More men have stepped on the moon than imprinted their soles at the deepest depths of the earths Ocean. Why has humanity been staring at the heavens when the worlds most important resource surrounds the land we stand on. In this TED talk Sylvia Earle quotes the Poet Auden, “Thousands have lived without love. None without water” and goes talks with precision and humility about the enormity of the problem we all face. 97% of the Earth’s surface is covered in water and for the past millennium and in particular the last century we have taken form this resource without remorse. Plundering fish stocks, dumping waste and polluting at each opportunity.

Not only are we raping a resource that we so desperately rely upon for food, trade and industrialisation but also destroying a ecological habitat which is vastly unexplored and frighteningly is the source of the worlds oxygen and also a massive depository for most of the worlds carbon. If we’re truly committed as a planet to reducing carbon emission significant above ground, then we’d be wise to ensure that we protect the bank that stores and continues to cash in emission past, present and future. Otherwise it would all have been in vain and the Earth as we are lucky enough to know it, will disappear, only to be replaced by uncertainty and if we’re lucky a life force less destructive as we have been.

We might be best to put it into the simple words of “love water, love life”.

More TED video’s here. This video can also be view directly on TED.