Special to the Town Crier
A spell-binding speaker, world-famous oceanographer Sylvia Earle enlightened Morning Forum members May 5 on the complexity of the oceans' ecosystem.
Her remarkable career began in 1962 when President Kennedy made the Anton Bruun, formerly the presidential yacht, available as a U.S. Research Vessel. The program was under the auspices of the National Science Foundation. A marine biologist was needed. Her professor from Duke University encouraged her to apply despite the fact that women were rare aboard research vessels. She was accepted but her elation turned to chagrin when the Mombasa Daily Times announced: "Sylvia sails away with 70 men but she expects no trouble."
The next two years she spent at sea aboard the Anton Bruun crossing through the Panama Canal into the Southeastern Pacific and currents along Central and South America.
As the 1960s were memorable for space explorations, people like Jacques Cousteau had diving adventures in the seas. Earle read his accounts voraciously and began to study her own background, the Gulf of Mexico. She believes oceans shape our lives. Indeed, 70 percent of our oxygen is generated in the ocean. What we knew 25 or 30 years ago was short of the mark, she said. With underwater explorations, ideas have changed dramatically.
By 1990, her career and reputation were well established. President Bush appointed her Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Part of her job was to visit Kuwait to see the damage in the Persian Gulf War. She showed the Forum photographs of the 800 burning oil wells. It was daylight but the pictures looked as though it was the dark of night. It was a distressing symbol of the damage war plays on the environment.
In 1992, Earle left NOAA to found Deep Ocean Exploration and Research (DOER) to design, operate, and consult on manned and robotic sub- sea systems. She is currently chairwoman of DOER. She is a director of Dresser Industries which makes robots for undersea oil explorations. Her wish is to see that each of us could have our own submersible to explore the seas. She believes that education and knowledge are vital if we are to reverse our thinking that the oceans are a market.
With her slides, she showed the destructive way fish are being "strip-mined." It is as though they were being bulldozed, she said. Because of the demand, the bluefish tuna population has dropped from 100 percent to 10 percent in just 20 years. Sharks are being depleted as well.
But Earle is optimistic that wise use of the oceans is possible. For example, Australia stopped hunting whales several years ago and has changed to whale watching.
Betty Loehr is program chairwoman of Morning Forum, a members-only lecture series held regularly at the United Methodist Church of Los Altos. For membership information, write P.O. Box 274, Los Altos 94023-0274.