“Most of the oxygen we breathe is made by ocean plankton. And when animals left the seas in which life arose, they took seawater with them, in their bodies — an internal environment crucial for cellular survival. We are, in a sense, soft vessels of seawater.”

— Carl Safina

Source: [A sea ethic: floating the Ark, Blue Ocean Institute, 2005, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.495.177&rep=rep1&type=pdf]

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Carl Safina 5

American biologist 1955

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"Remarks in Newport at the Australian Ambassador's Dinner for the America's Cup Crews (383)" (14 September 1962) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx
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Context: I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea — whether it is to sail or to watch it — we are going back from whence we came.

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“Most of the oxygen we breathe is made by ocean plankton. And when animals left the seas in which life arose, they took seawater with them, in their bodies — an internal environment crucial for cellular survival. We are, in a sense, soft vessels of seawater.”

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