FL Authors: Sylvia Earle

Dr. Sylvia Earle

WUSF's series featuring Florida authors begins with noted oceanographer, Dr. Sylvia Earle. She can also claim the title of National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence which she earned diving the world's oceans over the last 50 years. Earle talks about her recent book, "The World is Blue: How Our Fate and the Oceans' Are One."

Earle had just returned from diving trip off the coast of Costa Rica when she spoke with WUSF's Bobbie O'Brien from her California office.

It's no wonder that Sylvia Earle fell in love with the sea. She grew up in Pinellas County playing and exploring in the bay and gulf waters as a child.

"There were these beautiful, just rich sea grass meadows, tiny little seahorses and sea urchins," Earle said. "I can just close eyes and remember how beautiful and health and rich and abundant life was as compared to today."

Earle said people who move to Florida today don't know what they're missing and don't have the perspective of how much has changed in such a short period of time.

"If they did, they'd be as motivated as I am to run around and do everything we can to protect what remains of the healthy places in the sea," Earle added. "There's a sense of urgency driving me, fierce urgency."

Over her 50 years as a marine scientist, Earle says she has witnessed a deterioration of the oceans from overfishing, pollution and most recently climate change.

"Bottom line, if we fail to take care of the oceans, nothing else matters because the oceans are the cornerstone of driving the earth's life-support system," Earle said. "And, it's in trouble, therefore we're in trouble."

Similar to Rachel Carson's book, "Silent Spring," which raised awareness of dangerous agricultural chemicals, Earle sounds an alarm in her book "The World is Blue," about the oceans' fragile ecosystems.

"We are newcomers," Earle said. "But, in our short time we've managed to ravage this fine-tuned functioning of a planet that works, that generates just the right amount of oxygen, about 20 percent in the atmosphere. That has a carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the water cycle, all kind of working in a way that favors us."

Earle's book makes a case that the global system is going out of balance and on the brink of an "irreversible environmental crisis."

She also has hope. Actually she calls them "hope spots," underwater sanctuaries that are still vibrant.

"The good news is that there are about 4500 of them," Earle said. "The bad news is that it amounts to less than one percent of the ocean."

The appendix in her book lists all those "hope spots" as well as a map showing there they're located. Those spots can also be found on Google Earth.

Earle collaborated with Google Earth as did several other agencies to develop Google Earth Oceans. From shipwrecks to diverse marine life, Google Earth Oceans shows a range of video clips, animation and underwater maps.

The Google Earth Oceans project and her new book, "The World is Blue," keep Earle optimistic that more people will embrace the oceans and their importance.

"Overall, I hope that what is in the book will inspire people to want to go see for themselves to get a mask and some flippers and jump in the ocean and they'll get acquainted with fish face to face and see the diversity of life that's so beautiful and so important," Earle said. "Get wet, get into the sea."

Sylvia Earle will be in town this Friday as the keynote speaker for the annual Audubon Assembly in St. Petersburg.