Earle told us in part one of this story, "Not knowing that you have a problem is the worst problem of all." That's why we all need to continue to spread this information around until everyone knows the facts. "It's protecting the natural systems that keep us alive. It's that simple."

If we want to save ourselves, she said, we'd better act quickly. "We have the responsibility of making better personal and overall decisions, and we're kind of getting there — we're starting to — but we need to speed it up, because time is running out. When you think that only 10 percent of the sharks remain from what was there in the ocean when I was a kid — we've lost 90 percent — it's just unacceptable."

Do we really need to worry if there are fewer man-eating sharks in the sea? The answer is yes. "Their value as important components of maintaining the health of the ocean is far and away more important than having shark fin soup ... which doesn't taste all that good to start with. It makes no sense."

It's not just logic that propels Sylvia Earle. Her concern for our collective future is visceral and emotional.

She said, "I think part of what drives me is that I have children, and I have grandchildren, and I have a perspective of the future that keeps me awake at nights, thinking about the kids out there, 50 years from now, saying to those of us alive right now, me in particular, 'Why didn't you do something? When there still were whales, when there still were tunas? Why did you allow coral reefs to be destroyed, when there still were about half of them in pretty good shape? You didn't do everything you could. You knew the trends in carbon dioxide and you didn't stop doing the damaging things in time to reverse those terrible trends, and now, look at the fix we're in.'"

"'You had a chance,' they'll say, as they stare from the future at us living now. 'Why didn't you do something?' So, I'm trying to do whatever I can, and I hope others will do the same."

Read part one of the series, Why You Shouldn't Eat Tuna.

Photos of Kapalua Bay courtesy of Annie Scott and Jean Michel Cousteau's Ambassadors of the Environment, front page photo of Jamaica by Tony J. Riley.