TED Prize wish Protect our oceans Sylvia Earle

fifty years ago when I began exploring

the ocean no one not Jacque Perrin not

Jacques Cousteau or Rachel Carson

imagined that we could do anything to

harm the ocean by what we put into it or

what we took out of it it seemed at that

time to be a sea of Eden but now we know

and we are now facing Paradise Lost I

want to share with you my personal view

of changes in the sea that affect all of

us

and to consider why it matters that in

50 years we’ve lost actually we’ve taken

we’ve eaten more than 90% of the big

fish in the sea why you should care that

nearly half of the coral reefs had

disappeared why a mysterious depletion

of oxygen in large areas of the Pacific

should concern not only the creatures

that are dying but it really should

concern you it does concern you as well

I’m haunted by the thought of what ray

Anderson calls tomorrow’s child asking

why we didn’t do something on our watch

to save sharks and bluefin tuna and

squids and coral reefs and the living

ocean while there still was time well

now is that time I hope for your help to

explore and protect the wild ocean in

ways that will restore the health and in

so doing secure hope for humankind

health to the ocean means health for us

and I hope Jill Tartars wish to engage

Earthlings includes dolphins and whales

and other sea creatures and this quest

to look for intelligent life elsewhere

in the universe and I hope Jill that

someday that we’ll find evidence that

there is intelligent life among humans

on this planet

huh did I say that I guess I did for me

as a scientist it all began in 1953 when

I first tried scuba it’s when I first

got to know fish swimming in something

other than lemon slices and butter I

actually loved diving at night you see a

lot of fish then you don’t see in the

daytime

diving day and night was really easy for

me in 1970 when I led a team of

aquanauts living underwater for weeks at

a time at the same time that astronauts

were putting their footprints on the

moon

in 1979 I had a chance to put my

footprints on the ocean floor well using

this personal submersible called Jim six

miles offshore and twelve hundred and

fifty feet down it’s one of my favorite

bathing suits but since then I’ve used

about 30 kinds of submarines and I’d

even started three companies and the

nonprofit foundation called deep search

to design and build systems to access

the deep sea I led a five-year National

Geographic expedition the sustainable

seas expeditions using these little subs

they’re so simple to drive that even a

scientist can do it and I’m living proof

astronauts and aquanauts alike really

appreciate the importance of air food

water temperature all the things you

need to stay alive in space or under the

sea

I heard astronaut Joe Allen explained

how he had to learn everything he could

about his life-support system and then

do everything he could to take care of

his life-support system and then he

pointed to this and he said life-support

system we need to learn everything we

can about it and do everything we can to

take care of it

the poet Auden said thousands have lived

without love none without water 97% of

Earth’s water is ocean no blue no green

if you think the ocean is an important

imagine earth without it Mars comes to

mind no ocean no life-support system I

gave a talk not so long ago at the World

Bank and I showed this amazing image of

Earth and I said there it is the World

Bank that’s where all the assets are ha

ha we’ve been drawing them down much

faster than the natural systems can

replenish them Tim Wirth’s says the

economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of

the environment with every drop of water

you drink every breath you take you’re

connected to the sea no matter where on

earth you live most of the oxygen in the

atmosphere is generated by the sea over

time most of the planet’s organic carbon

has been absorbed and stored there

mostly by microbes the ocean drives

climate and weather stabilizes

temperature shapes Earth’s chemistry

water from the sea forms clouds that

return to the land and the sea is rain

sleet and snow and provides home for

about 97% of life in the world maybe in

the universe no water no life no blue no

green yet we have this idea we humans

that the earth all of it the oceans the

skies are so vast so resilient it

doesn’t matter what we do to it that may

have been true 10,000 years ago and

maybe even a thousand years ago but in

the last hundred especially the last 50

we’ve drawn down the assets the air of

the water the wildlife that make our

lives possible new technologies are

helping us to understand the nature of

nature the nature of what’s happening

showing us our impact on the earth I

mean first you have to know that you’ve

got a problem and fortunately in our

time we’ve learned more about the

problems than in all preceding history

and with knowing comes caring with

caring there’s hope that we can find an

enduring place for ourselves within the

natural systems that support us but

first

we have to know three years ago I met

John Hanke who’s the head of Google

Earth and I told him how much I love

being able to hold the world in my hands

and go exploring vicariously but I asked

him when are you going to finish it he

did a great job with Al and the dirt

what about the water since then I had

the great pleasure of working with the

Googlers with do-er marine with the

National Geographic with dozens of the

best institutions and scientists around

the world ones that we could enlist to

put the ocean in Google Earth and as of

just this week last Monday Google Earth

is now whole consider this starting

right here at the convention center we

can find the nearby aquarium we can look

at where we’re sitting and then cruise

up the coast to the big aquarium the

ocean and California’s four national

marine sanctuaries and a new network

state marine reserves that are beginning

to protect and restore some of the

assets we can flit over to Hawaii and

see the real Hawaiian Islands not just

the little bit that pokes through the

surface but also what’s below to see

wait a minute we can go slash zoom right

there ah under the ocean and see what

the whale see we can go explore the

other side of the Hawaiian Islands we

can go actually and swim around on

Google Earth and visit with humpback

whales these are gentle giants that I’ve

had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face

many times underwater there’s nothing

quite like being personally inspected by

a whale

we can pick up and fly to the deepest

place seven miles down the Mariana

Trench where only two people have ever

been imagine that it’s only seven miles

but only two people have been there

forty-nine years ago one-way trips are

easy we need new deep diving submarines

how about some X prizes for ocean

Explorer

raishin hmm we need to see deep trenches

