Sylvia Earle looks back across the expanse of her lifetime and sees scores of changes-oceans polluted, climates altered, species hunted to extinction. Most importantly, she sees opportunities lost.
The renowned oceanographer and undersea explorer uses this feeling of loss to fan the flames of her passion for science and to prompt continued vigilance in her quest to preserve natural resources for future generations.
"I am haunted by the image of my own grandchild, addressing me from some perch in the future, demanding: 'Why didn't you do something while there were still blue whales?'" she says, her voice shaking with emotion.
To stave off any allegations of apathy, Earle has adopted a strategy of perpetual motion-rattling off a weekend itinerary more cluttered than any politician's, more grueling than any marathon.
Aged 60, she founded and runs two engineering businesses, serves as the explorer-in-residence of the National Geographic Society, was once the chief scientist for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, writes books and produces films about the ocean and is in the midst of a five-year study on the nation's 12 marine sanctuaries.
She is a scientist, teacher, writer, artist, daredevil and government official-in short, the model of the modern ideal of interdisciplinarity. "My theory is, you can wait for someone else to do it, or you can get busy and do it yourself," she said.
And Earle has done just about everything. She's lived underwater nine times for weeks on end and has walked untethered on the ocean floor longer and deeper than any person has before or since.
Earle has spent her life in the water. "The oceans are a living soup. It's our life support system, full stop. If we don't take care of it, don't respect it, we're going to experience tough times. And I don't just mean that species we like to eat will disappear from the menu," she said. "[Polluting the ocean], it's like experimenting with what you'd put in your gas tank, what you'd put in your bloodstream."
The oceans, she argues, have long been neglected, both as a source of life and as a vital resource in need of protection. "We suffer from very strong terrestrial bias," she said. "Just look at the maps in classrooms. We describe the parts above water in great detail, and the parts beyond the tides are just great gobs of blue."
She insists that the only way to preserve the oceans is to invest in exploring them, to create a marine counterpart to NASA.
"The greatest era of exploration lies ahead, and we must... maintain what we can of our national heritage," Earle said.
Whenever she speaks, her love of the
Indeed, as the founder of an Oakland-based firm that designs and sells underwater vehicles for research projects, she is actively engaged with industry.
"I look at all those wonderful people who go sailing, and they don't know what's under their boats," she said. "Every spoonful of water is just crowded with life."
Earle was born in Gibbstown, N.J., and raised on a small farm near Camden, where she said her parents first taught her to love nature. Although she was far from the ocean, her parents frequently trekked to the coast for family vacations and weekend jaunts.
"I fell in love with the ocean along the Jersey shore," she said. "I got knocked over by a wave as a little girl and the ocean really got my attention. And it's held that attention ever since."
Her parents soon moved to Florida's west coast, and Earle's infatuation with the ocean blossomed into an academic fascination. After earning an undergraduate degree from Florida State, she enrolled in graduate school at Duke, an experience she described as "an intellectual feast."
She shared her years at Duke with a close-knit group of scholars who would travel to the coast or go hiking in the mountains on weekends.
"During these informal times, people learned by having a mentor. And you didn't just learn the facts and figures, but the ethic of science...," she said. "It was a magic time, a magic place. It still is a magic place."
She earned her master's in 1956 and, after marrying a zoology graduate student from Duke, took a break from formal research to raise her two children and continue working from her home. She soon returned to academia, accepting the directorship of a marine laboratory and then a Harvard fellowship as a research scientist. She earned her doctorate from Duke in 1966.
"I was pretty straight and narrow and focused on the ivory tower," she said.
That changed when a pair of research opportunities unexpectedly transformed Earle into a national celebrity-earning her a reception at the White House and a ticker-tape parade in Chicago.
Her first-ever oceanographic expedition was a 1964 voyage to the Indian Ocean with a research team that, not surprisingly, included no other women.
"It was unusual for women to not only be in the sciences, but especially on sea," she said. "There was one woman and 70 men, and unfortunately that attracted more attention than the science we were setting out to do."
Her gender again caused quite a stir when, in 1970, she applied to be an "aquanaut," one of a small community of scientists who lived and worked together for weeks on end in a closed habitat at the bottom of the ocean. But the Tektite program's sponsors-the Navy, the Department of the Interior and NASA-were not quite ready for a co-ed mission, Earle said.
The result was Tektite II, Mission 6, an all-female group of scientists who agreed to live underwater for two weeks. But the science was quickly overshadowed by media attention, which dubbed the research team the "aquabelles" and the "aquababes."
"I look at today's astronauts and I think, how would they feel being called 'astrohunks,'" she said. "At the time, I didn't really care what they called us. None of us did, we just wanted to get out there and be a part of the action."
With all the attention, Earle said she discovered a responsibility for conveying her research to the general public.
"Much of the opportunities that I had to see the world as a scientist came at the taxpayers' expense," she said. "And I knew that if I kept the news to myself, it would be pretty irresponsible."
Writing for a non-academic audience was not an easy decision, nor was it particularly well received by her colleagues.
"When National Geographic first asked me to do an account of living underwater, my response was, 'No, hell no!,' because I was so concerned about my image as a research scientist," she said. "You don't do that; you don't do that at peril of your reputation."
Now, she said, she sees more of a reason for scientists to break out of the box and educate people about the environmental disasters developing around them.
She has raised the popularization of her research to an art form, releasing her recent sanctuary studies in a National Geographic book filled with more than 100 full-color images.
"As long as you insist that the best story is the truth, there shouldn't be any loss of respectability," she said. "You need to be able to communicate, whether you're talking to 10-year-olds or 70-year-olds, to distinguished scientists or distinguished accountants."
And Earle communicates her message loud and clear: "We do have a chance to get it right, but I think the door is closing swiftly."
Although the door has not yet closed, Earle says she is certain that some damage is irreversible.
"The frogs that used to fill the evening with such raucous music, those voices have been stilled. And I miss it. I miss it aesthetically, I miss it scientifically, I miss it morally. I miss them," she said. "It was humankind that made the difference..., it will take humankind to unmake the difference."
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