By Janine Stankus
Staff Reporter
71 percent of the earth’s surface is water. 97 percent of this water is ocean. Thus, the oceans comprise 68.87 percent of the planet’s surface. While over 12 percent of land surface is protected by law, less than one percent of our oceans are officially safeguarded. “99% of the oceans are open to fishing, dumping, and exploitation,” marine scientist Dr. Sylvia Earle verified. “It would seem that we could do better than that.”
Earle, referred to as “Her Deepness” by the New York Times and “Guardian of the Sea” by biographer Beth Barker, will be speaking at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies on Thursday, April 23. A current explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society, Earle’s extensive study of the blue part of our planet has earned her world renown.
“I fell in love with the ocean when I was just a little girl in New Jersey,” said Earle. Ever fascinated by plant an animal life, her parents encouraged her inquisitive nature. “They weren’t scientists in a formal sense, but they had the characteristics of good scientists,” she said. “They were curious they observed everything around them.”
Around 1948, her family moved Florida, where she discovered scuba diving. The technology allowed her to observe the thriving under-water ecosystem first hand. “I knew I wanted to be a biologist before I even knew what to call it,” said Earle. “I developed an awareness of the amazing creatures that live in the ocean.”
Earle has made a life-long career of exploring and studying marine life. She earned her PhD from Duke University. Her dissertation focused on Phaeophyta (algae plants) in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. She became a research fellow at Harvard and then resident director of the Cape Haze Marine Laboratory in Florida. In the 1980s she and engineer Graham Hawkes started Deep Ocean Engineering and Deep Ocean Technologies, companies that design and build underwater exploration vehicles. In the 1990s she spent a period of time as Chief Scientist of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, where she was responsible for tracking the health of US waters.
A significant portion of Earle’s career has been spent under water. In 1969 she applied to participate in the Tektite project sponsored by the U.S. Navy, the Department of Interior, and NASA. The project sent teams of scientists to live for several weeks in an underwater habitat near the Virgin Islands. Then, women scientists were rare in a field that, even today, is disproportionately male. According to Earle, the leader of the Tektite project once commented, “well, half the fish are female, and half the birds half the dolphins and whales are female, maybe we can put up with a few women.” In 1970 Earle ended up leading Tektite II, Mission 6, an all-female expedition to the underwater habitat.
During her first solo excursion in 1979 Earle traveled a record 1,250 feet below surface off the Coast of Oahu Island, and walked untethered along the ocean floor in a pressurized one-atmosphere diving suit. “I had two and a half hours and time sped by,” she said. “It was just glorious. All around there were just incredible luminous creatures, corals that when I touched them burst with blue firefly lights. It was a beautiful experience.”
The scientist has never been afraid of the deep unknown. Her most frightening experiences, she admitted, have occurred while driving. “Of course the conditions are not favorable for humans. We don’t breathe underwater,” she explained. “It is not natural for people to be 35,000 ft in the sky its not natural for people to be 35,000 ft under water. But we put a lot of effort going skyward not near as much attention going into the sea.”
Presently, Earle is doing her best to communicate the significance of the, “living ocean,” as she called it. “I think my principle focus right now is to make that connection between people and the natural world, since the ocean truly governs the way the world works.” Marine plant life has a direct effect on our air supply. “Most of the oxygen in the atmosphere is generated by those little green guys in the water,” she said. “If you pick up a bucket of water you really don’t see the little green engines.”
The ocean is also the planet’s largest carbon sink. Increased carbon dioxide in the air has led to acidification of ocean waters, which in turn has destroyed coral reefs, plant life, and small organisms that drive the food chain. Destructive fishing practices have further affected the food chain. “We’ve lost 90 percent of big fish such as tunas, swordfish, halibut and cod,” said Earle. “Whales and dolphins have been seriously depleted as well.”
Earle believes that it is critical for the public to recognize the significance of the sea. “Most people haven’t awakened to this yet,” she said. She has recently been working with Google on a project called Google Ocean, which mimics the capabilities of Google Earth. “You can not only check out your back yard or neighbor’s back yard, now you can go swim with the whales you can touch little blue spots and dive in to the ocean. It’s one new powerful means of communicating,” she explained.
Though heartened by legislation that has been passed to protect the environment, Earle believes it is most important that the public at large understand how our lives and the natural system affect one another. “It really begins with an ethic of caring,” she said. Current strides in environmental policy and development of new technologies motivate Earle to harness her influence to affect the attitudes of humankind towards our earth.
Dr. Sylvia Earle will speak in the auditorium at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies on Thursday, April 24 at 4:00 pm. The lecture, entitled “The World is Blue: How Our Future and the Ocean’s Are One,” will be free and open to the public.