the undersea mountains and understand

life in the deep sea we can now go to

the Arctic just ten years ago I stood on

the ice at the North Pole an ice-free

Arctic Ocean may happen in this century

that’s bad news for the polar bears it’s

bad news for us too excess carbon

dioxide is not only driving global

warming it’s also changing ocean

chemistry making the sea more acidic

that’s bad news for coral reefs and

oxygen producing plankton also bad news

for us we’re putting hundreds of

millions of tons of plastic and other

trash into the sea millions of tons of

discarded fishing nets gear that

continues to kill were clogging the

ocean poisoning the planet circulatory

system and were taking out hundreds of

millions of tons of wildlife all

carbon-based units barbarically were

killing sharks for shark fin soup

undermining food chains that shape

planetary chemistry and drive the carbon

cycle the nitrogen cycle the oxygen

cycle the water cycle our life support

system incredibly we’re still killing

bluefin tuna truly endangered and much

more valuable alive than dead all of

these parts are part of our life support

system we kill using long lines with

baited hooks every few feet that may

stretch for fifty miles or more

industrial trawlers and draggers are

scraping the seafloor like bulldozers

taking everything in their path using

Google Earth you can witness trawlers in

China the North Sea the Gulf of Mexico

shaking the foundation of our

life-support system leaving plumes of

death in their path the next time you

dine on sushi or sashimi or a swordfish

steak or shrimp cocktail or whatever

wildlife you happen to enjoy from the

ocean think of the real cost

for every pound that goes to market more

than ten pounds even a hundred pounds

may be thrown away is bycatch this is

the consequence of not knowing that

there are limits to what we can take out

of the sea this chart shows a decline in

ocean wildlife from 1900 to 2000 the

highest concentrations are in red in my

lifetime

imagine 90% of the big fish have been

killed most of the turtles sharks tunas

and whales are way down in numbers but

there is good news 10% of the big fish

still remain there’s still some blue

whales there’s still some krill in

Antarctica there are a few oysters in

Chesapeake Bay half the coral reefs are

still in pretty good shape a jeweled

belt around the middle of the planet

there’s still time but not a lot to turn

things around

but business as usual means that in 50

years there may be no coral reefs and no

commercial fishing because the fish will

simply be gone imagine the ocean without

fish imagine what that means to our

life-support system natural systems on

the land are in big trouble too but the

problems are more obvious and some

actions are being taken to protect trees

watersheds and Wildlife and in 1872 with

Yellowstone National Park the United

States began establishing a system of

parks that some say was the best idea

America ever had about 12% of the land

around the world is now protected

safeguarding biodiversity providing a

carbon sink generating oxygen protecting

watersheds and in 1972 this nation began

to establish a counterpart in the sea

national marine sanctuaries it’s another

great idea the good news is that they’re

now more than 4,000 places in the sea

around the world have some kind of

protection and you can find them on

Google Earth the bad news is that you

have to look hard too

find them in the last three years for

example the u.s. protected three hundred

and forty thousand square miles of ocean

his national monuments but it only

increased from 0.6 of one percent to 0.8

of one percent of the ocean protected

globally protected areas do rebound

but it takes a long time to restore

50-year old rock fish or monkfish sharks

or sea bass or 200 year old orange

roughy we don’t consume 200 year old

cows or chickens protected areas provide

hope that the creatures of ed Wilson’s

dream of an encyclopedia of life or the

census of marine life will live not just

as a list a photograph or a paragraph

with scientists around the world I’ve

been looking at the 99 percent of the

ocean that is open to fishing and mining

and drilling and dumping and whatever to

search out hope spots and try to find

ways to give them and us a secure future

such as the Arctic we have one chance

right now to get it right or the

Antarctic where the continent is

protected but the surrounding ocean is

being stripped of its krill whales and

fish Sargasso sees 3 million square

miles of floating forest is being

gathered up to feed cows 97% of the land

and the Galapagos Islands is protected

but the adjacent sea is being ravaged by

fishing it’s true too in Argentina on

the Patagonian shelf now in serious

trouble

the high seas were whales tunas and

dolphins travel the largest least

protected ecosystem on earth filled with

luminous creatures living in dark waters

that average 2 miles deep they flesh and

sparkle and glow with their own living

light there’s still places in the sea as

pristine as I knew as a child the next

10 years may be the most important in

the next 10,000 years the best chance

our species will have to protect what

remains of the natural systems that give

us

life to cope with climate change we need

new ways to generate power we need new

ways better ways to cope with poverty

Wars and disease we need many things to

keep and maintain the world is a better

place but nothing else will matter if we

fail to protect the ocean our fate and

the ocean are one we need to do for the

ocean what Al Gore did for the skies

above a global plan of action with a

World Conservation Union the IUCN is

under way to protect biodiversity to

mitigate and recover from the impacts of

climate change on the high seas and in

coastal areas wherever we can identify

critical places new technologies are

needed to map photograph and explore the

95 percent of the ocean that we have yet

to see the goal is to protect

biodiversity provide stability and

resilience we need deep diving söze new

technologies to explore the ocean we

need maybe an expedition at ed at sea

that could help figure out next steps

and so I suppose you want to know what

my wish is

I wish you would use all means at your

disposal films expeditions the web new

submarines a campaign to ignite public

support for a global network of marine

protected areas hope spots large enough

to save and restore the ocean the blue

heart of the planet how much some say

ten percent some say thirty percent you

decide how much of your heart do you

want to protect whatever it is a

fraction of one percent is not enough my

wish is a big wish but if we can make it

happen it can truly change the world

and help ensure the survival of what

actually is as it turns out my favorite

species that would be us

for the children of today for tomorrow’s

child as never again now is the time

you