fortunately, in our time, we've learned more about the problems than in all preceding history. And with knowing comes caring. - Sylvia A. Earle

Diving into the ocean, it’s like diving into the history of life on earth, not just over the last 50 or 1,000, but the last million, 10 million, 100 million years, because creatures are there that have been there for several hundred million years, not those same creatures, but their near relatives, like jellyfish; like — well, sharks have been around for 300 million years; horseshoe crabs, creatures that lured me into the ocean as a child in New Jersey, have a history that goes back at least 300 million years; so many forms of life that were found in the ocean long before there were multicellular creatures occupying space on the land.

Our soaring population may suggest success as a species, but the environmental price of modern civilization is high, and our prosperity may be short-lived.

Common sense forces me to consider first the incredible sweep of time that preceded this moment and the ocean's great age, relative to the infinitesimally small fragment of time enjoyed thus far by humankind.