A Quote by Edith Widder

We need a NASA-like organization for ocean exploration, because we need to be exploring and protecting our life support systems here on Earth. — © Edith Widder
We need a NASA-like organization for ocean exploration, because we need to be exploring and protecting our life support systems here on Earth.
We need to be very thoughtful about how we propose to spend the money that NASA does have for space exploration. And we need to be clear that there's the human spaceflight part of NASA, and there's the science space part of NASA, and there's also aeronautics. Those are all very different things that NASA does.
NASA's annual budget for space exploration could fund NOAA's budget for ocean exploration for 1600 years.
Our problems are solvable if they are clearly defined. To do so, we need to monitor our planetary life support systems the way doctors monitor a patient's vital signs and then use that information to protect ecosystem services as though our lives depend on it, because they do.
Our biggest challenges for the ocean and for the planet are problems of perception. People need to understand that species extinctions, habitat destruction, ocean acidification, and pollution are all chipping away at the resilience of the thin layer of life that sustains us on Spaceship Earth.
People ask: Why should I care about the ocean? Because the ocean is the cornerstone of earth's life support system, it shapes climate and weather. It holds most of life on earth. 97% of earth's water is there. It's the blue heart of the planet - we should take care of our heart. It's what makes life possible for us. We still have a really good chance to make things better than they are. They won't get better unless we take the action and inspire others to do the same thing. No one is without power. Everybody has the capacity to do something.
We need a change in consciousness to go with this technology platform. We need a new narrative: we need to shift from geopolitics to biosphere consciousness in one generation. The biosphere is understood here as what goes from the biosphere to the depths of the ocean 40 miles where all living beings interact with all chemicals to create a very complex choreography that we call "life on earth". That is biosphere that is our indivisible community.
If we are to be good stewards of the ocean, we need to understand what lives there and how the animals interact with each other and with their environment, which means we need to be constantly seeking new and improved methods for exploration and observation.
We need to have intimate, enduring bonds; we need to be able to confide; we need to feel that we belong; we need to be able to get support, and just as important for happiness, to give support. We need many kinds of relationships; for one thing, we need friends.
My dad and my mom convinced me to go into biomedical engineering because they said astronauts going to Mars will need life support systems.
We need to build change in to our systems and let these systems evolve as circumstances change. Change is inevitable, but we need to do a better job of dealing with it, because when we start building huge gleaming monoliths, I think we start getting into trouble.
When NASA makes discoveries they are profound and they make headlines, everyone takes notice. It drives dialogue and, today, it would drive the blogosphere. It would drive the projects the kids do in school. So you wouldn't even need programs to try and stimulate curiosity. You wouldn't need programs to try to convince people that science literacy is good. Because they're going to want to participate on this epic adventure that we call space exploration.
If you think the ocean isn't important, imagine Earth without it. Mars comes to mind. No ocean, no life support system.
So that's the biggest lessonsI've learned it is your dream, you do not need a business loan, you do not need the support of others, you need to do what you need to do and when you become, what do I want to call the word, like legitimate, when people see that you are real, then people will support you, but you can't ask them to take a risk on you.
The truth is that we won’t receive the support we need until we ask for it. Just because we can do it all doesn’t mean we should. And when we don’t speak up about our needs, we’re asking our loved ones to read our minds—and then we resent them when they fail our test. By not being open and honest about the support we need, we’re selling ourselves short and setting our relationships up for failure.
We need new medical approaches to preventing and/or curing disease. We need new scientific approaches to generating, storing, and being more efficient with energy. Maybe we need more space exploration. Maybe we need more undersea exploration.
If the future is to remain open and free, we need people who can tolerate the unknown, who will not need the support of completely worked out systems or traditional blueprints from the past.
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