Sylvia Earle - Blue Hope

 

I was knocked over by a wave when I was three-years-old. And the ocean got my attention. And it has held my attention ever since. But it wasn't just the ocean, all that water and the joy of rocking around in the waves, it's life in the ocean. So, it was natural that I become a biologist. 

 

Over the years studying biology, I think I was ready as a botanist actually at Duke University, on my way to earning a PhD when I was asked if I would be willing to go for six weeks to the Indian Ocean as a botanist. Mm, irresistible. An ocean botanist at that, because my specialty has been and is still seaweeds, those lovely plants, the "photosynthesizers in the ocean. 

 

So, it was only after I actually got on board and arrived in Kenya, Mombasa, a newspaper writer interviewed the science team, and we poured our hearts out. There were 12 of us who were really charged with exploring the Indian Ocean from the deck of a National Science Foundation funded ship, the Anton Bruun. This was my first experience with newspaper interviews. Nobody expected the headlines the next day, but there they were, “Sylvia sails away with 70 men.” [audience laughter] The subtitle, “But she expects no problems.” [audience laughter] 

 

I'm not sure what kind of problems they were expecting, but we did have a really big problem, all of us. We were on a little boat. On the top of the ocean, the ocean average depth is two and a half miles and life all the way. Maximum depth, seven miles. We had to assist us with exploring the ocean, hooks, nets, dredges, trawls, the things that you can lower from the deck of a ship into the unknown depths below. 

 

Imagine trying to understand New York City. Imagine aliens coming here up in the sky with clouds obscuring the view below, lowering hooks, dragging through the streets, [audience laughter] taking little bites out of New York City and trying to figure out what's going on here anyway [audience laughter] based on the little fragments that they would be able to examine. Well, that's the way it is with the ocean. Even today, only about 10% of the ocean has been seen at all. And it dominates the planet. That's where 97% of Earth's water is. And of course, water is the key to life. 

 

Well, fast forward a bit. 1969, when the first footprints were being put on the moon. I was at Harvard at the time and saw a notice on the board asking for those scientists who wish to participate in an experiment living underwater as aquanauts. Aquanauts. I mean, astronauts were big news. So, the appeal of being able to use the ocean as a laboratory by actually living in the ocean, diving and staying underwater, getting to know life by being in the middle of the action. 

 

I mean, people do it on the land all the time. If you want to understand a desert, you go to the desert. If you want to understand life in the forest, you go explore the forest and you can stay there for long periods of time if you choose to do so. But to go into the ocean, living 50ft underwater, to be able to go outside and really use the ocean as your laboratory, what a concept. 

 

So, I put in my application, never expecting what happened next. No one expected women to apply. There were no women astronauts in 1969, 1970, not until the mid-1980s. All those footprints on the moon are made by guys. [chuckles] It's okay, they're people too. [audience laughter]

 

[cheers and applause] 

 

But the head of the program, James Miller, had to decide, because I wasn't the only woman who applied. And those who did had qualifications that were, you know, they were okay on a par with the men who applied. He said he thought about it, really considered it, because there were some objections. Were there ever some objections? But he said, “Well, half the fish are female, [audience laughter] half the dolphins, half the whales, I guess we could put up with a few women.” 

 

Well, remember, this is 1970, when this program finally came into action. “Hanky panky on the reef, oh, what would people think if you have men and women living together underwater?” [audience laughter] They made an all-women's team which made headlines. It was a little off putting when you think about it, that people were so excited about the thought that there would be a women's team. No real attention to me at all. [chuckles] There were nine teams of just guys and one team of women, but the women got all the press. 

 

They wanted to know, “Oh did you wear lipstick? Did you have a hairdryer?” [chuckles] But mainly, mainly, they wanted to know what it was like to live underwater. This idea of women living underwater seemed to light a lot of fires, because we got a lot of attention. Ticker tape parade down State Street. We had a luncheon at the White House after our two-week stay underwater. People just wanted to know what's it like. I was faced with microphones. Not just one, a whole bevy of microphones. So, I did try to share the view. 

