Marine biologist and botanist Sylvia Earle is the former Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, founder of the Sylvia Earle Alliance, and a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. Her books include The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean's are One and Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans.
Earle has led more than 100 expeditions and logged thousands of hours underwater. She is the first - and only - person to walk solo on the ocean floor at 1,250 feet without a lifeline to the surface. She's watched humanity's enduring fascination with outer space while she has delighted in "inner space": the alien and increasingly endangered world beneath earth's waters. These frontiers, as she points out to Krista Tippett, are our life-support system. She takes us inside the knowledge she's gathered there in her 76 years. [Broadcast Date: June 7, 2012]
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