A Fishless Sea Sylvia Earle is to our generation as Jacque Cousteau was to the generation of the 1950’s. They are public figures in which many fellow scientists look up to. They are oceanographers, explorers, and conservationists. Earle has held an unthinkable amount of positions in her years. Positions from field research scientist, to government official, to director for both corporate and nonprofit organizations. More specifically she was the first woman chief scientist of the NOAA, the founder of Deep Sea Exploration and Research Inc. and Mission Blue, and even the chair of advisory councils of the Ocean in Google Earth. She has received countless awards such as the 2009 TED Prize, Time Magazine Hero of the Planet in 1998, and the 2011 Royal Geographical Society Gold Medal. Sylvia Earle is a woman I look up to, as I’m sure other environmentalists do in turn. She is honorable, and passionate about creatures who cannot defend themselves. Alternatively, over the …show more content…
What was once filled with plankton and other microscopic life is now filled with floating trash. Nylon fishing nets and monofilament longlines drift endlessly, catching and killing hundreds of thousands of fish each year. In Florida and the Caribbean over 80% of coral reefs are dead or in severe decline as high water temperatures cause coral bleaching. This is caused by Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification refers to a reduction in the pH of the ocean over an extended period of time caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide. This in turn destroys shells of snails and other small creatures at the lower level of the food chain, ultimately leading to the collapse of the entire ecosystem. When carbon dioxide reaches 560 parts per million, a level quite possible by the end of the 21st century, all coral reefs will be dead. Studies have shown that if we continue at this rate, we will likely see a fish-less ocean by