At the 9th Our Ocean Conference in Athens, Mongabay’s Elizabeth Claire Alberts interviewed oceanographer and marine biologist Sylvia Earle about the pressures facing our oceans, actions needed to turn things around, and how to find hope for the future.
ATHENS — At 88, Sylvia Earle is at an age when most people would be slowing down. But retirement doesn’t appear to be on the radar of the famous oceanographer and marine biologist, known by many as “Her Deepness” due to the more than 7,500 hours she’s spent underwater. When Earle’s not diving in the ocean, she’s speaking at events or campaigning for her nonprofit organization, Mission Blue, with boundless energy to inspire global action to protect the ocean.
in Lisbon. I know you travel all the time; you’re at so many events. How do you maintain the energy to do everything you do, especially in your 80s?When you’ve seen what I’ve had the privilege of seeing, I’m just driven to try to share the view.
You look at your computer. What pieces can you take out of it? Where’s the excess? There isn’t any excess. Nature has no excess. No waste, either. We have invented those concepts. In nature, there are some good years and not such good years, but there’s no excess for humans just to take in large amounts and expect that they will continue to exist. We’ve already eliminated thousands of species because we’ve taken, thinking that it’s OK, it’s a good thing.
Eating wildlife from the ocean — I think that era is over. We don’t consume many songbirds, and it’s not just because there aren’t many songbirds to consume — we have come to look at them as having value beyond just a little bite of something to feed ourselves. Birds are really helping to make the planet habitable. Insects make the planet habitable. Trees, grass, wildflowers. The ocean keeps the world habitable. And it’s mostly the ocean — that’s where 97% of the biosphere exists.