 

Root for the National Geographic, I told about how these beautiful silver tarpon came and swam with a full moon silhouetting them. And that even in the dark, there was light because their bioluminescence. Swimming at night around our underwater home was like swimming through stars. And here's the thing, I got to know the fish. I got to know them as individuals. There were five angelfish that came from different places after they slept, got up really early, I got up really early to watch them. They'd gather together and they'd pal around the reef all day. And at night, they'd go their separate ways. 

 

Little butterfly fish would team up. Well, they apparently do stick together, mate for life by two and two and two you'd see these little butterfly fish, like some people, they mate for life, go figure. [audience laughter] There was a big beautiful green moray eel we couldn't resist. We called him Puff. Like, Puff the Magic Dragon. He was there at night when we would make our excursions. It was just a transformation for me, because I'd seen fish before diving in and out, up and down. You casually see grouper and snapper. But this time, I got to meet that grouper, that snapper, that eel, that parrotfish, those parrotfish that gathered together. 

 

I'd also seen plenty of fish swimming with lemon slices and butter. [audience chuckles] Haven't you all? But the idea of seeing them with new eyes and realizing that everyone is different. I could recognize them. Their faces are different, their spots were different, their attitudes were different. Call it personality, if you will. Some were shy, some were aggressive, but they were all part of this immense system, a coral reef where I was a visitor and getting to know what life was about. 

 

Well, all right, fast forward to 2012. I had a chance to go back to the same place the underwater laboratory had been removed, but I was reflecting on before I took the plunge to see what it was like after 42 years, what had happened to the world in 42 years, what had happened to me? I had the opportunity to dive in many places around the world. I actually helped foster new technologies to be able to explore the ocean, to stay underwater, to enjoy the gift of time by helping to design and build little submarines. So simple to drive that even a scientist can do it, [audience laughter] I’m a living proof. 

 

1970 to 2012, it's been a seismic shift in attitude in scientific discoveries. You just reflect on how far humankind has come in just a few decades. We have taken the ocean for granted, thinking, oh, we can use the ocean as a place to put things we don't want close to where we are. And the ocean is so big, so vast, we can take out of it whatever we want, no problem. The ocean is too big to fail. We thought in 1970. 

 

Now, we know. And there I was, perched on the edge of a little boat, looking at the place where the Tektite laboratory had been ready to take the plunge and I wondered, I wonder if that eel is still here, because fish can live a long time. Sharks can be as old as any of us or older. Older than your [chuckles] grandparents, some of them. Where’s that big grouper? Oh, I love that big Nassau grouper, where was he? I mean, I knew where he used to be. 

 

Armed with these hopes, I took the plunge. And it was a ghost town. I suppose if this had been my first dive, if I hadn't known what it was 42 years before, I would have thought, oh, this is beautiful. The water's clear. There's some of these big, lumpy boulder corals and they're still there. None of those branching staghorn and elkhorn corals that they used to write about and talk about. But I see fish, well, yeah, little damselfish, a few. One little tiny grouper. But basically, it had been stripped of most of the creatures that I had come to know and use as part of my understanding, the baseline of understanding about what the ocean should be, what coral reefs should be, these thriving, vibrant communities of life. 

 

A lot of bad news, it would seem. But here's the good news. Not far from where the Tektite Laboratory was situated and where I found this disappointing scene, there's a place called Buck Island that in 1961, it was protected by president Kennedy. And ever since, it was  associated with a national park on the land, the national park extended into the sea. 

 

Diving there is like diving 50 years ago. It's amazing. Protection works. This is the centennial of national parks. Some say, it's the best idea America ever had. Well, it's certainly a good idea. And now, blue parks are beginning to catch on around the world nations, including our nation. The United States is beginning to step up. And not only embrace more of the land, but with blue parks. 

 

As of this time last year, 1% of the ocean had protection for the creatures that live there, where even the fish and the lobsters and clams and oysters were safe. Now, we have 2%. Still not very much if you think that the ocean is the blue heart of the planet that makes our lives possible, but it's a trend in the right direction, we doubled it in a year, there's plenty of reason for hope. What is going to be our story, your story? Those of us who are around early in the 21st century, we have a choice. We can protect nature, we can save the natural world and nature can save us. Now is the time. Let's do it.